Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md) is ending 2022 on an ominous note after declaring that “if you espouse hate… you’re not protected under the First Amendment.” The statement is obviously untrue, but it is only the latest example of the eroding support for free speech in Congress and the country at large. It is particularly chilling for one of the nation’s most powerful politicians (sworn to “support and defend the Constitution“) to show either a lack of knowledge or lack of fealty to the First Amendment.
He is not the first Democratic leader to make this clearly erroneous statement about the Constitution. Politicians such as Howard Dean have previously voiced the same view.
The First Amendment does not distinguish between types of speech: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Indeed, the language was explained most succinctly by Justice Hugo Black in Smith v. California: “I read ‘no law . . . abridging’ to mean no law abridging.”
While the court has distinguished “fighting words,” criminal threats and other narrow categories, it does not bestow the government the open right to strip protection of speech that it deems “hateful.” Indeed, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court struck down an Ohio law prohibiting public speech that was deemed as promoting illegal conduct. It supported the right of the KKK to speak even though it is a hateful organization. Likewise, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul in 2011, it struck down a ban on any symbol that “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.” Finally in Snyder v. Phelps in 2011, the Court said that the hateful protests of Westboro Baptist Church were protected.
Sen. Cardin seems to be channeling the European view of free speech. That is also concerning given the growing anti-free speech movement in the country.
We have been discussing efforts by figures like Hillary Clinton to enlist European countries to force Twitter to restore censorship rules. Unable to rely on corporate censorship or convince users to embrace censorship, Clinton and others are resorting to good old-fashioned state censorship, even asking other countries to censor the speech of American citizens. It is an easy case to make given the long criminalization of speech in countries like France, Germany, and England.
This view is being reinforced on campuses where almost half of students believe, like Sen. Cardin, that hate speech is not protected by the Constitution.
As someone who was raised in a liberal Democratic family in Chicago, I do not know when the party went from being the defender of free speech to its most determined nemesis. However, with demands for censorship and the all-out war on Twitter, the Democratic party seems to have crossed the Rubicon on the First Amendment. That leaves many liberals (particularly classical liberals) and independents in a growing bind.
Many of us view free speech as our defining American right. This coming year is likely to see a further escalation in the fight for free speech from the Supreme Court (in the 303 Creative case) to our campuses. Some college presidents have declared that even “disingenuous” speech is not entitled to protection.
Sen. Cardin is a lawyer but appears to hold an extraconstitutional view of free speech. His view of the First Amendment is not simply flawed but dangerous at a time when we are engaged in an existential fight for free speech.
Cardin is just lamenting the good old days when the Democrats controlled the three television networks. He simply sees that the rise of social media threatens the power of the authoritarian party. After having so much control of the networks in the past why is it surprising that he now wants to control social media. He’s used to having his bidding done and he wants to keep it that way. The danger is not to America but to him and his fellow apparatchiks. Long live the party!!
Jonathan: In Germany, neo-Nazi anti-semitic propaganda and other forms of “hate” speech are prohibited on social media. With its long tortured history I can understand the German position. Fortunately, we have the 1st Amendment that protects various forms of “hate” speech. We see it all the time these days on Twitter. I suppose its the price we pay for our “freedoms”. So as we end the year I would like to address another topic.
You have never been big on war and peace. But I have noticed in comments by some of your loyal followers a concern for the ongoing war in Ukraine. Some object to spending so much taxpayer money on that war. This might come as a surprise but I oppose the Biden administration position on the war. But first we should put that conflict in context. Since the end of WW11 the US, Britain and other Western countries set up NATO, a military alliance, to “contain” the USSR and prevent the spread of “communism”. Over the years NATO has expanded despite the fact Russia is no longer a “communist” country. In recent years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the Washington “consensus” viewed Ukraine as a potential member of NATO. So the US/Britain supported groups within Ukraine to break away from Russian “influence”. Despite warnings by Russia these efforts continued–training Ukrainian military forces and providing them with equipment. Much of what we were doing was kept secret from the American public by the “mainstream” media. US and British oil companies saw Ukraine as a potential for getting access to Ukrainian oil and gas. The Russia, rightly and wrongly, saw US/British efforts in Ukraine as a threat on their southern border.
