Remove the Gag that Progressives Have Put on the First Amendment

Today, United Kingdom citizens are voting for members of Parliament, whose majority will determine the next British prime minister. And today the new Israeli government was announced following the election of the Knesset parliamentary members by Israeli citizens. Both events bear witness to the core function of democratic societies - free elections based on the ability of citizens to choose their leaders and governments in a peaceful exercise of self-determination without social coercion or strongman military interference. Such elections are not possible unless free speech and assembly are guaranteed to all, regardless of their views or prejudices. These are the rights protected by the First Amendment : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." These precious words have protected Americans since December 15, 1791. ~~~~~ American citizenship would be meaningless without the right to speak freely. But recently the First Amendment has come under attack -- and often by journalists and minorities who stand to benefit most from its guarantees. This was obvious last weekend when two gunmen attempted a mass shooting at an event in Garland, Texas. Organizers had invited people to draw cartoons of Mohammed. The lead gunman put a message out on social media that the pair would carry out the attack on behalf of ISIS. A security guard shot them before they could do nothing more than wound another guard, but the incident started a debate over terrorism and free speech. Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group whose campaigns have previously been accused of insulting Islam, said the intention of the event in Garland was to show that her group would not "submit to violent intimidation." The event included an exhibition of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed with a $10,000 prize for the best image. She said the event was provocative only to those who accept Sharia blasphemy laws. "Must non-Moslems accept those laws now?" she asked. "The question is whether we will allow ourselves to be silenced and subjugated, or whether we will stand for the freedom of speech, our foremost protection against tyranny." ~~~~ Geller wanted to show solidarity with others, especially cartoonists like those at Charlie Hebdo and in Denmark several years earlier, who had been either threatened with death or actually killed for publishing critical or satirical cartoons about Mohammed and the Islamic faith. And predictably, just as the French mainstream media focused on suggesting that Charlie Hebdo shouldn't have provoked radical Islam, in the Garland aftermath, some US media and analysts blamed event organizers for the attempted massacre that intended to make them the victims -- upside down logic. ~~~~~ The First Amendment protects speech critical of religions, historical religious figures and current leaders. Yet a Pew poll taken in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre showed only 60% of Americans offering support for that position, while 28% said that it should explicitly be forbidden. Another poll taken in 2014 by The First Amendment Center showed that only 53% of Americans supported the right to speak publicly in ways that might offend other religious groups, and less than half said speech that offends racial sensibilities should be protected. ~~~~~ It’s one thing for the general public to be uninformed about the First Amendment and its reach, or to disagree with the broad freedom it protects. But, when journalists argue that government should curb speech, they are hacking away at the very right which allows them to do their job -- and be protected when they take unpopular positions. This week, for example, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo - an attorney, and former chief justice correspondent for ABC News - insisted that “hate speech” is not protected by the First Amendment. “Hate speech is excluded from protection. It's in the Constitution…read it.” RUBBISH. There is no “hate speech” exclusion in the Constitution. And such an exclusion has not been added by Supreme Court decisions. When challenged, Cuomo kept insisting that the 1942 Supreme Court decision on Chaplinsky created a hate-speech exclusion -- the decision never even mentions “hate speech.” A 2011 Supreme Court decision on a civil lawsuit against the infamous Westboro Baptist Church held 8 to 1 the right of WBC to conduct its hateful protests and hate-filled rhetoric at the funerals of soldiers as an exercise of their First Amendment rights. Justice Stephen Breyer, in his concurrence, dispenses with the idea that Chaplinsky or anything else eliminates the protection the First Amendment gives to speech - even to the notorious WBC speech about gays and lesbians. Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court held that a state could not prosecute over the placement of symbols merely on the basis that they could reasonably “arouse anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.” Cuomo who is both a lawyer and a journalist knows this, or should -- it is what lawyers call "black letter law" - the fundamantal legal principles of American jurisprudence. The ignorant arguments posed by the American media this week might help to explain why Americans are so uninformed about free speech. ~~~~~ But, dear readers, the problem goes deeper than that. To argue that public safety may be more important than the First Amendment could encourage the use of violence to prompt government intervention to silence critics -- creating more violence. The fundamental questions Americans should be asking are : Who would decide what constitutes “provocative” speech?  Who would decide which opinions are “hate speech”? The answer the media seems to be giving is that the cultural elite -- who keep getting free speech wrong -- are the best qualified to make such decisions. We have seen political correctness, pushed by progressive groups, form a cone of silence around key issues -- race relations, public safety, police regulations, religious values,gender issues -- the list is long and prevents the needed profound public debate that could lead to solutions. It is difficult not to see these imposed rules of political correctness as attempts to control the political sphere by silencing dissent or demonizing it as “bullying,” “bigoted,” and "racist." The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech in plain English. Those who demand the surrender of that right are not interested in preserving the values of individual liberty. They want to control rather than inform and educate. It is high time that the American majority take back the political and social dialogue on the basis not of carefully chosen words but in the raucous and invigorating free-for-all that represents real constititional democracy at work.