Folks have the right (obviously) to express opinions, and even make wild guesses. But today’s neo-fascist Democrats don’t like anyone straying from their official line.
Maybe they should just quit beating around the bush, and call for repeal of the First Amendment.
“Maybe they should just quit beating around the bush, and call for repeal of the First Amendment.”
They are working on it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7c-e9dP_1M
Taking responsibility for changing the Constitution is not the way they roll. Instead, they just get SCOTUS to claim the Constitution means what the Democrats want it to. Hence their desperation to regain control of SCOTUS.Actually, it’s a disgrace to even press against anyone’s rights to the point that it even becomes necessary to appeal to the Bill of Rights. For example, the phraseology “the right of the people” implies that repeal of a relevant constitutional provision would not obliterate the right because the right in question is only articulated, not created, by the constitutional provision.
I refer you to the fact that the Bill of Rights was not in the original draft Constitution, not because Federalists opposed any of the rights articulated therein, but out of concern that articulation of a given right would be taken as a ceiling over, not a floor under, the implementation of that right. And that is precisely what happens any time anyone is forced to appeal to the Bill of Rights.
But as to the First Amendment in particular, the Warren Court’s 1964 New York Times Company v. Sullivan decision misinterpreted 1A in a way which damaged society by subverting state laws against libel. “The freedom of speech, of or the press” means something other than simple “freedom of speech, of or the press” (without the preceding “the”) means. As written with the crucial preceding “the,” the phrase refers to the right as it already existed in the states. Not untrammeled freedom but freedom as limited by laws against libel, slander, and pornography.
New York Times Company v. Sullivan was a unanimous decision, and even included enthusiastic concurrences - but I appeal to the Morrison v. Olsen decision, which would have been unanimous if not for then-freshman Justice Anton Scalia’s dissent. Scalia famously said that most most abuses come as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, “but this wolf comes as a wolf.” And sure enough, after a decade or so, the majority opinion was a dead letter - and if a lawyer ever referred to the case in a pleading, he would have to cite, not the 8-1 majority opinion but the sole dissent.
So don’t think that a unanimous opinion, even with enthusiastic concurrences, can’t be wrong. Not if Scalia disagreed with it - and Scalia did disagree with it, but never had the chance to officially put that opinion in legal history.
Correct reading of the Constitution would have deferred to state libel law in the Sullivan case.
“ Maybe they should just quit beating around the bush, and call for repeal of the First Amendment.”
They’ve already done it.
L