Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Biggirl; boxlunch; ransomnote; IChing; Bratch; laplata; chiller; ebiskit; TenthAmendmentChampion; ..
A caller meekly asked if there were any way around the New York Times v. Sullivan decision. Rush said he wished there were, but he didn’t think so. I have a much more optimistic take, and I messaged him thusly:

NYT v. Sullivan said that 1A denigrated the right of officials to sue for libel. SCALIA said that was WRONG.

What Scalia said was that the Bill of Rights was not enacted to change anything at all.

It was created NOT to change any right but to set in concrete the established rights of the people. That is explicitly the burden of Ninth Amendment.

And where 1A refers to “the” freedom . . . of the press it explicitly means that freedom of the press AS IT EXISTED IN 1787 cannot be changed.
BUT EXISTING FREEDOM OF THE PRESS DID NOT INCLUDE FREEDOM TO LIBEL (or to print pornography).

So altho the Warren Court asserted that the First Amendment required that officials and judges not be allowed to sue for libel, THAT COULD NOT BE TRUE.

To make the case they asserted, they would have had to refer back to PRECEDENTS PRIOR TO THE CONSTITUTION for their source. And that they did not do.

Other flaws in SULLIVAN include the fact that

No one now disputes that MORRISON V. OLSON was wrongly decided. Yet absent Scalia’s classic dissent, MORRISON would have been unanimous.
In 1964 the SULLIVAN decision was unanimous. But then, the Warren Court didn’t have Antonin Scalia on the bench - and SULLIVAN is just as wrong as MORRISON is.

IMHO
25 posted on 09/16/2019 12:42:10 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Socialism is cynicism directed towards society and - correspondingly - naivete towards government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Thanks very much. BUMP!


27 posted on 09/16/2019 1:47:38 PM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


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