I've written on this before but it's an issue which is worth revisiting. The University of California at Berkeley, which is a public university, has gotten something of a reputation as ground zero for battles over free speech in the past and the present. University students and others have used the threat of violent reactions or actual violent reactions to prevent or shut down speeches by conservatives such as David Horowitz, Milo and others. The latest skirmish in this battle involves conservative writer and provocateur Ann Coulter, who had planned to speak at Berkeley on April 27. Berkeley required a number of conditions for this speech to proceed, all of which Coulter claimed she followed. Nonetheless UC Berkeley said that it simply could not guarantee Coulter's safety nor that of its students or other people so they cancelled the April 27th speech. After some negative reaction UC Berkeley backtracked and stated that an early May date at a different venue might be possible. That also happens to be when many students would most likely be in finals or off campus, so the possible audience for Coulter's speech would be much smaller. At the time of this writing Coulter is stating that she will give a speech on April 27 as originally planned. Period.This sets up a possible showdown between Coulter and campus or city police. This is of course probably exactly what Coulter wants.
As part of this generalized controversy over conservative "hateful" speakers being prevented from speaking at public universities, former Vermont governor and DNC chairman Howard Dean tweeted that "hate speech" was not protected by the First Amendment. Some writers and intellectuals that I otherwise appreciate and respect actually agreed with him.
If you didn't see this or hear about this already it's worthwhile in my opinion to view a quick message from the man whose actions continue to have extended repercussions both domestically and internationally. We're living in interesting times. I guess one man can make a difference after all. Say what you like about Snowden but he wasn't the one lying to you. Your government was. Wake up.
After the electoral stomping that President Obama gave to a hapless Mitt Romney as well as the slow transformation of once solidly red states into purple or even blue states, many people on the political left are chafing at limits on Presidential and/or majoritarian power. Whether it's Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow getting their talking points from the White House and dutifully coming out against whatever the "evil Republicans" are doing or immigration rights activists urging the President to meet their goals through executive orders or law school deans jawboning the Supreme Court to not invalidate a law because the President really wanted it, some folks aren't fond of limited government or separation of powers, at least as long as their guy is in charge.
There's an unseemly amount of outrage, among the Right and the Left that the other side is able to thwart their goals by using procedural mechanisms built into our system of governance. This is currently most obvious among the Left but that's just because the Left is politically ascendant while the Right is still slightly better at unified opposition-or at least it was until the fiscal cliff deal.
If you ever took a civics or political science class, you know that we have three co-equal branches of government. The President doesn't get to make law, only enforce it. The courts can interpret but have no enforcement capacity. Congress can withhold money and write law but can't tell the executive branch what to do. So theoretically, each branch can prevent the other two from carrying out unlawful or unconstitutional actions. And human nature being what it is each branch tends to be jealous of its powers and prerogatives. Purely from spite one branch may oppose another branch and limit its options. This rivalry and jealously should work to the citizens' advantage as there is no all powerful centralized government which can create, enforce and interpret law all at once.
That's the theory of our Constitution.
But reality is quite different. There has been, almost from the beginning, a tendency for the President to stretch his authority and break rules. Sometimes there are strong people in Congress and the Courts to, figuratively speaking, throw something high and inside to make the President stop hogging the plate, so to speak. Sometimes, however, there aren't. Often, majorities don't see why they shouldn't win on everything.
There have been increasingly loud mutterings on the Left about getting rid of the Senate filibuster, having the President raise the debt ceiling unilaterally, dropping the electoral college, eliminating the Senate, ignoring the rule that spending bills must start in the House, and urging Presidential executive orders on every hot button issue that twists their knickers. Recently Louis Seidman, a Georgetown law professor, wrote that the time had come to junk the Constitution. Unfortunately he didn't say what to replace it with or, in my view, make a cogent argument about why the Constitution was bad. Seidman made the by now obligatory ad hominems that the Founders were long dead white men, had no idea what challenges we faced today, and were often racist slave owners. That's all true and all in the context he was using, completely irrelevant. Those same dead white men also placed freedom of speech and the right to jury trial in the Constitution. It seems a bit, well, difficult to blast something that you don't like as coming from evil white slaveowners and then keep quiet about things you do like but which came from those same evil white slaveowners. In the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text. Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.
This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.
Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country. If we are not to abandon constitutionalism entirely, then we might at least understand it as a place for discussion, a demand that we make a good-faith effort to understand the views of others, rather than as a tool to force others to give up their moral and political judgments.
If even this change is impossible, perhaps the dream of a country ruled by “We the people” is impossibly utopian. If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.
So give it a shot. You are Willy F***** Wonka and this is your chocolate factory! You are King or Queen for a day. The below questions are only examples. Don't let them limit you.
Questions
You and you alone can rewrite the Constitution. What stays or goes?
Free Speech? Commerce Clause? Police Searches? Presidential Authority on War?
Get rid of state authority completely? No private ownership of guns?
Place abortion rights and equal pay for women in the Bill of Rights?
Ignore the rules about being able to confront witnesses at trial?
Allow 15 yr olds to vote? Prevent people on welfare from voting? Have intelligence tests for voting?
Ban all forms of affirmative action? Make hate speech unprotected by First Amendment?
Eliminate standing armies? Get rid of the Federal Reserve?
The atrocity at Sandy Hook caused much discussion about what the United States Congress and/or the President can do about gun violence in this country. There has been a lot of talk about Senator Dianne Feinstein's proposed assault weapons ban, Vice-President Biden's task force on guns and President Obama's hints about assault weapons bans or other possible actions that he can take without Congressional approval. As you might imagine almost none of these ideas have gone over very well with people with expansive or as they would term it strict constitutional views on gun rights. One man who is getting some attention for speaking out against such possible gun control legislation is (former) Marine and Afghanistan Veteran Joshua Boston, who recently responded online at CNN to Senator Dianne Feinstein's proposed assault weapons ban legislationin pretty much the same manner as King Leonidas responded to a Persian demand to throw down his weapons all those centuries ago. His letter in full is just below:Senator Dianne Feinstein,
I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.
I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America. I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.
I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public. We, the people, deserve better than you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston Cpl, United States Marine Corps 2004-2012
This letter quickly went viral. It summed up succinctly and some would say ominously the issues faced as the US struggles with the problems posed by gun violence. In order to further illuminate his stance Cpl. Boston was recently interviewed. He reiterated his viewpoint and gave a little more insight into where he was coming from regarding the right to keep and bear arms. He didn't take anything back. As you can see these beliefs are fervently held. One person can be written off as a kook or gun nut. But if Boston is just the tip of the spear so to speak, this could mean that any legislation, even if passed, won't have the desired impact, just as the previous ban did not. After all rifles are used for a very very small portion of murders. Check out the 2011 numbers for handguns or for other weapons used.Let's dive a little deeper and use a quick analogy to see if we can understand where Boston and people like him might be coming from. Since 1973 there has been a right to have an abortion. Millions of people consider that fundamentally settled law and don't much care to hear the other side's objections. If there ever were a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade and/or a President and Senate that would appoint justices who would do such a thing, I expect that roughly 50-55% of the country would have a serious problem with any new anti-abortion laws that proliferated. In fact I think that millions of people would simply and proudly refuse to abide by such laws, viewing them as unjust and unconstitutional. Period. I do not see any scenario in which the heads of NOW or NARAL would simply say "Well the law's the law" and agree to accept it.
I don't have the answers to those questions. All I can say is that obedience to the law is not always or even necessarily the highest moral good. A country that can't seem to find and remove 11-20 million illegal immigrants is a country that will not be able to nationally register, track or ban upwards of 200 million semi-automatic weapons. We do need to have a national conversation on access to guns. We also need to talk about many other things. But having that conversation with senators and mayors who have already shown their contempt for the Fourth and Fifth Amendments doesn't make me think they will show any more respect for the Second. I think that many gun rights advocates will be getting in touch with their inner Thoreau.
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law so much as for the right. If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law-Henry David ThoreauThoughts?
Was Boston showing contempt for his oath of enlistment?
Do you support an updated and improved Federal Assault Weapons Ban?
Do you think a Ban will pass?
Can you ever justify breaking the law? If so, when and how?
