Robert Hairless
Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,983
Your friend is a dangerous idiot. By his logic the First Amendment is even more archaic, and so are most other articles in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution himself. Here's how his thinking works.
The First Amendment to the Constitution was written at a time when there was no media except newspapers, leaflets, and posters: all of it was printed, by hand, one sheet of paper at a time. Newspapers were issued weekly or monthly, so the First Amendment guarantee of "freedom of the press" applies only to hand printed materials produced on a printing press and published no more frequently than once a week. Your local penny saver shopper might be protected by the First Amendment because it is issued weekly if it is printed on a hand press. If not, it has no freedom of the press. Daily newspapers like The New-York Times and the Washingon Post can't possibly be protected by freedom of the press because they are not in any way the kind of publication that existed at the time of the Bill of Rights.
The people who wrote and adopted the Bill of Rights could not possibly have predicted radio, television, the Internet, or any other electronic medium, so they couldn't possibly have intended to extend the First Amendment to protect any journalism in those media.
For those same reasons and others, the First Amendment can't possibly protect free speech over the telephone, radio, television, movies, recordings, the Internet, and other modern media. They did not exist and could not have been predicted at the time of the First Amendment, so they just can't be protected by its guaranteed freedom of speech. There were no amplifiers or sound systems then so when a person talks into a microphone and his voice goes through a speaker, what he says is not protected by the First Amendment. The only speech that existed then is the only kind of speech the people who wrote the First Amendment could have intended to protect.
The First Amendment also can't possibly protect any religion that did not exist then. Say goodbye to freedom of religion for the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), Christian Science, Conservative Judiasm, and Reformed Judiasm, among many other religions that did not exist at the end of the Eighteenth Century.
Follow your friend's logic, apply it to other amendments, and you probably justify reintroducing slavery and revoking the right of women to vote. Your friend, the media, the Brady Campaign, Hillary Clinton, and others are going down a dark road that has potential horrors at its end. The Constitution is essentially a contract. They want to twist its terms as never before. My guess is that they will succeed, but that they won't like the results of the precedent they are establishing.
The First Amendment to the Constitution was written at a time when there was no media except newspapers, leaflets, and posters: all of it was printed, by hand, one sheet of paper at a time. Newspapers were issued weekly or monthly, so the First Amendment guarantee of "freedom of the press" applies only to hand printed materials produced on a printing press and published no more frequently than once a week. Your local penny saver shopper might be protected by the First Amendment because it is issued weekly if it is printed on a hand press. If not, it has no freedom of the press. Daily newspapers like The New-York Times and the Washingon Post can't possibly be protected by freedom of the press because they are not in any way the kind of publication that existed at the time of the Bill of Rights.
The people who wrote and adopted the Bill of Rights could not possibly have predicted radio, television, the Internet, or any other electronic medium, so they couldn't possibly have intended to extend the First Amendment to protect any journalism in those media.
For those same reasons and others, the First Amendment can't possibly protect free speech over the telephone, radio, television, movies, recordings, the Internet, and other modern media. They did not exist and could not have been predicted at the time of the First Amendment, so they just can't be protected by its guaranteed freedom of speech. There were no amplifiers or sound systems then so when a person talks into a microphone and his voice goes through a speaker, what he says is not protected by the First Amendment. The only speech that existed then is the only kind of speech the people who wrote the First Amendment could have intended to protect.
The First Amendment also can't possibly protect any religion that did not exist then. Say goodbye to freedom of religion for the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), Christian Science, Conservative Judiasm, and Reformed Judiasm, among many other religions that did not exist at the end of the Eighteenth Century.
Follow your friend's logic, apply it to other amendments, and you probably justify reintroducing slavery and revoking the right of women to vote. Your friend, the media, the Brady Campaign, Hillary Clinton, and others are going down a dark road that has potential horrors at its end. The Constitution is essentially a contract. They want to twist its terms as never before. My guess is that they will succeed, but that they won't like the results of the precedent they are establishing.
