Marlon Wayans Beats Actor #39;s Lawsuit Over Offensive Tweet
Marlon Wayans has successfully defended a lawsuit over an allegedly racially insensitive tweet after a California judge took an expansive view of how the First Amendment covers the creative...
By: WochitGeneralNews
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Marlon Wayans Beats Actor's Lawsuit Over Offensive Tweet - Video
Will any of the 2016 presidential candidates mention the many colleges that widely censor students' free speech? Probably not. But at least a news analyst has followed the lead of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) in its essential crusade to bring an active First Amendment to college campuses.
An op-ed in last month's Wall Street Journal says:
"Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky famously postulated that the test of a free society is the ability to express opinions in the town square without fear of reprisal."
But dig this: "Most American colleges wouldn't pass that test, according to a new report by ... FIRE" ("Unfree Speech on Campus," The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12).
The op-ed continues: "The foundation reports that 55 percent of the 437 colleges it surveyed (in 2014) maintain 'severely restrictive' policies that 'clearly and substantially prohibit protected speech.' They include 61 private schools and 180 public colleges.
"Incredibly, this represents progress from FIRE's survey seven years ago, when 75 percent of colleges maintained restrictive free speech codes."
If contempt for the First Amendment in much of American higher learning is to continue for another generation or more, what quality of emerging public officials and voters will we have?
But to show the liberation of expressive Americanism that has taken place, The Wall Street Journal emphasizes:
"Perhaps the biggest breakthrough for First Amendment advocates (in 2014) was a Virginia law that bars 'free-speech zones' on public campuses. As FIRE explains, free-speech zones are a common tool that administrators use to restrict demonstrations to remote areas of campus.
"Colorado Mesa University limits free speech to 'the concrete patio adjacent to the west door of the University Center.'"
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Sending your child to college: Will it be one for free speech?
Erwin Chemerinsky
Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky - Champion of the First Amendment Presentation - The Vanishing Wall Separating Church and State 2014 FFRF #39;s National Convention Los Angeles.
By: FFRForg
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Erwin Chemerinsky - Video
Topic: The First Amendment made controlling all (voice)
Listen today about new interesting topic - The First Amendment made controlling all. *---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*--*---*---*---* Check out more exc...
By: Funnypedia
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Topic: The First Amendment made controlling all (voice) - Video
Joseph Dobrian, Writers Group 9:51 a.m. CST January 7, 2015
Joseph Dobrian(Photo: Thomas Adam)
In the Press-Citizen, recently, appeared a letter from Iowa state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, in which he declared his intention to find a judge-proof way to criminalize desecration of the American flag. Many people agree with him, of course including, unfortunately, many elected officials but for the purposes of this article I'll regard him as the chief spokesman for that position.
In a single paragraph of that letter, Mr. Kaufmann parrots the three morally bankrupt pronouncements that his allies invariably bring to the argument. Then he tops it off with a coda so hypocritical and vainglorious that I literally turned my face away in disgust: "I value our First Amendment rights but just like you cannot shout 'fire' in a crowded movie theater, you should never, ever, be allowed to spit and stomp on our flag while protesting the funeral of someone who died fighting for our freedoms. count on me to fight with a fiery passion to defend the honor of our flag and our fallen soldiers."
No, Mr. Kaufmann: You do not "value our First Amendment rights." Manifestly, you despise them. A single word "but" reveals your contempt for them.
But nothing, Mr. Kaufmann. BUT NOTHING.
Our First Amendment does not exist to protect expressions that most people approve of. Such speech needs no protection. The laws exist, rather, to protect expressions we abominate: expressions that would be deeply offensive to most sensible people. Without the First Amendment, the rest of the U.S. Constitution doesn't much matter. And yet it's the most universally despised item in the Bill of Rights: constantly attacked from left and right.
When we stand up for the First Amendment, we're almost never supporting noble sentiments. Ninety-nine times out of 100, we're standing up for someone who's desecrating a flag or writing pornography about Jesus. Your position, sir, and the position of your allies, is identical to that of infantile liberals who want to suppress expressions that offend them. Same argument.
If anything, liberals are a little less hypocritical, since most of them are frank in their hatred of free speech and a free press. They make no pretense of respecting the First Amendment.
Don't insult our intelligence with that false equivalency about yelling "fire." The consequences of yelling "fire" if a stampede causes injuries or property damage, for example might be punishable. If no stampede ensues, the worst that will happen is that the fire-yeller will be escorted out. Arguably, that fire-yeller is creating a hazard, but in what way does the flag-spitter create a hazard?
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There is no but in our First Amendment rights