Originally posted by Liberator
Reversing themselves? I'm expecting them to adjudicate based on Law, not a decision by one man in a particular set of circumstances.
Define 'Freedom of Speech'.
Going strictly by those words, that DOESN'T include any sort of writing (Unless you are a member of the press) or communication beyond speech. But that would also include types of speech that would endanger others' lives.
Jason's hated adversary, John, is doing some work on his house in a precarious position on his ladder. It's a warm summer day, half a dozen people are out as well. Jason sneaks up behind John and suddenly screams "JOHN!", causing John to jerk and fall off the ladder, and breaks his neck.
So it goes to court. Jason's feud with John is well-known, there's a half-dozen witnesses to the murder. But Jason has freedom of speech, so he can't be prosecuted, even though the intent and purpose of his speech was obviously to kill John. In order to get that changed, the Constitution would have to be ammended (sp?) to add "except" and some exceptions to the Freedom of Speech clause. Today, we'd be talking about amendments in the 200s, at least, and at that point the Constitution would have lost a lot of its integrity and, well, sanctity.
But of course, in the meantime, anything you can do with nothing bu speech is legal. And the government can arrest you if you write something it doesn't like in an e-mail, or in your blog, or wherever.
And of course, does the 'Freedom of speech' by itself apply to merely the Federal government, or to individuals and businesses as well? This is where 'interpreting the law' comes in, and why there is such a difference between constructionist and activist judges. A constructionist judge would think along the lines, "Hmm, what were they thinking of when they wrote this law?" An activist judge would think along the lines of, "Hmm, how should this apply today?"
Honestly, today, the President has far more power than the courts. If you are so scared of "a decision by one man in a particular set of circumstances", well, individual judges shouldn't be your biggest concern. If an interpretation of a law is controversial enough, it'll end up in the Supreme Court, where the decision of
nine people, not one, will decide what the law means.
