Comments on: Don’t Make No Promises (Your Bloggy Can’t Keep)

By: Kevin Murphy

Kevin Murphy — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:12:18 +0000

How is it that “Money is not speech” but “Speech is money” ?

Isn’t equality commutative?

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:04:35 +0000

Slander and libel are certainly speech. At common law, a plaintiff need only prove that an allegedly defamatory statement harmed his reputation; it’s up to the defendant to prove the truth defense. The reason that isn’t the law in the U.S. is because the First Amendment has been construed by the courts to prohibit that. And it’s gone further still with public figures, making the plaintiff prove not only that the statement was false, but that the defendant knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard of the truth. These rules are all about preventing the government from unreasonably restricting free speech. If government had no ability to regulate speech at all, libel and slander would have to be legalized outright.

But the issue of reasonable vs. unreasonable regulation of speech is not the reason I opted to tweak Patterico’s pledge. I didn’t put that reasonableness bit in to give the government an out, it’s there to give me an out in the very likely event that the regulations are unconstitutional and are wrong, but are something I’d have to go miles out of my way to violate. Suppose, for example, that they value links in some way that would require me to link to a campaign 700 times for the applicable rule to kick in. I’ll oppose it, and criticize it, etc., but I’d have better things to do with my time than to actually go out and violate it.

By: Kevin Murphy

Kevin Murphy — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:22:04 +0000

My first amendment rights are not absolute. I surely cannot shout “Gun” on an airplane without consequence. Nor can I slander or libel. Those are not speech, those are assaults of one kind or another.

So it is not a question of whether my first amendment rights have been “reasonably” abridged, but whether they have been abridged.

If the founders had meant to say “Congress shall make no unreasonable law…” they jolly well could have.

By: James C. Hess

James C. Hess — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 04:56:54 +0000

I took The Pledge, and now I invite interested parties to read my latest on this at my blog.

By: Claire

Claire — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:56:54 +0000

I’m in.

By: Juliette

Juliette — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 22:58:18 +0000

I knew there was a reason that I wanted to go to law school.

By: Michael Williams

Michael Williams — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 22:16:17 +0000

Thanks for the link… at least for now! If I get thrown into the gulag I may withdraw my appreciation.

By: The Dusty Attic

The Dusty Attic — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:01:34 +0000

Righting the law by writing it ourselves, an Update

[...] I don’t think those who conceived, developed, voted to approve, signed and/or ruled in support of this law will take much notice or be impressed. [...]

By: Dean's World

Dean's World — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 19:34:02 +0000

The FEC and Blogs

In case the FEC does foolishly decide it wants to regulate political speech on the web, Patterico and Xrlq discuss what the best strategy is for countering such idiocy. Xrlq

By: Little Miss Attila

Little Miss Attila — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 19:01:03 +0000

If Worse Comes to Worst

. . . will you defy the FEC and continue your political blogging as you normally would? Patterico asks the question. My answer: hell, yeah. I’ll be surprised if it comes to that, but you never know. The government has…