Fast forward to today and the war continues. Ukraine is being gradually destroyed and there is a lot of “collateral” damage. Most observers believe the only solution is a diplomatic negotiated settlement. Germany and other countries have tried start such efforts. But who is opposed to a diplomatic settlement? The US and Britain. It is the official position of the Biden administration to “weaken Russia” and Pres. Biden has said Putin “must go”. Biden doesn’t actually want the war to end so he keeps pouring billions of dollars to “defeat Russian aggression”. If you think Putin is an “autocratic dictator” this makes sense, I suppose. This is where the US mainstream media comes in–to portray Putin as “insane” who must be defeated. The US “military-industrial complex” naturally likes the war. Nothing wrong with war profits–right? So Biden invites Zelensky to address Congress to firm up public support for the war. There appears to be “bipartisan” support for continuing the war in Congress. When it comes to war there is not a sliver of difference between the two parties.
There is only one problem. If the war in Ukraine continues the country will be destroyed and a lot more civilians will die–and there is always the possibility of a nuclear confrontation. So a diplomatic settlement is the only solution. What would that look like? I don’t pretend to know what is in Putin’s mind but I think he would accept a demilitarized neutral Ukraine–along the lines of Switzerland. On the US/British side they would have to give up the idea of a militarized Ukraine within NATO. A tall order in the present environment. There are powerful forces in DC that want the war to continue–like the military-industrial complex. Without any pressure from the American public it will never happen because war has always had a certain inertia of its own. But a lot of smart people didn’t think we would ever get out of Vietnam.
For my part I am writing my Congressional Rep and my two Senators to demand Biden stop funding the war and seek a diplomatic settlement. Anyway else on this blog willing to do the same?
Dennis McIntyre, you should be careful in your criticism of the U.S. position on the war in Ukraine. The powers that be may think you have been listening to Tucker Carlson. An attempt to find out your identify may be eminent. If I were you I would be especially careful not to voice your opinion on Twitter. Your job and your families well being may be at stake due to your future cancellation. In the woke world your discretion could be the better part of your valor. Be careful. You are not untouchable and they will know where you live. Think it through.
Dennis, maybe 2023 is getting off to a great start. I am on the total opposite side of the political spectrum than you. But I totally agree with you .I have already done what you have requested. But unfortunately, my rep Brad Schneider and 1 of my Senators DICK Durbin are total morons.
Emotional Italian: Looks like you are the only one to follow up my suggestion. Thank you. But remember this old Chinese proverb: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
Happy New Year! Not sure what time zone Turleyville is located in (not to mention what dimension), so I figured it’s a good idea to get this out — early?
Anyway, Happy Keep-your-clock-the-same-but-change-your-calendar Day to the Mayor of Turleyville and all of you Turleyvillians.
Ralph – OMG, I’m laughing so hard. Thank you!
Can’t resist this quote (spoiler alert): This is the famous Murillian Line, which is named after the band Murillian, which is named after this line . . . This is the only place in the world where I can be in the past and the future, with the present running right up through my middle bits.
Now I know where Gigi works.
He said bad things about me and my diaper is wet.
Sorry folks, I’m not buying it. Cardin has been an authoritarian in Washington for thirty five years. The same for Pelosi and Schumer. The Democratic Party has not changed. It is the same as it has been for forty years. It’s obvious that these politicians were just disingenuous in presenting their positions. What has changed is their willingness to tell us what their philosophy has always been. They are what they have always been.
His view of the First Amendment is not simply flawed but dangerous at a time when we are engaged in an existential fight for free speech.
it appears our existential fight for free speech has been given a holiday today. Today the forum is absent of any of the Correct the Record trolls defending the indefensible. Thus on that note, a word of thanks to David Brock.
David, I’ve assailed you many times on this forum for many things, but for once I offer you a word of thanks.
Thank you, David Brock, for giving your employees, Svelaz, Fishwings, Gigi, et al, a paid day off.
Estovir,
Okay, that was funny!
Happy New Year to you and your family. It’s raining tonight and we are meeting friends who invited us to a new Cuban place (shocking in Richmond), then run back home for the family midnight traditions. Next year will.be.better.
Peace, health and love to all
Pax Christi
Estovir….Feliz Nuevo Ano! (I hope that’s correct)….And hope you had a great meal at Cuban restaurant.
