Strange Justice
Posted by Lex, on September 16, 2010
Stephen Breyer applies Justice Holmes “shouting fire” standard to otherwise protected speech:
During an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America this morning, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer addressed the recent controversy over a Florida pastor’s plan to hold a Quran-burning rally on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, saying he wasn’t convinced the First Amendment would protect such an action if the case were brought to the court in the future.
“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” Breyer told George Stephanopoulos during the GMA interview, referring to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who wrote the opinion in a 1919 Supreme Court decision that addressed Freedom of Speech. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”
Perhaps Justice Breyer would do better to focus his attention on those doing the trampling, if he cannot find it in his heart to think about those being trampled. In these links we find that Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, of “Everybody Draw Mohammed” fame, has been advised by the FBI to go into hiding, change her name, leave town. Start over. We also learn that Derek Fenton, who burned pages of Islam’s holy book at the site of the Ground Zero mosque, has been fired from his employment with the state of New Jersey for doing so. On his own time.
This is still America, right? Land of the free, home of the brave?
There are few places where it is possible to quote both Voltaire and Noam Chomsky in the same breath. This is one of them.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire
“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Stalin and Hitler, for example, were dictators in favor of freedom of speech for views they liked only. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.” – Chomsky
Justice Breyer appears to favor a “Chickenshit Exception” to the First Amendment.
When people worried that George W. Bush’s War on Terror might cause us to lose our essential freedoms, I very much doubt that they had this in mind: Calm, dishonorable, vile submission.