daswig

Eh, who needed freedom of association anyway? It's kinda like the third Amendment....when was the last time somebody in the US had troops quartered in their houses? We don't need that one either...

CShine

Since no one has yet done so, let me quote this little tidbit just for the record.



Now how are you gonna get rid of political parties with a little inconvenience like the First Amendment still hanging around?

filtherton

I don't know, is it illegal to yell fire in a crowded theatre or threaten the life of the president?

dksuddeth

yes, because the one time some idiot yelled fire in a theater, dozens of people were killed in the stampede. unfortunately, there are people out there that have the notion that 'freedom of speech' immunizes you from having to have common sense, forethought of your actions, or consequences thereof.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

filtherton

My point was the the freedom of speech certainly isn't absolute, and only exists as long as it is convenient for the powers that be. Given that the powers that be have succesfully bamboozled at least part of the populace into happily trading in their hard earned freedom for a quickfix of psuedosecurity, let's check back on our precious freedom of speech twenty years from now, and see where it is.

C4 Diesel

Thank you! That's exactly what I was hoping someone would get at.

__________________
C4 to your door, no beef no more...

daswig

In your "fire in a crowded theater" bit, you left out one very important word..."falsely". If there is in fact a fire in the theater, you certainly CAN yell "FIRE!" and it be legal.

Your argument is basically "I can't legally lie so that I can steal things or hurt people, so I'm not "free" to say what I want." Prohibitions against fraud isn't an infringement upon the First Amendment, and it never has been. Neither are credible threats seen as protected speech. If that's being "bamboozled", then we've been "bamboozled" from the get-go, since such conduct has indeed been illegal since the founding of the Republic.

filtherton

You miss the point.
The constitution should really read:
Freedom of speech is myth. The first amendment is only kept afloat because there would be revolution if it were infringed upon too grievously for the general populace to handle. However, if the general populace were to be put in such a position so as to believe that they were, in fact, better off without all this freedom, the entire bill of rights might very readily become meaningless.
We have been bamboozled from the get-go. How far does your freedom of speech or assembly go onto private property, or even public property? Do you have the freedom to assemble anywhere you want? Can you say whatever you want whenever you want in a court of law without being made to suffer consequences? My constitution doesn't have a footnote on the bill of rights leading to a gigantor-sized list of exceptions. Yet there are so many exceptions. Where do they all come from? Who decides where the freedom of speech ends? My guess is, with the endorsement of the courts, congress. But wait, doesn't the constitution expressly forbid congress from making laws abridging the freedom of speech or the right to peaceably assemble?

daswig

On private property, if you own the property in question, it goes quite a long way. If you don't own the property in question, they can indeed kick your ass off. That's not about the First Amendment, that's about trespass. On public property, there can be restrictions placed upon gatherings for public safety, but content-driven discrimination isn't allowed. This means that if a permit is required, and one group with a popular message is issued a permit, the goverment can't deny the other group with the other, unpopular message a permit for the same venue at a different time based upon the message. That's why the Skokie Nazis could march.

You don't have the freedom to assemble wherever you want. If you have no right to be someplace, you can't assemble there. You can't decide to assemble in my house or on my land if I don't want you here. You can't decide to assemble in the middle of a busy highway to block traffic. But if it's a public forum, you can't be denied equal access with all other groups because your message is unpopular, unless it reaches the point that your message is actually violating the law.

Regarding a court of law: Perjury is a crime, which dates back long before white people came to the Americas. And you can't act in a disruptive manner. For example, screaming at the Judge "I'm going to kill you!" is considered not only improper courtroom etiquette, it's criminal. But if you're acting pro se in your own defense, generally there's a LOT of leeway granted.

Regarding things like perjury, fraud, et cetera being covered by the First Amendment WRT congress making laws about them, it's not the speech that's the issue, it's the intent to steal that's the issue.

C4 Diesel

Which is exactly the point, daswig. Actions that are injurious to society (as I firmly believe political parties, or at least the ones that we have, have become) can be excluded from constitutional protection without directly being stated in it. This is generally where cases have gone to the US supreme court and been decided by interpretation. If a law passed banning political parties, the same would probably happen. I would actually find this a very interesting circumstance... lawyers debating the constitutional protection of assembly for politicians vs injury to society which they cause.

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C4 to your door, no beef no more...

smooth

The issue with your statement is that political parties were around before the constitution was drafted and continued to be around afterwards.

While it might appear that the things dawsig listed were arbitrarily decided upon, the justices actually go through a historical analyses to see the traditional things understood to be part of one's fundamental freedom of speech.

Basically, one's right to defraud another or commit perjury never existed, even before the first amendment. so the justices would conclude that it doesn't exist now, afterward. Being a well established concept and limitation to the drafters, it wouldn't be realistic to interpret their actions as abolishing that limitations, especially after they look at the various local laws and common understandins in the lower courts and find that those limitations existed after the drafting, too.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman