50 thoughts on “The First Amendment”

  1. “Are we really ready to throw out the First Amendment to appease lynch mobs?”

    Well, I’m willing to listen to their ideas about the 1st Amendment, but my daily traveling partner, Roger D. Ruger won’t let me be lynched easily.

    He’s very protective that way.

  3. “Hurting the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims cannot be tolerated, and… we demand that all those involved in such crimes be urgently brought to trial,” according to [the Muslim brotherhood.]

    It is specifically offensive speech that is protected since unoffensive speech needs no protection. If anything facts are protected speech. So it may offend Muslims to point out that their own documents show that Mohammed was an illiterate misogynous pedophile serial hate-crime murderer (including murder of quite a number of his own family who had some things to say about him themselves) that believed his god Allah requires members of his religion to convert, enslave or kill every other person on the planet.

    While I would like to welcome them into civilized society, they themselves have chosen the course of death and humiliation (I choose their’s, not our’s.)

    Hurting their feeling is the least thing that should be tolerated. So to the Muslim Brotherhood (with a membership universally ‘For it’) I say too bad, and piss be upon you. Or, as an eloquent American general once said, ‘Nuts.’ (Which I note is doubly appropriate.)

    1. But no one ever has any trouble ‘Hurting the feelings of…’ 2.2B Christians though, I’ve noticed. I agree on choosing their deaths instead of ours.

      But let’s hope the Shia’s and Suni’s start killing each other first BECAUSE of the Muslim Brotherhood!

  4. He- and his party- have demonstrated a monumental contempt for the rest of the Constitution, so why not the First as well.

    1. Yes, at least “Il Dufe” is exhibiting some logical consistence (even if starting from the illogical premises that comprise the theology of State-cultism). The Alinskyites have never pretended to believe in free speech for “reactionaries.”

  5. Breitbart has an interesting take on the selectivity of the administration over which anti-Islamic filmmakers it wishes to squash. I suppose if Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (known to his close friends as either Nakoula or, alternatively, Nakoula) contributed $1 million to the Obama campaign, the BHo would find someone else to blame. Someone other than the killers themselves, of course…

  6. Skinless people in a sandpaper world.

    They need to get over themselves – before we have to do it for them.

  8. I can’t believe they are going after the film maker. What kind of Police State has this become?

    Well…actually I can believe it..given this bunch.

    1. I saw that earlier. The cartoon is outright pornographic, and extremely offensive to at least four religions.

      But not the one we’re most concerned about.

  10. And speaking of the First Amendment:

    The Supreme Court has said the Constitution’s protections for free speech do not allow the government to limit how much wealthy individuals or interest groups can spend to promote a candidate or idea. Obama has talked recently about pushing for a constitutional amendment to change that…

    making him, as far as I know, the very first sitting President to advocate amending the Constitution to change the First Amendment. Does this not worry the Obama fanbois axis (Jim, Gerrib, Bob-1, et al)? Or are you so short-sighted as to not see what would happen if someone other than “your guy” took over? It’s going to happen, sooner or later. It always does.

    2. Remember the hissy fits the “civil libertarian” Progressive Left threw when an amendment to prohibit flag burning was proposed? Now those same people are all for (ore at least totally silent) when our gov’t is sending armed thugs out in the middle of the night to enforce anti-blasphemy laws ex post facto.

      1. Flag burning scarcely happens in this country, and most of what does occur is a reaction to anti-flag-burning-law proposals.

        I oppose such proposals SPECIFICALLY because a lot of gavel-swinging folks think symbolic arson is speech per the First Amendment, and a flag-burning amendment would be cited to abridge REAL speech. And flag-burning is such lousy PR for flag-burners.

  11. Instapundit has a piece up that I find convincing.

    http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/150781/

    His contention is that Obama should resign due to violating his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. The midnight raid by his literal brownshirts on that movie-maker for daring to exercise free speech is beyond appalling.

    I’ll go further; I think that by violating his oath of office, Obama is no longer president.

    It appalls me that they put appeasing rabble over the constitution. They are, in effect, trying to subjugate us to the barbaric backward creed that is Sharia law.

    3. That Obama is no longer President because of violations of his oath of office may seem emotionally satisfying but has no validity in law. It is however a reason for impeachment.

