Over the course of my life I have seen a number of supreme court decisions that I found bothersome. Decisions that I and many others didn't agree with, but few have stung me quite as badly as the two most recent decisions involving first amendment interpretation of free speech by this courts.
Last year, the court had the audacity to extend first amendment protections to the actions of the Westboro Baptist church of Kansas. The leprous purveyors of true hate that participate in the picketing and disrespect of American service members during their funeral services. The court held that it is perfectly acceptable for these individuals to picket their funerals and spew all manner of vile hatred toward their families. A first amendment protected activity according to the supreme court.
I don't think so.
That ruling holds no more acceptable reasoning or basis in common sense or constitutional rights than the court's ruling yesterday approving reprehensible lying as an extension of protected speech. Oliver Wendell Holmes would truly be spinning in his grave, along with countless others who have fought and died for the rights protected by our constitution.
Our constitution certainly doesn't prohibit the most vile thoughts from being considered by an individual, but it certainly should be used to consider whether the use of those thoughts as vile attacks on others or as a means to inflict pain on others is or should be a protected right.
Once again, I don't believe so.
There are many constitutional absolutist who will maintain and contend that actions such as these by Westboro and those who claim to be heroes are protected acts. They are not and they should never be, but the supreme court has allowed them and until the court reverse itself or is forced to reverse itself, these intentional errors will stand and remain the standard. Idiocy continues to breed idiocy.
Welcome to the world of egalitarianism. A place where everything is fair and if it isn't? The government will force the perception of necessity of fairness, in order to create the illusion of fairness. Egalitarianism is a world where there are no individual rights other than fairness. Egalitarianism blurs the lines of falsehood truth and lies to represent the altered reality as some form of supreme fairness. And once again we see egalitarianism as the guiding influence of the supreme court and the laws governing our land.
Court tosses law about false claims on medals
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a federal law making it a crime to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor and other prized military awards, with justices branding the false claim "contemptible" but nonetheless protected by the First Amendment.
The court voted 6-3 in favor of Xavier Alvarez, a former local elected official in California who falsely said he was a decorated war veteran and had pleaded guilty to violating the 2006 law, known as the Stolen Valor Act. The law, enacted when the U.S. was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, was aimed at people making phony claims of heroism in battle.
The ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, ordered that the conviction be thrown out.
"Though few might find respondent's statements anything but contemptible, his right to make those statements is protected by the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech and expression. The Stolen Valor Act infringes upon speech protected by the First Amendment," Kennedy said.
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