Leaning Straight Up has an interesting post (tracked back here over the weekend) dealing with a case of misunderstanding of “free speech”. I thought it might be useful to expand on that post a little here, so here’s the key piece I thought missing there:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Now, the language seems very clear, but lawyers being what they are, politicians *spit* being what they are and people in general being what they are, the clear meaning of the words–especially as filtered through the ill-thought-out and often improperly-applied (IMO) 14th amendment–has not survived to this day.
The clear context of “freedom of speech” noted in the amendment is protection of religious and political SPEECH. (The exercise of one’s religious beliefs must include speaking about it, you know). Press and assembly rights covered too, but I’m concerned here about speech. And by “speech” I do NOT mean anything other than actual speech or its obvious analog–given a hat tip by the Framers–of the written word.
Of course the courts have found it necessary to validate their existences by “explaining” speech to mean darned near anything some loony tune can vaguely conceptualize, and so most folks now think of grunts and squeals and thrown excrement as constitutionally protected speech.
But such things are NOT constitutionally protected speech in any world in which a rational reading of the constitution or the debates about the Framing or the amendments is taken to account. No, such things are only constitutionally protected speech is a world dominated by “reality-based” fantasy.
Go read the Leaning Straight Up post. Apply these words to the situation he outlines. Heck, the situation he outlines–folks crying “Wolf” about a boycott of The View sponsors as a way of reining in Rosie O’Donnell’s wild and irresponsible antics–wouldn’t even exist if a society of adults were to actually apply the First Amendment…
Of course, such a society would lack a few other things, like BOTH the Republican’t and Democrappic parties, the ACLU and nearly the entire apparatus of the Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind.
