This is especially true of the liberal elite media which construe the First Amendment in the following manner: 1) Congress shall not make any attempt to censor or diminish the rights of any media outlet–except those dominated by the right. 2) Congress shall not restrict flag burning or any form of pornography. 3) Religious people do not have the right to express their religion in public. 4) Political speech is equal to money and therefore can be censored at whim.
Matthew links to Jonah Goldberg, who points out that liberals and media “reformists” have misrecognized what free speech laws really were intended to be :Â
For a long time, we concluded the best way to protect political speech was to defend other forms of expression – commercial, artistic and just plain wacky – so as to make sure that our core right to political speech was kept safe. Like establishing outposts in hostile territory, we safeguarded the outer boundaries of acceptable expression to keep the more important home fire of political speech burning freely. That’s why in the 1960s and 1970s, all sorts of stuff – pornography, strip clubs, etc, – was deregulated by the Supreme Court on the grounds that this was legitimate “expression” of some sort. [...]
[S]uch buffoonery would be pardonable if the grand bargain of defending marginal speech so as to better fortify the protective cocoon around sacrosanct political speech were still in effect. But that bargain fell apart almost from the get-go. At the same moment we were letting our freak flags fly when it came to unimportant speech, we started turning the screws on political speech. After Watergate, campaign finance laws started restricting what independent political groups could say and when they could say it, culminating in the McCain-Feingold law that barred “outside” criticism of politicians when it would matter most – i.e., around an election.
And that’s why we live in a world where cutting NEA grants is called censorship, a student’s “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” sign is hailed as vital political speech, and a group of citizens asking fellow citizens to petition their elected representatives to change their minds is supposedly guilty of illegal speech.
That is until this week. In one case, the Supreme Court ruled that a student attending a mandatory school event can be disciplined by the school’s principal for holding up a sign saying “Bong Hits 4 Jesus,” and in another it ruled that a pro-life group can, in fact, urge citizens to contact their senators even if one of the senators happens to be running for re-election. Staggeringly, these were close and controversial calls.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, Right Truth, Big Dog’s Weblog, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Pursuing Holiness, CatSynth.com “catback” weekend, The Magical Rose Garden, Right Celebrity, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, Nuke’s news and views, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Church and State, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Committees of Correspondence, The Random Yak, A Blog For All, 123beta, DeMediacratic Nation, Jeanette’s Celebrity Corner, Webloggin, Cao’s Blog, , Conservative Cat, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Walls of the City, Blue Star Chronicles, High Desert Wanderer, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
And they have distorted the meaning of the 2nd amendment as well they still cant get past the word MILITIA and say it just means our armed forces i mean even REGIS FILBIN and WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONARE is totaly ingorant about the 2nd amendment:razz:
‘It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms contitute the reserve military or the reserve militia of the United States….”
US Supreme Court, 1886
Only in the last 60 or so years has the SCOTUS twisted the 2nd Amendment to be interpreted as a state’s right and not an individual right.
Actually the Supreme Court has been fairly solidly behind the 2nd Amendment. It’s pretty hard to twist the meaning of anything that short.
A Well regulated (in 1800s that meant well armed)Militia (see above post on definition of militia as every law abiding adult capable of bearing arms), being necessary to the security of a free State (as in country), the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The bold is the text of the amendment, the italic is my commentary on it. It seems pretty damn straight forward doesn’t it? I just have to ask the liberal left wingers what part of “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” do they not understand?
The US District court for DC has just overturned a number of provisions of the DC gun ban on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. DC has promised to appeal it to the Supreme Court. The real problem with gun ban laws is that before you can sue to get one overturned, you have to have standing. If you can’t show injury from the implementation of the statute, you can’t even get a day in court. Over half of the plaintiffs in the DC case were found to not have standing because they didn’t actually live in DC. It didn’t matter that they were subject to the laws on a daily basis by working there, they were found to not have standing because they didn’t reside in the district. One woman DID live in DC and the judges ruled that the DC requirement that she not be allowed to maintain a weapon in her home without it being unloaded and disassembled essentially deprived her of her right to a viable weapon should she be attacked at home. On those grounds, those portions of the law were overturned because they infringed on her right to own and BEAR arms. I think other provisions that required that all handguns in the District had to be registered there over 20 years ago may have also been struck down as effectively preventing law abiding citizens from owning firearms. The district even tried to claim immunity from the US Constitution because it isn’t a state. That argument flew like a lead balloon.