BTW, my paternal ancestors came to Henrico from Wales in mid-1600’s.. The patriarch made a living ferrying people across the James on a barge at Varina, where, 40 years earlier, Pocahontas had lived with husband and tobacco plantation owner, John Rolfe……Before your time 🙂
Tilda! You must use the tilda (~) over the “n”
Año = year
Ano = anus
😂
We joined our friends at the Columbian, not Cuban establishment. For Anglos we are run together. LOL. Then we ran back home to celebrate our annual midnight Cuban traditions.
Wales! Never been there. Ive been to Scotland and England but never Wales. I would like to learn more about the history of Wales.
I recently told some Virginians at church how I was initially excited to arrive in Richmond coming from Puerto Rico. I was looking forward to learning more about the birthplace of the nation, the most important colony of the 13 colonies, American Revolutionary figures, etc. Instead Ive been force fed Civil War polemics and Im so over it! So I asked them where one was to go in Virginia to learn about the Revolutionary War. Yorktown. So they thought. Ive done Williamsburg many times and am familiar with Pocahontas but not John Rolfe. So much to learn
Estovir….unfortunately, I knew about the tilda, can’t do it on my keyboard, but thank you.
I’ll bet the Columbian cuisine was good, too……….but if you’ll take a peek at your earlier comment
you’ll see that you wrote “Cuban”…….LOL But I will admit that many times we don’t get it right! 🙂
Ah, I was referring to my local Anglo friends, not online Anglo friends.
My friends told me before we went, that it was Cuban (which shocked me), but upon arrival I learned it was Columbian. I was disappointed but it happens all the time with locals. When I tell people I am Cuba, some get excited and ask me if I know their Hispanic friend who is from Peru. SMH. At which point I ask them if they know my American friend who lives in Wyoming. You get the picture.
When blacks accuse whites of viewing blacks as all the same, I usually pounce on blacks about their equally presumptuousness about Latin Americans. I can usually tell the origins of a Hispanic or at least the region, but some countries are hard to differentiate, e.g. Nicaragua and Honduras. I can spot an Argentinian, Brazilian, Dominican and Venezuelan a mile away but there are exceptions. I have a Mexican friend who is 6’2″, lily white, green eyes, smooth skin. I often joke that a Swedish milkman was likely his father 🤠
Estovir…LOL!
Yes ago, I knew an old retired country preacher who thought there were only two countries in Asia: China and Japan. Upon meeting an Asian individual, he would immediately ask “Are you Chinese or Japanese?” If the person answered that he/she was from Thailand, or Viet Nam, etc, he would repeat, “But are you Chinese or Japanese?” . And of course he would talk loudly to them, as if they were deaf, as well,,,,LOL
It happens in clinic as well with a Nurse Practitioner, a wonderful woman who screams at patients who do not know English. I once told her, “they are not deaf, they merely dont understand English”, which made her blush, then I felt badly. They mean well but screaming at patients isnt good either
The senator is a lawyer, so there is 100% certainty he knows his assertion is false. This raises the question: why say it? With politicians it usually has to do with re-election, and by extension, with money going to their campaign. Conclusion: he is appeasing the donors who donate to him. So . . . lying to get donations, a common activity of politicians, but an evil one nonetheless.
“As someone who was raised in a liberal Democratic family in Chicago, I do not know when the party went from being the defender of free speech to its most determined nemesis.”
Surely there was a jumping-off point when people started using the expression “the n-word”? — whenever that was — as a form of self-censorship regarding prohibited utterance of a word deemed SO radioactive that it cannot even safely be used when referring to the word itself and not referring to any person or people.
So maybe there’s a little disingenuous not WANTING to know “when the party went from being the defender of free speech to its most determined nemesis,” because Professor Turley can be sure that the democrat party, its oft-used Race Card, and it’s mis-named “Congressional Black Caucus” — which is really a Congressional Black Democrat Caucus — are linked to the beginning of this most-successful-of-all censorship enterprises in history, whereby otherwise reasonable people have been scared out of their wits into NEVER using a word for ANY purpose. Seeing how successfully people have been silenced in the case of the nuclear n-word, it’s little wonder that some would want to continue to ban more words, then phrases, then sentences …
Anyway, the motive behind restricting speech is obviously to control what people can say, and thereby control their minds by stopping the spread of thoughts that some poeple considered objectionable — “objectionable” because the ideas are INCONVENIENT to their political goals.
