Hypocrisy and the First Amendment

Every time someone in this country is told they can't say something by anyone, you get a bunch of tinfoil hat folks screaming about the Constitution and the First Amendment.

Let me explain this very slowly to you:

The...Constitution...of...the...United....States....of....America...is...a....document...that....provides...certain...powers....and....limits...on...those...powers...to....the...federal...government.

It has literally no effect on you.

I say literally because it is written to have no effect on you, but we talk about rights so much people seem to think the document created something they own and the Supreme Court sometimes agrees.

It's a mess.  Don't get me started.

But even from the illiterate view, the Constitution does not say that no one can make anyone shut up, ever.  Just the government.

So A&E is mad about duck dude hating gays, that's not a First Amendment issue.  Savvy?

Now, sadly, to that tinfoil hat crowd a number of attorneys have joined: Scott Greenfield, his mentee Horowitz, and some other assholes.

Of course, Greenfield and said assholes are smart enough not to actually claim the First Amendment applies. Only Horowitz seems to claim this and makes the bizarre additional claim that the First Amendment ended slavery. But as a group, there's that tinfoil hat tendency to claim all Americans can say whatever they want and no one can stop them because it's a free country.  Hell, they'd welcome a law that made it unlawful to make other people shut up.

Or would they?

Greenfield routinely silences people on his page and then writes long, rambling columns about how sad it makes him that stupid people comment on his work.  Pot calling the kettle, but whatever.

Sometimes, some people really need to shut the fuck up.

So, as Horowitz claims, did the First Amendment win the Civil War and end slavery?

No,the First Amendment A. did not apply to the states and B. did not mean what we now say it means.  Because A. Fourteenth Amendment was not passed till 1868, and B. free market of ideas crap doesn't even show up till like 1953 (though you can date the idea back to Holmes in..1918).

Hell, states constantly banned abolitionist publications.  BECAUSE THEY COULD.

Granted, without a First Amendment, had Congress/President ever agreed to ban abolitionist writings they might have.  I'm not so sure that would have saved slavery though.  Because, you know, the historical reasons slavery ended.  Read a book.

Would it be nice if attorneys learned about things before they babbled like idiots on the internet for their adoring dipshit public?

Yep.

But I won't tell them to shut up, since frankly, we're criminal defense attorneys, so no one important is listening anyway.