  12. Will be interesting to see what the Administration’s domestic political counter-attack plan will be, starting on tomorrow’s Sunday morning talk shows. I believe they have few, if any, actual high-cards to play, so I predict part of the counter-attack will be the old reliable “The root cause of the recent violence and the attack on the Benghazi Consulate is the XYZ policies of Bushitler and Cheneyhalliburton, starting back in 200x!” What does the Administration have to lose by trying to see how many of their Kool-Aid drinking supporters still suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome? Another shiny object they can throw out there to buy some time, in the hope things in the Middle East calm down soon and do not continue and expand as November approaches.

    1. No, Bush Derangement Syndrome is so yesterday.

      They’ll find a way to blame it on something that Romney said, whether he actually said it or not. Maybe he implied it somehow.

      1. rickl,
        D’oh! You are right. Bush-blaming has lost its impact. The new demon is Romney, and the narrative will probably be how relations with the Muslim world will become even worse under a Romney Administration because of X, Y, Z. And, POTUS has 3.5 years of hands-on foreign policy experience and Romney and Ryan have no direct experience. I expect that aspect will be eventually weaved into the narrative more than originally planned.

        What perplexes me is why Mr. Senior Democratic Foreign Policy Expert himself, the VPOTUS, the man picked to provide an Obama Administration with instant foreign policy cred, has not said much that I’ve seen reported about the recent incidents, and has not been sent to the Mid East to apply his foreign policy skills and experience on-the-ground. Very odd. 😉

        1. Which shows it’s not a derangement syndrome at all!?

          It is child logic: Identify the enemy. Destroy the enemy. Facts are irrelevant.

          We make the mistake of thinking any type of reasoning underlies it. Forget trying to figure it out. Fight it. Fight it with effectiveness. When they are trying to kill you, why is a question for later.

  13. Sadly, the Supreme Court did it decades and decades ago with a series of decisions…

    http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/freedom1.html

    Check out the recognized exceptions about halfway down under Exceptions to Freedom of Expression. Numbers 2, 3 and 4 would seem to apply. And that assumes the story about the funding source is correct and its was not funded by a terrorist group which I think even Rand would think is something important to know (why do you think the FBI is looking into it?). And in that case 5 might also apply.

    As for calling that Pastor, Rand seems to have forgotten a certain call that was made to John Campbell asking him not to publish some science fiction stories during World War II, or does Rand, like others, think the war is over now that Bin Laden is gone? Or its OK to put American troops in danger needlessly?

    2. There is a difference between they guy who made the video and the other guy who used the video to incite violence. These are two separate parties and only one of them is a US citizen. That takes care of 2 & 4.

      #3 “fighting words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

      Well not sure how you could prove this was the intention but it also was not the effect because the video has been out for some time. Also, the question of what would be considered by a rational human being to lead to an immediate breach of the peace. Then the outcome would be determined by the response and not the actual words uttered.

      If people flew into a rage and started rioting every time you talked trash about the TP, would that mean you could no longer talk trash about the TP?

      #5 “Although not without controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld statutes which prohibit the advocacy of unlawful conduct against the government or the violent overthrow of the government”

      How would that apply? The guy who made the video was not trying to overthrow the government.

      Last, why would any of this apply to people who are not US citizens and who are not in the USA killing our embassy staff? People from other countries don’t get to restrict our rights.

      1. How would that apply?

        None apply because of a concept called Standing. Not even 7 could apply:
        (Fordyce v. Frohnmayer, 763 F.Supp. 654, 656 [D.D.C. 1991]) The court rejected the claim, especially as “plaintiffs do not even allege that they have either seen the exhibition or studied the catalogue . . . [and thus] have failed to show that they have endured any special burdens that justify their standing to sue as citizens.” Id.

    3. “…Rand seems to have forgotten a certain call that was made to John Campbell asking him not to publish some science fiction stories during World War II…”

      Actually, he was asked to withdraw already published stories describing the construction of an atomic bomb. He refused with impunity, because he convinced the FBI (which made the “request”) that such withdrawal would be a dead giveaway that such a project existed.

