The
Soul of the First Amendment
. Floyd Abrams
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.
No need to be a constitutional expert to
appreciate Abrams approach of history and context and current issues
regarding the First Amendment. It’s clearly a tough issue to define
hence why it’s continually before the Supreme Court . He’s a bit
libertarian but clearly a knowledgeable expert and clear writer.
The challenges of the first in America ‘: It
protects hate speech. It protects beyond-stupid speech. It protects
harangues and advertisements for divisive causes. Remarkably, in some
cases, it even protects people from libel and slander convictions’
Justice Hugo black
:’the very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of
the country free to think, speak, write, and worship as they wish and
not as the government commands.’
Franklin Roosevelt
1941 four freedoms speech, worship , freedom from want, freedom from
fear
Scalia “ The
government cannot be trusted to assure through censorship fairness of
political debate”
“ The premise of our
system is there’s no such thing as too much speech that the people
are not foolish but intelligent and will separate the wheat from the
chaff”
The presumption must always be to publish. Only
information appears highly likely to compromise significant national
interest should be withheld.
“Ultimately American press has been held to have
virtually carte blanche freedom to decide what to print. But that
leaves the press with another decision - what to print. The first
amendment provides no answer this question. It never does.”
The book is very quotable, engaging, thoughtful
and topical for today’s world regardless where you stand on the
issue.
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