Related therero: For decades it was expressly illegal for the government to spread propaganda to American audiences. And then in July, 2013 — for reasons that nobody seems to want to discuss these days — AFTER Obama got reelected, pursuant to a deal struck BEFORE the election our “bipartisan” Congress (republican House, democrat Senate) officially lifted the ban on domestic used of propaganda:
“U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/
NOT coincidentally, within three years of the ban on domestic propaganda being lifted, we were all treated to the Russia Collusion Hoax, and since then we’ve been in the wild west of fake news and attacks on free speech — a one-two punch whereby the government can load us up with any sort of crap that serves its purpose while simultaneously stopping us from being able to fight back with FACTS.
Democrats have been against free speech since well before the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 – there was an incident at a major university at least a decade or two prior, in which a professor said, as an example, “If I were to call Miss (X) a (n-word), that would be racist.”
Miss (X) complained and, at the hearing which the university scheduled for her to air her grievance, when asked, said, “I don’t know what he said, I only know how I felt.”
This was enough to get the professor censured.
Some years after that, a DC City Council member (IIRC – it was definitely DC or I am very much mistaken) spoke of their need to be “niggardly” with their sparse funds. He was dismissed, then reinstated after a big public outcry and substantial ridicule.
Now, “niggard” and all its forms are outright prohibited for sounding like a shunned word. Which I cannot even post here – freedom of speech my hindquarters.
LOL LOL LOL — That reminds me of the time I was watching a rerun of Frazier on what must have been the Family Channel or something like it, and Frazier called Niles a “jackass” — causing the censor to bleep the second syllable. And then later in the same show, when Fazier accused Niles of saying or doing something that was “asinine” getting the first syllable bleeped.
Put censorship in the hands of someone with half an education and a vocabulary running on empty, and the result is a Monty Python sketch in the making.
“…I do not know when the party went from being the defender of free speech to its most determined nemesis.”
“Surely there was a jumping-off point…”
– Ralph de Minimis
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The “jumping-off point,” the inflection point at which America began its gradual and incremental transition from the freedom and dominion of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to the principles of the Communist Manifesto was 1860, the year Lincoln backed into the White House, nullified the law and fundamental law of America, seized power as a tyrant and dictator, and brutally imposed massive and substantial structural changes based on the collective, in the act, leaving an adverse and inimical foreign, 3-million-man, standing army on U.S. soil.
America perpetuates per Marx’s motto: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” as a communist welfare state shamelessly imposing wholly unconstitutional central planning, control of the means of production (i.e. regulation), redistribution of wealth and social planning.
Lincoln began the transition from the American Framers’ minimalist form of self-governance including, but not limited to, Article 1, Section 8, taxation for only debt, defense and infrastructure, and regulation of only the value of money, commerce among the States, and land and naval Forces, and the absolute 5th Amendment right to “claim and exercise” dominion over private property by only the owner and in the complete absence of interference by government.
Lincoln espoused the pejoratives of Karl Marx, “capitalists” and “fleece the people” in 1837. It was all downhill from there.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
“…THE RECONSTRUCTION OF A SOCIAL WORLD.”
– KARL MARX TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN
___________
“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.”
– Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837
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“Everyone now is more or less a Socialist.”
– Charles Dana, managing editor of the New York Tribune, and Lincoln’s assistant secretary of war, 1848
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“The goal of Socialism is Communism.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
__________________
“The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.”
– Karl Marx and the First International Workingmen’s Association to Lincoln, 1864
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“ON DECEMBER 3, 1861, a former one-term congressman, who had spent most of the past dozen years studying dissident economic theories, mounting challenges to the existing political order and proposing ever more radical responses to the American crisis, delivered his first State of the Union address as the sixteenth president of the United States.
“Long before 1848, German radicals had begun to arrive in Illinois, where they quickly entered into the legal and political circles in which Lincoln traveled. One of them, Gustav Korner, was a student revolutionary at the University of Munich who had been imprisoned by German authorities in the early 1830s for organizing illegal demonstrations. After his release, Korner returned to his hometown of Frankfurt am Main where, according to historian Raymond Lohne, “he was one of about fifty conspirators involved in an attack upon the two main city guardhouses and the arsenal at the police facility and jail. This admixture of students and soldiers had planned to seize cannon, muskets, and ammunition; free political prisoners accused of breaking press-censorship laws, and begin ringing the great Sturmglocke (storm bell) of the Dom, the signal for the people to come in from the countryside. At that point, the democratic revolution would be announced…. Unfortunately, they were walking into a trap…. Betrayed by both a spy in their midst, and the reluctance of the common people to rise, nine students were killed, twenty-four were seriously wounded, and by August 3, 1833, Gustav Körner found himself riding into downtown Belleville, Illinois.”
“Within a decade, Korner would pass the Illinois bar, win election to the legislature and be appointed to the state Supreme Court. Korner and Lincoln formed an alliance that would become so close that the student revolutionary from Frankfurt would eventually be one of seven personal delegates-at-large named by Lincoln to serve at the critical Republican State Convention in May 1860, which propelled the Springfield lawyer into that year’s presidential race. Through Korner, Lincoln met and befriended many of the German radicals who, after the failure of the 1848 revolution, fled to Illinois and neighboring Wisconsin. Along with Korner on Lincoln’s list of personal delegates-at-large to the 1860 convention was Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker, a lawyer from Mannheim who had served as a liberal legislator in the lower chamber of the Baden State Assembly before leading an April 1848 uprising in the region—an uprising cheered on by the newspaper Marx briefly edited during that turbulent period, Neue Rheinische Zeitung—Organ der Demokratie.
“Even as they agreed on homesteading, Greeley and Lincoln wrangled over the timing and scope of an emancipation proclamation. The editor joined Frederick Douglass in demanding that the president take steps to make the Civil War not merely a struggle to preserve the Union, but “an Abolition war.” Even as Greeley and Lincoln exchanged sometimes pointed letters, the Tribune’s longtime managing editor Charles Dana was now working for Lincoln. Officially assigned to the War Department — where he would eventually serve as assistant secretary — Dana’s real role was as an aide and adviser to the president on questions of what the former newspaperman described as the “judicious, humane, and wise uses of executive authority.” That Lincoln spent much of his presidency reading dispatches from and welcoming the counsel of Marx’s longtime editor—like the fact that he awarded military commissions to the numerous comrades of the author of The Communist Manifesto who had come to the United States as political refugees following the failed European revolutions of 1848—is a shard of history rarely seen in the hagiographic accounts that produce a sanitized version of the sixteenth president’s story. In the years following Lincoln’s death, his law partner and political comrade, William Herndon, complained that Lincoln’s official biographers were already attempting “to make the story with the classes as against the masses,” an approach that he suggested “will result in delineating the real Lincoln about as well as does a wax figure in the museum.”
– ISR International Socialist Review
Comrade Ben Cardin must be impeached, convicted, detained, charged and prosecuted for egregious subversion and treason against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the United States of America.
Comrade Ben Cardin is a direct and mortal enemy of freedom, the American thesis, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Americans and America.
For an American citizen to denigrate, debase and subvert the Constitution and its Bill of Rights is to absolutely and irrefutably engage “…in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
China, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran et al. are smiling and strategizing the diminution and demise of the United States as they endorse and embrace Comrade Ben Cardin.
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1st Amendment
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.
__________________________________________________________________
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what they forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
Surely, we all can see where this is ultimately headed. Illiberals like Cardin and the other leaders of what has become of the once principled Democratic Party will have us express no animosities nor show any antagonism whatsoever toward anyone who holds membership in their party. Antipathy for their party and its commoners is to be verboten. Only agreement with and approval of the dogma will be tolerated. So feign it if you must, but never ever show that you harbor anything but appreciation and respect for The Party.
Better watch your micro.aggressions.
Just waiting for the first s@@tlib to bend over backwards defending Senator Cardin. Don’t worry sweet, tolerant s@@tlibs your precious hate speech laws are coming. JT, I guess this makes you a ‘nazi’ too.
antonio
Senator Cardin’s comments, and the anti-free-speech movement of which they are a part, are a reminder that freedom must be defended in every generation. Why? Because every generation will have its complement of Senator Cardins who cynically manipulate other people’s emotions in service of enhanced power for themselves. As long as they can get that power, they are not a bit concerned that everyone else’s liberty is diminished in the process.
The contemptible left and its quest to usurp the Constitutional definition of Free Speech, is tiring. The Left’s conceit in their belief that they can precisely define what is and isn’t Hate or some other restraint yet forwarded by these Moron’s is laughable. Their fear of something (whatever it is) is so great that they are willing to dispose of Constitutional protections to obtain their utopian dream. Lemmings a many populate the Left, running towards doom, smiling with self-righteousness and indignation of others’ rights. Fools they be rushing towards Tyranny in their quest for Nirvana. Maybe P.T. Barnum had it right after all.
Senator Cardin is another living example of the need for Term Limitations for Public Office Holders, whether elected or appointed. As with another current office holder, his opinions show a creeping case of sclerotic dementia. He must spend his time chained and howling from an unheated dog-house. I find his speech hateful and ask the Attorney General of the United States to prosecute him for inciting hatred and incivility.
“That leaves many liberals (particularly classic liberals) and independents in a growing bind.”
There’s no “growing bind” unless you’re a tribal idiot who can’t walk away from the Dems despite their openly stated hatred for the Constitution, our laws, and our nation.
I see Jonathan Turley soon joining Tulsi Gabbard, and chucking his affiliation with the Democrat Party.
Maybe—-but IMHO—-perhaps a day late and a dollar short! Excommunicating the tyrannical Dimunist Party is not exactly rocket science!
Gee, I think there’s a slow-motion political realignment happening in the country. Populist conservatives and traditional liberals have more in common these days than they might be willing to admit.
Conservatives increasingly see globalism’s threat to America’s working class as a national-security issue, and liberals increasingly see the despotism of the hard left that now dominates the base of the Democrat Party. A workable coalition might come out of this, but it won’t be your grandfather’s Republican or Democrat party.
And Joe Biden wants to cancel out all their votes at the border. Let’s hope the realignment happens before he succeeds.
Diogenes – very interesting. Another uniting factor is anti-war sentiment. For around 50 years starting in the 1960s the anti-war movement found its home in the Democratic Party. That remained true through Persian Gulf 1 and 2. Now, however, many members of the GOP are seeing that there is a permanent-war party in control of Washington, and they oppose sending tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine to continue a proxy war with nuclear-armed Russia. Meanwhile, the overall stock market sinks 20% in a year while defense-contractor stocks skyrocket, all by having the U.S. both tax and print endless amounts of money to fund hot wars that could lead to nuclear annihilation. Bottom line, can a growing coalition of old-fashioned Dems and newly anti-war Republicans align in sufficient numbers to stop this abject evil from going much further?
We were warned about this by a Republican president – Dwight David Eisenhower. He is continuously vindicated. Then there was Washington telling us to stay out of “foreign entanglements”.
I think that it might have been in President Eisenhower’s farewell speech that he warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex (1961).
Excellent points, Kansas. Totally agree.
Abortion, and sexual perversion are not among them. These are huge issues.
The truth is on the “conservative” side.
True, for a coalition, those would be thorny issues. Time will tell.
Gabbard is not to be trusted. Now she’s the darling of “conservative” men. See Carlson and those who post on aerticles about her.
She might be the darling of conservative men for another reason.
Mata Hari
These days, I’ll take my allies wherever I can find them.
The scary thing to me is that if the Court ever goes back to 5-4 liberal, or if the anti-Constitutionalists in the Democrat party pack the Court, there will no longer be free speech. All it takes is a one Justice majority to say that hate speech isn’t covered any longer and Brandenburg v Ohio will be gone…as will the Constitution. Of course if that time arrives we will not hear the liberals crying “what about stare decisis” or any other lame precedential inanities.
As a practicing lawyer for nearly 50 years, it is amusing (and pretty sad) to listen to the weaklings who feel they need a law to protect them from unkind or hurtful speech “hate speech.” Try walking for a while in my briefs. How would you like to hear people latch onto and repeat endlessly “[t]he first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” When Dick the Butcher spoke this line in Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, many in the throng who “hate” lawyers interpreted it incorrectly and adopted it as their slogan. Did you ever listen to a game show where they ask contestants to give synonyms for lawyers? Shark, snake, weasel, skunk, crook, etc. I don’t recall anyone ever calling a lawyer “defender of democracy.” Have you ever heard a lawyer joke where the lawyer was the good guy? For that matter, when anyone is telling a lawyer joke, have you ever heard anyone ask him or her to stop? And in spite of all of this, when people are in trouble, my phone still rings. The best remedy for hate speech is the same as the remedy for Senator Cardin’s pronouncements: ignore them. Your phone will still ring too.
How come sharks don’t eat lawyers? Professional courtesy.
Independent Bob– I should have added that the first thing I usually do when I hear a lawyer joke is laugh, as I did when I read your comment (even though I have heard it before it is still funny). Thanks.
Honestlawyermostly, where I come from there are a ton of lawyers and they all agree there are too many. Many of them are trying to become judges. It really is tough to make it in private practice
@HonestLawyer – your comment “Try walking for a while in my briefs” – superb play on words. Thank you for that.
To honestlawyermostly
“A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS” Thomas More, Lawyer, Judge, philosopher and played in academy award winning style by Paul Schofield in the movie. One of the best performances on the law and its ability to protect all. Especially his defense of Satan, if he came to trial and requested counsel. Having been physician for many attorneys and even a local judge and worked with others as expert witness, witness of fact and defended by attorneys in malpractice cases, I have nothing but great respect for most attorneys. Like physicians, there are occasional bad ones. If I am in being defended in a case I want the biggest, baddest shark in the water on my side. No exceptions.
Shark can be a nickname of affection and respect. The other nicknames, not so much.
“One of the best performances on the law and its ability to protect all. Especially his defense of Satan, if he came to trial and requested counsel.”
*****************************
Hey Doc, we desperately try not to defend Satan. We defend the law. If Satan’s an unintended beneficiary, then that’s just an unhappy coincidence. Like with criminal work, our client is actually five old pieces of parchment paper in an archive.:D
GEB – The real Thomas More is not a good example of someone defending free speech. He both censored and burned Protestants. As summarized in his Wikepedia article: “Burning at the stake had been a standard punishment for heresy: 30 burnings had taken place in the century before More’s elevation to Chancellor, and burning continued to be used by both Catholics and Protestants during the religious upheaval of the following decades.[44] Ackroyd notes that More zealously “approved of burning”.[19]: 298 Marius maintains that More did everything in his power to bring about the extermination of the Protestant “heretics”.[42]”
GEB- thanks for your comment. In Federal Court here, a lawyer must accept criminal appointments to keep his or her license. The last one I had (years ago) made me glad, all over again, that I do not practice criminal law. My client had nine prior felony convictions and had spent most of his life in jail/ prison. He told me when I first met him, “I guess I’m a career criminal.” He thought for a moment and then added, “I’m not very good at it ’cause I get caught a lot.” In this drugs and guns case, the jury convicted him (after 12 hours of deliberations), I appealed to the Fifth Circuit and won, retried the case in San Antonio where he was convicted again. After he was sentenced, he sued me for malpractice. It was nothing personal, it just meant a trip outside prison to the courthouse.
to honestlawyermostly
Well physicians have to take ER call which means you have to take anyone that comes in, usually with no doc or insurance. They can be challenging, enlightening, infuriating, often grateful and occasionally hateful but we all have to do it and they will sue you at the drop of a hat. As far as Thomas More himself, that is a different issue. Actually the role played by Paul Schofield made a better point of a just defense for all people irrespective of their circumstances and points of view than the actual Thomas More. But then again we all have clay feet. At least we usually don’t have to pay with our head.
It is precisely the opposite! Nice, popular speech does not need protection. Free speech is designed to protect the unpopular and disagreeable like hate.
fjmilanesbellsouthnet: Exactly so.
I’m Noticing that most of these anti-Constitution people have a connection (found in his wikipedia ‘Early Life” description).
A high number of lawyers who defend the Constitution also have that characteristic. The fact is that they are highly represented in the professions because they are a high-performance people. Thus they gave us the Frankfurt School (bad) and the Austrian School (good). They gave us Sam Harris and Richard Blumenthal (bad), but also Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, and Glenn Greenwald (good), as well as Bill Maher (mixed).