To: Mad Mammoth
Do take the 2nd Amendment symbolically, too?
32 posted on
07/02/2005 7:08:54 AM PDT by
xzins
(Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It!)
To: xzins
Do take the 2nd Amendment symbolically, too?
Not if you're in front of me. (LOL - that is a JOKE son, not to be taken literally or construed as any sort of threat, so relax.)
Seriously now...
The bottom line to this nonsense is that you've got two reporters who defied a grand jury, their testimony would have been protected had they cooperated, but they chose to show their ass not only to that grand jury, but to the entire judicial system.
There is absolutely NO 'right' to keep anonymous sources anonymous. Find it in the Constitution, and don't hide behind the First Amendment, because the press is obligated to use that Amendment with a certain degree of responsibility, which Cooper and Miller did not.
But even giving those two chowderheads the benefit of the doubt, they were allowed to play the journalistic martyrs while their peers all said Hail Woodwards and Hail Bernsteins, and they fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, who turned 'em down flat, and essentially told them to either comply with the Court, or go to jail.
They not only have NO right to protect anonymous sources (especially if under subpoena from a federal grand jury), but they have NO right to demand a certain sentence, indeed it is the height of hypocrisy for those two clowns to now urge the very court they showed such blatant contempt for, to "go easy on them".
As for your conjuring up the Second Amendment, nice try but no cigar.
The Second Amendment is not absolute, and is not without responsibilities for the gun owner. And there ARE limitations, i.e., I doubt that a 2nd Amendment argument can be made for the private ownership of mothballed 16 inch guns from the U.S.S. New Jersey. Likewise, the freedom that reporters have under the First Amendment is not absolute, it comes with responsibilties, and that's the way it should be.
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