[Neil E. Wright]

Bayonetting the Dead

Interesting that this should happen while everybody is distracted with McChrystal. I’ve already written that the first amendment is dead. But just to be sure, they have bayonetted the body of the First Amendment. No need to check her pulse, they just verified her death for us. She is indeed dead.

Go and read this.

Originally brought in 1998, the case challenges the constitutionality of laws that make it a crime to provide “material support” to groups the administration has designated as “terrorist.” CCR’s clients sought to engage in speech advocating only nonviolent, lawful ends, but the government took the position that any such speech, including even filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, would be a crime if done in support of a designated “terrorist group.”

An excerpt from a comment posted on one of my other articles today (also linked here):

Under censorship, no other rights, including the right to be free from censorship, can be advocated, discussed, or queried. It is incorrect to say that after censorship comes utter subjugation. Censorship is utter subjugation. There is no greater usurpation of liberty while remaining alive. After censorship come the death camps, and they are not a prerequisite of censorship, they are merely a symptom of it. Censorship qua censorship is sufficient in itself to justify open rebellion against any government that legislates, enforces, or upholds it.

However, that is not the half of it. Censorship is alone in being the only violation of individual rights that does not require actual enforcement or challenges in court, before rebellion is justified. When the government forbids you to speak or write, or use your own or a supporter’s property to address willing listeners or readers, that government has openly and forcibly declared that the art of peaceful persuasion is dead and will not be tolerated. Upon that very instant, all peaceful avenues of redress have been closed and the only possible method of regaining that liberty is force. Whenever we give up that force, we are not only ruined, we deserve to be ruined. [emphasis added]

We just saw the court of last resort rule against freedom of speech. The administration is now empowered to designate any group a terrorist group and any speech advocating for that group is a crime. You can’t challenge it in court, for the highest court has already ruled against you. And if anybody tries to defend you or argue on your behalf, they are likewise screwed without benefit of lubricant.

All peaceful avenues for attempting to secure a redress of grievance have been exhausted. Freedom of speech is dead, folks. The dead state of that right was cemented and set in stone today.

The soap box, ballot box and jury box are all utterly impotent at this point. Better make sure you have enough of the fourth type of box on hand for what comes next.

[Update: Further Bayonetting.]

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★ FREEDOM! ★

[Neil E. Wright]

Comments?

★ FREEDOM! ★

[ßuddaßudd]

Coolest looking Mini-14 I’ve ever seen. . .

[unkus]

I’ll repeat this as often as I can:

FUBO!!!

[kingu]

Overreaction to a very limited ruling, reguarding interactions between US Citizens and foreign entities which are on a published list of terrorist organizations. Last time I checked, the First Amendment doesn’t take national diplomacy and put it in the hands of citizens.

[Darkwolf377]

No, it's not DEAD. Silly alarmist junk only piles on hopelessness, so more people will think "What's the use? The war's over."

It'll be over when people believe they've lost. They haven't.

[2aberro]

I think he's overreacting,, FOX news will still play on.

As a side note,, besides guns, ammo, and food,, I recently purchased two old 5 watt CB radio's on ebay that work fine for a very resonably price,,, (less than $20 ech)

Just in case power goes down, I can still talk to folks.

Also, for hurricane supplies, I recently purchased 18 solar lights like people put in their yard. Wife thought I was crazy until I charged 5 and put them in the living room at night.. she was like... Wow!!!!! :-)

Those kerosene lamps put out a lot of heat,, in an already hot house.

[CharlesWayneCT]

It appears the author is announcing the death of the 1st amendment because a court has decided that the President has the right to sign, and the congress to approve, a treaty that takes some copyrighted material for which the copyright had expired, and retroactively extend the copyright.

But copyright is rarely about your right to say what you want, which is what the 1st amendment is about. It is about whether you can steal someone else’s works and use them as your own.

Unless you believe that copyright itself is the death of the 1st amendment, being able to drag small parts of previously copyrighted material back into copyright to satisfy foreign trade agreements hardly seems like the thing that will destroy our rights.

I fear the our conservative principles are being confused with the communistic idea that everybody owns everybody else’s stuff.

[SnakeDoctor]

I’m not entirely sure whether you’re objecting to the Copyright ruling, or the speech in favor of terrorist organizations ruling ... but I don’t find either particularly threatening to the first amendment.

— “Free speech” does not give people the right to steal the intellectual property of others any more than the right to bear arms gives me the right to keep and bear YOUR gun. Theft is theft, intellectual property is property.

— “Free speech” also does not grant the right to give aid and comfort to recognized foreign terrorist organizations. I’ve seen no indication that BO intends on labeling mainstream conservatism “terrorism”, or that the administration intends to target reasonable American citizens for prosecution under this law. The likelihood is that it will be used for Stateside spokespeople for Hamas, AQ, etc ... or as a reason to hold/charge people who are suspected of actual terrorist activity without discolsing intelligence about actual attacks.

We are at war. We should use the tools at our disposal to win it.

SnakeDoc

[Nateman]

What was taken from the public domain and made private again? Since this case is a copyright vs free speech issue is not the ruling that congress gets to decide in such cases limited by this context?

[tutstar]

bump