War is coming, people. In fact, I think it's already proceeding apace.
How's that??
War is coming, people. In fact, I think it's already proceeding apace.
That it is.
The results of the November election won't be accepted by either side.
A question: Are you aware that the First Amendment is - you know, like, an amendment to the original Constitution?Of course you are. It wasn’t in the unamended Constitution because the Federalists didn’t put it there. The reason they didn’t put it there was because recognized rights of Americans were a matter of common law. The Federalists knew that the rights of Americans were therefore nowhere comprehensively compiled - and that it was a fool’s errand to try to compile such a comprehensive list.
The Federalists had much bigger fish to fry - replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution’s stronger national government first and last - and consequently had no interest at all in modifying any common law right. They just didn’t need the controversy that would inevitably entail.
So much for their pre-ratification intentions. But ratification of the Constitution was a close-run thing, and the Antifederalists were able to exact a promise of a bill of rights by amendment to the new constitution from the Federalists during the debates over ratification.
The Bill of Rights represents the Federalists’ solution to that problem. It consists of the first eight amendments, which “enumerate” (as the Ninth Amendment puts it) only those rights which had historically been abused by tyrants. Not all rights, it would have been a fool’s errand to attempt it. It is the Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.which expresses the Federalists’ true perspective on all rights.The First Amendment refers to “the” freedom of the press, and the Second Amendment refers to “the” RKBA. But although 2A implies things like the ability to own ammunition which are not expressly articulated, no one has ever proposed that RKBA entails the right to commit armed assault, let along murder. Similarly there are things you can physically do with a printing press that you are not legally allowed to do. Ever wonder why pornography restrictions survived passage of 1A? Simple - “the” freedom of the press - what in 1788 everyone understood to be a right - did not prevent regulation of pornography then, and thus it doesn’t prevent it now.
Now as to the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision: it rests firmly on the claim that
". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”And the problem with that is that your right to not have your reputation unjustifiably “assaulted with a (reputation ally) deadly weapon” - the law of libel - was not touched at all by the First Amendment. And until the Warren Court unanimously went off the rails in 1964, no court had ever held that it did.And now you know why Scalia did, and Thomas does, favor overruling Sullivan.