Showing posts with label First Amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Amendment. Show all posts

Free Speech Be Damned: Tyrannical Judge Orders Man Arrested And Jailed For Handing Out Jury Rights Fliers

by Barton Deiters.   Because justice is a result, not just a process. A 39-year-old former pastor was arrested and jailed in Mecosta County after he handed out fliers informing people about jury nullification in front of the county courthouse. Keith Wood said he was handing out pamphlets from the Fully Informed Jury Association on Nov. 24 while        ... MORE

A Threat To Freedom Of Speech At The Supreme Court

by George Will.   Never has American freedom of speech been attacked so flagrantly, promiscuously and on so many fronts. The most egregious examples come from campuses and Congress. On campuses, censorship proliferates as political advocacy is confined to designated spaces. In Congress, 54 Democratic senators voted last year to amend      ... MORE

David Harsanyi: The First Amendment Is Dying

Congress shall make no law, but...   "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" Unless we're talking about a white chocolate-paneled cake for a gay wedding or perpetual funding for "women's health" clinics because it's the "right thing to do." "or abridging the freedom of speech;"   ... MORE

A. Barton Hinkle: The Parties Turn It Up To 11

GOP moving rightward, while Dems move leftward.  "Look, I imagine that there's theoretically a chance that [we] all went from being radical extremist crazies to Washington sellouts in 12 hours," South Carolina Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney said the other day. "But maybe a more likely narrative is that we really think that this is a good  ... MORE

Ted Cruz: Internet Freedom & Free Speech In Great Peril

by John Hayward.   Sen. Ted Cruz is issuing a strong warning about the threats to free speech and Internet freedom. “You know, the Obama FCC has invoked the Fairness Doctrine a number of times with sort of wistful glances to the past. Nostalgia,” he said. “You know if I had suggested years ago that the Obama administration would send government    ... MORE

John Stossel: Censorship In America

Hate speech is less dangerous than censorship. Support for the idea that it's good to hear all opinions, even offensive ones, is thin. A plurality of Americans now support laws against "hate speech." Conservatives once wanted to ban Playboy magazine, violent rap lyrics and offensive depictions of Jesus. Leftists then were right to fight    ... MORE

Brendan O'Neill: Contempt For Free Speech - Why Are Students Cheering About The Massacre At Charlie Hebdo?

The sad decline of American principles.     I witnessed something genuinely disturbing at Trinity College Dublin last night: trendy, middle-class, liberal students cheering and whooping a man who had just given the closest thing I have yet heard to a justification for the massacre at Charlie HebdoIt was as part of a debate on the right to offend. I was    ... MORE

Replace Political Correctness With Common Sense

by Guillermo Garcia.  This group think, political correctness imbecility just hit a new low. Curt Schilling, former professional baseball player and now ESPN color commentator, tweeted that he thought Muslim extremists were no better than Nazis. Mr. Schilling was called on the carpet by the bosses at ESPN and the next day he issued a statement in which  ...  MORE

Protect Free Speech Inside And Outside Of Courtrooms

Because justice is a result, not just a process.  In 2012, an 80-year-old retired chemistry professor was indicted on jury tampering charges for passing out brochures in a plaza outside a federal courthouse in New York. Those brochures regarded "jury nullification," an option available to jurors who might agree that a defendant broke the  ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Sheep Led To The Slaughter

The muzzling of free speech in America.      “If the freedom of speech be taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” —George Washington     The architects of the American police state must think we’re idiots. With every passing day, we’re being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society        ... MORE

Denver Concedes Distributing Jury Nullification Pamphlets Near A Courthouse Is Constitutionally Protected Speech

by Jacob Sullum.  But, it still won't drop charges against those arrested for doing so.   Yesterday a federal judge in Denver issued a preliminary injunction protecting the First Amendment rights of activists who want to distribute jury nullification pamphlets outside the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse. Two activists, Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt, did  ... MORE

Paul Detrick: Do Rappers Have 1st Amendment Protection?

After all, popular speech needs no protection.     The movie Straight Outta Compton, which opens this weekend, dramatizes the emergence of southern California hip-hop rap group N.W.A. In 1988, the group's album of the same name popularized gangsta rap music with lyrics detailing the realities of life in gang-ridden South Central L.A.   ... MORE

I Will Defend Your Right To Fly The Confederate Flag

by Wendy Kaminer. Don’t ask me to defend a Confederate flag display by the state. Unlike private individuals and associations, governments don’t have rights: they exercise power. And while hoisting a Confederate flag on state property isn’t an illegal use of power, it is a politically abusive one, for all the reasons so recently recited in the wake  ... MORE

How Protecting Hatred Preserves Freedom

by Andrew Napolitano.  Let's start with the proposition that hatred of persons is a profound disorder, and it is no doubt motivated by far deeper errors of thought and judgment than admiration for a flag. I recognize that to some in our society, the Confederate flag represents resistance to federal authority enforced by military aggression; while to      ... MORE

Reason Magazine Subpoena Stomps On Free Speech

by Virginia Postrel.      Wielding subpoenas demanding information on anonymous commenters, the government is harassing a respected journalism site that dissents from its policies. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York claims these comments could constitute violent threats, even though they’re clearly hyperbolic ... MORE

Kimberly Morin: TYRANNY ALERT! Obama Writes New Rules To Throw Gun Owners In JAIL For Doing THIS Online …

Criminalizing speech in America.         According to a new State Department mandate, they want to end the sharing of technical data on line. It’s not clear why they want to do this other than to restrain free speech but they posted their new proposal on June 3rd. And while this ridiculous proposal would affect thousands or even millions of    ... MORE

VIDEO: The First Amendment In Five Minutes

The Crackdown On Free Speech Begins! Montana Man Is Being Prosecuted For 'Hate Speech' And Holocaust Denial

Government ignores the inconvenient First Amendment. Via Volokh Conspiracy, a disturbing criminal case out of Montana, where Flathead County resident David Lenio, 28, is being prosecuted for making disparaging remarks about Jews on Twitter and denying that the Holocaust happened. Say what? While this sort of prosecution is common in   ... MORE