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Weaponizing the First Amendment: How Free Speech Became a Conservative Cudgel
NY Times ^ | 6/30/18 | Adam Liptak

Posted on 06/30/2018 12:43:54 PM PDT by Libloather

WASHINGTON — On the final day of the Supreme Court term last week, Justice Elena Kagan sounded an alarm.

The court’s five conservative members, citing the First Amendment, had just dealt public unions a devastating blow. The day before, the same majority had used the First Amendment to reject a California law requiring religiously oriented “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide women with information about abortion.

Conservatives, said Justice Kagan, who is part of the court’s four-member liberal wing, were “weaponizing the First Amendment.”

The two decisions were the latest in a stunning run of victories for a conservative agenda that has increasingly been built on the foundation of free speech. Conservative groups, borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals, have used the First Amendment to justify unlimited campaign spending, discrimination against gay couples and attacks on the regulation of tobacco, pharmaceuticals and guns.

(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1stamendment; amendment; conservative; free; freespeech; speech
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To: Libloather
In other words, the Left never support free speech per se, but only as a tool to advance Leftist causes. This is how Leftist jurisprudence works: conclusion first, rational later. The Queen of Hearts would be proud.
21 posted on 06/30/2018 1:07:24 PM PDT by Petrosius
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To: Dilbert San Diego

You are spot-on correct. Roe v. Wade, when viewed strictly as a legal precedent is widely considered the worst SC decision of the modern era. I don’t mean according to your opinion of abortion as a “choice”. I mean the judgement was made on the basis of things unrelated to the case such as a women’s “right to privacy”, etc.

I’m always amazed at how unprincipled and hypocritical, these democrats are. So, in 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, stating a marriage is only a man and a woman. Hillary and Obama agreed. Just 15 to 18 years later it was taken to the SC and Obama’s justice dept. did not defend it in court. They can turn their “principles” on a dime just depending on the direction the wind is blowing.


22 posted on 06/30/2018 1:20:55 PM PDT by JohnEBoy
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To: Petrosius
Exactly so. Pity me, I read the entire article.

In Leftworld, laws and rights only possess value to the degree they forward such eternal values as social justice.

23 posted on 06/30/2018 1:23:05 PM PDT by gogeo (No justice, no peace.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
Kinda like counting, recounting over & over until you win an election.

and cry that the court stole the election when ordered to certify the results

24 posted on 06/30/2018 1:23:16 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: Libloather

25 posted on 06/30/2018 1:33:10 PM PDT by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
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To: Libloather

The liberals used 1A as a weapon, not conservatives.

Get over it, NY SLIMES.


26 posted on 06/30/2018 1:35:08 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: Libloather

A cudgel kind of like the way regressives use the ‘Promote the general welfare’ statement to enslave the taxpayer.


27 posted on 06/30/2018 1:36:20 PM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: Libloather

The left believe FREE SPEECH only belongs to them.

I am looking forward to the time when the laws that actually restrict SPEECH are overturned. Political correctness is a disease sucking the life out of America.


28 posted on 06/30/2018 1:36:31 PM PDT by CIB-173RDABN (US out of the UN, UN out of the US)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
"So there’s no going back on abortion or homosexual marriage."

Laws against God's nature (double meaning) can not stand the test of time.

29 posted on 06/30/2018 1:39:13 PM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: tet68

Bible warning: when the Lord turns against your enemies, don’t gloat — otherwise He may have pity on them.


30 posted on 06/30/2018 1:52:47 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: Architect of Avalon

Or they tell the truth about them. Of course the left hates the real actual truth.


31 posted on 06/30/2018 1:56:58 PM PDT by This I Wonder32460 (Our constitution was made only for a good and religious people. - John Adams)
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To: Libloather

I don’t know if my comment at NYT will pass the censor.
This is my response to a fellow Canuck’s comment justifying violence in response to “harmful” speech...

You might do well to remember another old saying.
“Sticks and stones might break your bones but words will never hurt you.”

If someone’s speech is used as a justification by you to become violent
then it is you that is the problem, not free speech.

Balance your motions with your rationality.
Respond like an adult, not react like a child.


32 posted on 06/30/2018 1:57:22 PM PDT by kanawa (Trump Loves a Great Deal)
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To: fella

A new kind of civil arrangement, such as householding, which is open to all consenting adults, would have made much more sense here. Marriage would have stayed with its classic definition and would become a species of householding. But this is a subversive lust. It didn’t want the philosophical compromise of householding. It wanted to grab marriage.


33 posted on 06/30/2018 1:58:35 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: tet68

The salt! They spilt their tendies!


34 posted on 06/30/2018 2:09:41 PM PDT by stinkerpot65 (Global warming is a Marxist lie.)
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The Left can’t deal with reality.

Declining to provide a wedding cake for two males or two women who want to get married is not discrimination.

If the same couple simply wanted to buy something already made, they could. I’d suggest the owner would probably make them a birthday cake or a celebratory cake for a work related, or group related event.

It is just the idea of making a cake for an event the owner doesn’t support, that causes him/her to decline to provide a special cake for that event.

It is therefore the event the provider objects to. It’s not necessarily the people, since other services would be gladly provided.

Of course the left can’t allow ANYONE to object to anything they endorse on penalty of going to the government to force their lifestyle on everyone.

Sorry, that’s not how life works. I can’t force you to celebrate straightness, and you can’t force me to celebrate homosexuality.

Remember, I can’t force you to celebrate anything. It is your choice.

The cake issue is my choice.

Understand Lefties?

While we’re on this subject, lets go one step further.

As mentioned above, an owner not willing to provide a wedding cake to celebrate a homosexual wedding, does not discriminate if they just want to buy a normal cake or pastries.

Despite this, the Left is outraged that people refuse to provide a wedding cake.

Contrast this with Sarah Sanders, who was denied any service simple based on her family wanting to eat.

Did Sarah ask for the establishment to make them something special to celebrate some Conservative event? No.

Sarah and family wanted to eat. REFUSED

Homosexual couple wants to buy some everyday pastries: ALLOWED

So who is the real offender here?

Once again, the Left is guilty of what they accuse others of, and those they accuse are not.

We see this over and over and over...


35 posted on 06/30/2018 2:15:59 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (01/26/18 DJIA 30 stocks $26,616.71 48.794% > open 11/07/16 215.71 from 50% increase 1.2183 yrs..)
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To: Libloather

Coming from the side that weaponized the Commerce Clause, that’s really rich.

Pssst... don’t tell Fatso Kagan that we’ve weaponized the 2nd Amendment. :>)


36 posted on 06/30/2018 2:38:17 PM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: Libloather

“justify unlimited campaign spending, discrimination against gay couples and attacks on the regulation of tobacco, pharmaceuticals and guns.”

If someone repeats this line with me, I’m going to punch them in the throat.

What are these people smoking ?


37 posted on 06/30/2018 2:38:34 PM PDT by Celerity
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To: Libloather

Your leftist arguments became so incredibly pathetic, that’s how.


38 posted on 06/30/2018 2:47:08 PM PDT by The Toll
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To: gogeo

We need a couple of Free Republic acronyms to make posting comments easier:

IRTEA = I Read The Entire Article;

IDARTAB = I Didn’t Actually Read The Article But ...

Admittedly, the former will seldom be required.

/Snark


39 posted on 06/30/2018 2:50:10 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: Libloather

Liberals now openly oppose free speech, using preposterously militant language. Kagan and Sotomayor have penned perhaps the most retarded nonsense ever to come from a Supreme Court.


40 posted on 06/30/2018 3:11:38 PM PDT by Impy (I have no virtue to signal.)
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