Anyone Here NOT Support The First Amendment?

Because I am just curious. Please don't pass judgement, people, if someone says they aren't. But please offer at least an explanation.

Me, I've always been a very strong advocate of the First Amendment. Outside of that, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is my only other favorite doctrine. If you're curious, here: Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations

Like I said, no judgements here people...

 

I believe in the first amendment.

I also believe some people should just shut the fuck up, already.

 

Free speech is all well and good, until someone shouts FIRE! in a crowded movie theater. There should be enforceable standards for veracity for purported news organizations in consideration of granting their broadcasting license. This is not just referring to Fox News and hate radio, but mainstream news that is incentivized to skew their reporting to pacify their advertisers and shareholders.
'Seditious conspiracy' really does need to be a real, tangible thing, with real, tangible consequences, especially for elected officials. Otherwise, a failed coup d'etat risks becoming a training exercise.
The freedom of association does not grant the right to form private militias; says so in every state constitution. That really needs to be enforced; name one democracy in history that has allowed private militias to exist and survived.
Also, the 'free exercise' clause should not give anyone the impression that they have license to discriminate, oppress, and terrorize others based upon something as ludicrously ephemeral as their "sincerely held religious beliefs" (superstition).
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN, flawed as it is, are the highest achievements of humanity to date.

 

Over the course of my long and increasingly cynical life, I've learned that idealistic concepts like "freedom" and even words like "good" and "evil" are pure invention. Life is an irresoluble tangle that can't be summed up on a bumper sticker.

I think we can all agree that yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater is not cool. I think we can also agree that calling a 12 year old kid "fat" "ugly" "slut" to the point that she hangs herself is not cool. I think we can all agree that publishing instructions on how to build chemical bombs out of household cleaners is not cool.

The 1st Amendment (the right to free speech), much like the 2nd Amendment (the right to own guns), was written by idealists from a different time. They couldn't possibly imagine how mass media & this thing called the internet could send viral shockwaves across the planet with words capable of killing through psychological warfare, disinformation and mass hysteria. And they couldn't possibly imagine that a "gun" would be an AR-15 capable of launching hundreds of bullets in the time it takes a musketeer to load 1. And all of this (words, bullets) is in the hands of a teenage kid who hasn't even learned to shave.

So yes, I am against the First Amendment in its idealistic form. Not that I'm against free speech. I'm against idiots who don't know how to wield free speech. I think we need to accept the fact that the human race, like any decent online forum, needs to be moderated.

 

And another thing...
For the life of me I don't understand why this isn't self-evident, but corporations are not people. Where a conflict of interests exists, the rights of real, living beings should trump any imaginary rights of fictitious entities that only exist on a scrap of paper every god-damned time!

 

There's no such thing as "free" speech. There are costs and consequences. I believe in truth, knowledge, freedom of information. I mean REAL information. Not sick mentally ill garbage that so many people feel they have the right to spread. When evil people call reality "fake news" and half the population are stupid enough to believe their irrational lies... How valuable is "free speech" when it's constantly used to poison people?

 

You have to understand the context to which the first and second amendment were written. Free speech and press were mostly intended to allow for protests of Great Britain and similar colonial issues of the time. I'm sure Franklin did not intend to encourage today's life threatening mis-information barrage on the internet, which is about the same as yelling fire in a movie theatre....

 

Interesting point.

I think that is is coalitions of parents who want to get involved, that is todays impetus for having certain media banned from public schools.

Thinking that as a educator, you will be able to expand on this issue and provide some nuance.

 

But as usual, the whackiest militant 1% make enough noise to make change because, they are of course, right because they are the loudest and most disruptive at any school board meeting. You have to be out of your mind to sit on a school board these days.

 

1. 
   ed·u·ca·tion
   noun
   1. 
      the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
2. 
   an enlightening experience.
   
   
   in·doc·tri·na·tion
   
   noun
   the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
   
   

 

one mans enlightenment is anothers indoctrination.

 

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In the Citizens United vs FEC. ruling, the nations highest court found that a corporation is allowed to make political donations. Remembering President Obama directing comments on this decision to the supremes during a State of The Union address.

In the last election cycle, Facebooks: Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated some $400 million dollars to local election offices.

Some people may agree or disagree with the intentions of The Donor.

My question is: do such donations deserve tax deductability?

 

Absolutely not !!!

 

"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."

I reluctantly support the First, because censorship never works in the long term. Not only does the idea comes back made stronger by the crackdown, but worst of all "vindicated" in the eyes of many.

Silencing lies is not the "only way", it's merely the easiest way. But its also akin to kicking the can down the road, and the dam bursts eventually.

 

"With Free speech (should,) come great consideration beforehand" - though in a lot of cases, this is not the case'