    4. You’ll note Thomas that since that decision the exceptions to free speech have all become weaker. So…

      Illiterate misogynous pedophile serial hate-crime murderer Mohammed’s (PissBUH) followers want to convert, enslave or kill every other person on the planet.

      Anything wrong with that free speech?

  14. In regards to the bill of rights: so far this administration has managed to avoid showing disdain for and attempting to circumvent only the 3rd Amendment. Though with a few months left until the election I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a clean sweep.

    1. I’m not sure what you mean. Whose home is being used to house military troops? When did that happen, and where?

  15. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution, the Associated Press reports. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and was ordered not to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer. He served about a year in prison.

    We’ve got a convicted felon ordered as a term of his probation not to use the Internet using the Internet to provoke riots. If this was any other President, this blog would be screaming for him to be locked up.

    1. And if this President were a Republican, Obama fanboy and Hive party-line stalwart Gerrib would be calling for his impeachment.

    2. using the Internet to provoke riots.

      It’s not clear he used the internet (or a computer) at all. It’s also not clear he intended to provoke riots. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and assume away.

      But the idea that the date on the calendar had nothing to do with anything, and that everything is a result of a stupid 15 minute youtube video, is well past its expiration date Chris.

    3. He didn’t show the video to people in Egype or anywhere else. Some Imam or AQesque leader showed the video to people to rile them up for riots.

      The only reason we, or law enforcement, knows about his current actions is because eternally enraged Muslims in another country had a group freak out. Would it be right to arrest him because of it? I think you could make that case but let’s not forget Obama and the Democrat party regularly overlook crimes commited in the context of politics. Look no further than the illegal immigrant lady who spoke at the DNC or some of Obama’s own illegal immigrant extended family not being deported after high profile exposure in the media.

      Or look at how OWS breaking the law was handled.

      I don’t think anyone is claiming this guy is not a dirtbag, just that he has every right to be one. When being a dirtbag becomes illegal, all the Democrat activist groups will have to be locked up.

    4. We’ve got a convicted felon ordered as a term of his probation not to use the Internet using the Internet to provoke riots.

      Yeah, that’s the narrative Chris and it’s almost complete and total bullshit. This video has been out for months. It has nothing to do with the planned attacks on a favorite anniversary of theirs. Planned with mortars, RPGs and bussed in protesters. It’s laughable that at the news conference they say it has nothing to do with our weak horse and it’s all about some stupid fool. This admin is playing pin the tail on the donkey and you are stupidly repeating it.

    5. Oh, now we can review a person’s previous history to derive a judgement of their recent behavior. Wind direction changed and noted, Gerrib.

      On Wodun’s comment, has anyone found anything about the version of the film with sub-titles in arabic? I’m curious if it was a proper translation or something akin to Downfall. Perhaps that’s what needs to happen next to show how stupid the Obama Administration is acting. Make hundreds of copies of the film with different subtitle translations.

      1. Martin was not on probation, nor was Zimmerman his probation officer.

        Nakoula is on probation, and his probation officer requested his presence to see if Nakoula had in fact violated the terms of his probation.

        There’s a big difference there.

        1. Oh, now we can review a person’s previous history to derive a judgement of their recent behavior. Wind direction changed and noted, Gerrib.

          Indeed. Did the president or anyone in the DoJ actually believe he was resuming his erstwhile career in bank fraud?! Of course not — probation violation was simply a convenient legal pretext, a fig leaf.

          1. They did think he had used the Internet without permission, which is a violation of his parole. I suspect they were curious where he got the money to make this movie, and what (potentially fraudulent) things he told the investors.

          2. What!? No, they wanted to know if he had any connection to the attacks. The way you contort yourself away from the obvious is stunning.

          4. The DOJ is not supposed to ignore a Contempt of Congress. Get back to me when the wind blows back to that principle.

  16. If this was any other President, this blog would be screaming for him to be locked up.

    Only Muslims call for men to be “locked up” simply for making art that offends Muslims. So if, “this was [sic] any other president,” Rand S. would be a Muslim?

    You have jumped off the deep end right into an empty swimming pool, Corky.

    1. If that YouTube video is supposed to be the cause for the MidEast violence and should be pulled, will Obama be asking Hollywood to cancel that big movie about killing bin Laden?

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