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To: Springfield Reformer
was suggesting a "common sense" litmus test as a prerequisite to our freedom to vote.

The Founding Fathers did...you had to be a property owner.

Getting to the rest of your post, I realize political free speech is the purpose of the 1st Amendment, and I back it as fiercely as I do the rest of the BOR.

I'm running out of time as I have some chores to get to but in this case I'll say this is Trump sloganeering just like Cruz does with saying he is going to abolish the IRS.....congress will vote that in right after term limits and I win the Powerball lottery.

My entire point with posters who claimed Libel and slander are protected 1st amendment rights, that is simply not true.

146 posted on 02/27/2016 11:33:20 AM PST by Las Vegas Ron ("Medicine is the keystone in the arch of Socialism" Vladimir Lenin)
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To: Las Vegas Ron
...this is Trump sloganeering just like Cruz does with saying he is going to abolish the IRS.....congress will vote that in right after term limits and I win the Powerball lottery.

LOL! Agreed. Good luck on the Powerball project. :)

My entire point with posters who claimed Libel and slander are protected 1st amendment rights, that is simply not true.

I wouldn't be too dogmatic about that. In the 1964 New York Times case, SCOTUS specifically limited what a purported defamation victim could do based on balancing his rights with 1st Amendment principles.

So in that sense people are free to defame one anoher, in that there is no prior restraint on defamatory speech. The First Amendment prohibits government-imposed censorship. But those who are slandered are likewise free to defend themselves. And the law will help them greatly if they are private figures who have indeed been wronged. Much less so for public figures.

Peace,

SR

169 posted on 02/27/2016 12:14:25 PM PST by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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