“The reason that wearing the hard won honors that others have earned and you have not in order to glorify yourself by fooling others is not part of the God-given right to freedom of speech either.”
This is where you went off the rails in your comment. When you say “in order to glorify yourself”, etc, you are ascribing intent to a person’s actions. If that is in fact their intent, and you can prove it, then we already have laws under which they can be prosecuted for that. Thus, the only purpose for these sorts of laws, as far as I can surmise, is if you want to be able to prosecute the act without having to go to the trouble of proving criminal intent.
You are essentially trying to equate the act itself with the underlying criminal intent which may or may not be present. That’s not how our legal system works. You must prove the intent, with evidence, in a court of law. A law that attempts to skirt that requirement, by defining an otherwise constitutionally protected act as possessing, by definition, criminal intent, is simply a means to make an end run around due process protections.
“On the other hand, since fraud and slander are recognized as morally reprehensible and not part of a basic right of free speech of whatever opinion someone has, and thus not to be covered by the First Amendment, then other activity which is reprehensible like wearing medals in the context of stealing valor can not be protected either.”
Another mistake you make here is equating “reprehensible” with “criminal”. They are not equivalent terms. There are all sorts of behaviors which are reprehensible to us that are perfectly legal, so just because something is reprehensible is not, in and of itself, a good argument that it should be criminal. Unless the speech does genuine harm to others (which is the case with libel, fraud, and slander), or restricting it is vital to protect some compelling state interest (laws against disclosing classified information, for example), reprehensible speech is absolutely protected by the law.
“Thus even if the views expressed are morally reprehensible it is still protected, because the content of what opinions one expresses can’t be abridged.”
Now I’m confused, because you said a paragraph earlier that reprehensible activity “can’t be protected”, now you say it is protected.
There are three things in play.
First of all there is whether or not a law was passed to make an activity criminal.
Second there is whether the activity is morally reprehensible independent of what the law said. Indeed, as you had pointed out being reprehensible is not exactly the same thing as being criminal.
Thirdly there is whether a law passed in order to stop some activity is an abridgment of the Right of Free Speech, which the Federal government is prohibited from making criminal.
In the context of determining whether or not the act of claiming military honors others have earned but you have not, the fact that it is reprehensible is relevant to determine if it is part of the pre-existing God given right of having one's say. However, being reprehensible speech, although relevant, is not sufficient for it not being protected, since the language in the First Amendment makes it clear that having one's say is protected even if the content of the opinion expressed is deemed reprehensible. In addition to being reprehensible, in order not to be protected, it has to go beyond simply your God given right to have your say (which Congress may not abridge) and be bad in some way it is reasonable to make a law against. Lying about medals is more than having your say, it is stealing valor from those that earned it, and thus its reasonable to have a law against it. Making a law against somebody who does something that is not reprehensible in retaliation of an unpopular opinion (for example attacking the Tea Party with extra IRS attention) is a retaliatory end-run around not being able to tell the Tea Party to shut up, and is inspired by shutting down speech. The tell-tale sign is that there is nothing, beyond the opinion of people that disagree with the Tea Party, to complain about, so its obvious why the law was made and thus a violation of their God given rights. Conversely the medal wearer is not being prosecuted for his opinion, he is being prosecuted for something that is entirely reprehensible apart from whatever his opinions are, expressed or not expressed.