Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: conservatism_IS_compassion

When the 1st Amendment was written……duels were still legal.


2 posted on 11/30/2024 6:15:32 PM PST by Repeat Offender (While the wicked stand confounded, call me with Thy saints surrounded.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: Repeat Offender

Germane.


3 posted on 11/30/2024 9:18:43 PM PST by umbagi (Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it. [Twain])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]

To: Repeat Offender; umbagi; marktwain
When the 1st Amendment was written……duels were still legal.
Yes, but it can hardly be thought that the object of Christianity is to promote dueling.

The Ten Commandments declare in part, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” . . . and slander is exactly that - and libel is industrial-scale slander.

So when evaluating the First Amendment from the POV of, “how can we declare a right in such a way that it will suppress the objections of the Antifederalists without creating objections which do not yet exist,” is should be clear that delegitimating existing restrictions on speech and press would have risked creating a backlash from the entire, far from inconsiderable, Christian community.

The whole idea of the Bill of Rights was to say in effect, “Whatever changes in rights which will be effected by the Constitution are explicit in the Constitution - no “creative” changes to existing rights will be countenanced.” Exactly the message that liberals do not wish to hear - and exactly what the Warren Court did in its Sullivan decision. The Sullivan decision takes for granted at least a rough balance in the propaganda power of political parties, which basically assumes a two party system and assumes away the reality that the Associated Press (indeed any and all wire services) inherently homogenizes big journalism.     

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
The term “virtual meeting” didn’t exist in 1964 (let alone earlier times such as when the Sherman Antitrust Act was new), but in retrospect the AP was the first large-scale virtual meeting - and as such it had to promote “a conspiracy against the public” within journalism.

8 posted on 12/03/2024 6:09:23 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson