RangerGress wrote:
big kahuna wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
You didn't answer the question.Whether it was "mean" or not doesn't matter, and I simply don't care if it was. It was speech. It should be free. It's was I spent two-plus decades helping to defend.
But no: it doesn't sound "mean" to me. It sounds like speech to me.
BK, you've got a funny idea as to what the 1st Amendment means. The first Amendment isn't quite about "free speech". The 1st Amendment simply lists a few "don't's" for Congress. One of them being "passing laws that abridge speech". What shitty things person A says to person B has nothing to do with a list of "don't's" for Congress. Just because we colloquially call the idea "freedom of speech" doesn't make us free to change the meaning of the unambiguous text.
The courts have provided us a long recitation of what 1A means, including that it means having the right -- outside of a very few proscribed instances -- to speak freely. Here's 1A in its entirety (note, as well, that there's no such thing as a "hate speech" exception to 1A):
"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."
This is from the USCourts.gov website:
"Among other cherished values, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech."
The courts -- in generally recognizing that 1A, and the Constitution itself, in conjunction with the Bill of Rights, was designed to prevent the government removing natural rights, such as the right to speak freely without fear of retribution or physical harm -- have gradually expanded the understanding of the scope and meaning of 1A over the centuries. One saw this in the debate over whether pornography constituted "speech" and whether or not that speech (if it was indeed speech) was in need of protecting, which is what the government is charged with by the Constitution: protecting and guaranteeing our natural rights.
First Amendment absolutists, such as myself, maintain that there's no debate whatsoever. There is an unabridged right to speak freely, with the exception of those very few instances in which speech must be tempered. Civilized people, also such as myself (hah!) only temper their speech out of a sense of respect for others or out of propriety or a desire to be polite and to observe the codes that govern civil conduct between people.
We of course also say that 1A is meant to keep the government from abridging that right, but that in private places such as the LR there is no absolute right to free speech. I do agree with that point, and the relationship between the Godfather and us, here in the LR, is a consensual one. He is free to release our speech-related animal spirits or restrict them as he may, and we are free to either accede to those actions or to leave and find more welcoming and greener pastures.I have no problem with that. Whether I find it "fair" -- and whoever said that life was fair -- is beside the the point.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."