Lenny Bruce and the First Amendment

Tucson Citizen ^ | 12/27/03 | Michael Chihak

[Holly_P]

First Amendment news item of the week, from the Associated Press: Comedian Lenny Bruce was granted a posthumous pardon by New York Gov. George Pataki Tuesday.

Bruce was convicted in 1964 on an obscenity charge for a stand-up comedy performance in which he used more than 100 words that the prosecutor and the judge called obscene.

[evolved_rage]

with inspiring a generation of comedians such as George Carlin, Richard Pryor and the Smothers Brothers.

Pryor yes, Carlin probably, the Smothers Brothers huh???

[rellimpank]

-----wonder how theTucson Citizen and this reporter feel about a recent SCOTUS decision on campaign finance?

[MarkL]

Thank you, Maksed Man!

Mark

[feedback doctor]

Any aspiring Lenny Bruce can go on TV and say (insert one of the seven dirty words here). But, he cannot buy a TV spot to do that IF he mentions a politician running for office within a certain time frame.

[pete anderson]

wonder how theTucson Citizen and this reporter feel about a recent SCOTUS decision on campaign finance?

Now perhaps if Arizona's Senator had not proposed Campaign Finance Reform and our President had not signed CFR the SCOTUS would not have had to make a decision on the topic.

[joesnuffy]

Yep so many "American" heroes haters like Bruce who died basically drowning in their own vomit...Lenny Bruce...Jim Morrison...Janis Joplin...Jimmy Hendrix...."Blind Owl" Wilson... Kurt NoBrain ....etc etc etc.....

All of my heroes are for the most part buried at Arlington...and they sure as sh*t didn't die of a drug overdose either...

Concord Green...Gettysburg...San Juan Hill...Meuse-Argonne...Guadalcanal....Chosin Reservoir....Khe San... etc etc etc....

[stop_fascism]

I don't think the first amendment was designed to give someone the right to shoot heroin and gibber like an idiot. In the early days of Bruce's career he was sort of funny. Then he destroyed his brain with drugs. At the end, people only went to see him get arrested. Oddly, the apostle of honest speach lied about his addiction until the end. Pathetic, so naturally he became an icon of the left's version of freedom of speech.

[G.Mason]

"All of my heroes are for the most part buried at Arlington...and they sure as sh*t didn't die of a drug overdose either...

Concord Green...Gettysburg...San Juan Hill...Meuse-Argonne...Guadalcanal....Chosin Reservoir....Khe San... etc etc etc...."

I'm with you on that one joesnuffy!

[Peter Libra]

Avid collector of books here. I have here a paper back.The Essential Lenny Bruce. Ballantine Books Inc. NY. NY. Edited by John Cohen (1967). What the cowardly left possibly will avoid is Lenny's use of the er' ahem N word. No admirer of his generation, I concede Bruce had the purist motive.

For starters Bruce teed off with "By the way, are there any n****** here tonight"? He then screamed the word again and again. So far so good.

Today the left would have absolutely ruined Bruce, absolutely jumped on him in a feeding frenzy. Here in Northern Ontario we had a hockey coach within the last year use the word three times. His hockey career is absolutely kaput. Proof positive.

[Peter Libra]

To self: Should have read, not "his generation"- for Bruce served in the merchant navy in WW2, but his avant gard culture of drugs and contempt for the laws. His Ilk,preferably.