Dear Kansas Governor Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback:

Peregrinator said:

That's not exactly what it says:

Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...

Is all it says, once you take out the other rights it protects.

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SgtSpiderMan said:

How do you interpret that?

I think you're playing semantics.

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Peregrinator said:

I don't think it needs a whole lot of interpretation:

Senator: Here's a bill.

Other Senator: Does it abridge freedom of speech?

Senator: What? No, it raises taxes on chicken orphanages.

Other Senator: Cool. It passes the First Amendment test, then.




Not really semantics, though. A law could theoretically be passed that doesn't "abridge" freedom of speech, but just punishes it afterwards. I think. We need some lawyers up in here. What I'm trying to puzzle out is whether a law could say "People are allowed to shout "Shit!" at the Queen when she's visiting, but then they must be shot." Rather than "People are not allowed to shout "Shit! at the Queen when she's visiting."

Do you see what I mean? I'm not taking you to task here, just kinda noodling. And if you think I'm playing semantics, wait until the damn lawyers get here.

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KRCummings said:

The threat of punishment by the government for speech is the same as not allowing it.
I don't think it's as deep a question as your making it.

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Wok said:

To the gulag you go!

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KRCummings said:

The threat of punishment by the government for speech is the same as not allowing it.
I don't think it's as deep a question as your making it.

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Peregrinator said:

Maybe. Like I said, I was just noodling around. I'm still waiting for one of the lawyers to opine.

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KRCummings said:

Think about it, it's the same thing. A law says you can't do say something. If you do then you broke the law and will be punished.
A law says if you say something then later you'll be punished.
Same thing.

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badbabysitter said:

It's on the politician in the first place because the polititcian was the one who started the shit storm.. in fact, the principal didnt even know untill Brownshirt got involved

yes.. this way Obama will win... because the more his adversaries show they are pro-censorship the more support he will win

do you think this girl or anyone in her family, or her friends, or anyone she knows will vote for this guy after this?

and yes, free speech is absolute.. and when you decided to stomp all over it, you're going to get backlash

and right,, the school acted.. with prompting by Brownshirt.. something you keep omitting

stop acting like you live in 1939 Germany

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eyer said:

BTW:

John Adams called...

...he said you're his free speech-kinda guy.

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SgtSpiderMan said:

Your problem here is that you don't understand what free speech is.

You said that there were consequences for what she said. The 1st Amendment allows you to say anything you want about the government with NO CONSEQUENCES from the government.

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“Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot”

On Tuesday, Sullivan was called to her principal’s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback’s staff and reported to organizers of the Youth in Government program.

The principal “laid into me about how this was unacceptable and an embarrassment,” Sullivan said. “He said I had created this huge controversy and everyone was up in arms about it … and now he had to do damage control.

“I’m mainly shocked that they would even see that tweet and be concerned about me,” she said. “I just honestly feel they’re making a lot bigger deal out of it than it actually was.”

Sullivan said the principal ordered her to write letters of apology to Brownback, the school’s Youth in Government sponsor, the district’s social studies coordinator and others.

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YOU SUCK!

Just wanted to make sure your staff gets the message as their bots scan the digital universe searching for mentions of

YOUR LAME, STATIST AZZ!

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Peregrinator said:

That's not exactly what it says:

Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...

Is all it says, once you take out the other rights it protects.

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KRCummings said:

The threat of punishment by the government for speech is the same as not allowing it.
I don't think it's as deep a question as your making it.

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4est_4est_Gump said:

They are no longer being drafted and I doubt seriously if she disrespects a staunch conservative (probably over abortion) in such a way that she's going to volunteer to put her life on the line in any way, shape or form...

After all, she's 'special.' She's a Liberal abortion survivor!

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patrick1 said:

Thanks for this. You feel this is ok to say in public about an 18 year old girl making her way in the world? That she is a 'liberal abortion survivor'? I do not think it's ok. I think it's immoral. It's certainly deliberately ugly, for some purpose I can't fathom, but I trust you're being well-paid for.

Patrick

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4est_4est_Gump said:

The woman started the shit storm.

She regrets it. It will hurt her in the future, she now realizes that; she said so.

All in all it was a good learning experience for the rest of her peer group.

You have the right and the freedom to say whatever you want at any time you want and with the power of the net it will be flung to the far corners of the world, the downside being, it will be flung to all four corners of the world and no matter how precious we tried to tell you you were for the last 18 years of self-esteem building, not everyone thinks that you're all that cute with your foul mouth and loutish behavior and in this case, those charged with the task of teaching her about free speech and civic responsibility were embarrassed and shocked to find out that she did not fully understand her Constitutional studies...

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4est_4est_Gump said:

She's not a girl. Quit demeaning her in order to cast her as a hapless child. She's a young woman, old enough to be drafted and die for her country.

It's not the government she has to worry about; hell, they'd love to have her as an employee, her mind is in the right place for that. It's the private sector where she realizes now that she will have her problems.

Again, we've had this conversation at Lit many, many times before; some people thing they have some "right" to privacy on the internet and are constantly astonished to find that that is just not so, a tweet is not a private correspondence, an email is...

Our young people need to learn this lesson instead of being protected from it.

Ya'll seem to want to make this about bad evil censoring government when in fact, it has nothing to do with the government and free speech but the oft-mentioned safe cybering and reputation protection.

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4est_4est_Gump said:

Eyer, what other really terrible things as the conservative right-wing loon Sam Brownback done to deny the people civil rights; after all his years in the Senate and as Governor, I'm sure you have a ton of evidence that leads you with the class cat-call:



Has he been a RINO? A Statist? Really...?

This is why the Republicans are going to lose again. In order to prove you're not "one of those Republicans, you have this knee-jerk response to Democrat and Moderate appeasement to destroy any Republican who is not perfect in their eyes, while they protect every single one of their politicians because they are the party of Statism and all have a common goal while the Republican is bitterly divided between the Libertarian and Statist camps and now you're after one of the Libertarian-leaning guys to the absolute delight of the Statists...

Good job my man, good job!

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4est_4est_Gump said:

Why?

I don't have free speech?

I really am not moved, or upset by your censure.

I think abortion is the most pernicious and dehumanizing issue of our modern age and the Democrats are the party of abortion and she's an avowed Democrat so I speak in the same manner that they employ (I mean, we have a perfect example in post one of her "immoral' thoughts put into speech) and with the same tactic. Of course, you know all of this since you too grew up in that part of the world and still reside here and teach these youths on a continuing basis and thus daily have an opportunity to see into their minds and thought processes.



Now, please, stop being so rude if you wish to have an open and honest conversation.

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4est_4est_Gump said:

...I think abortion is the most pernicious and dehumanizing issue of our modern age and the Democrats are the party of abortion and she's an avowed Democrat so I speak in the same manner that they employ ...
<snippity doo dah>
Now, please, stop being so rude if you wish to have an open and honest conversation.

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4est_4est_Gump said:

you have this knee-jerk response to Democrat and Moderate appeasement to destroy any Republican who is not perfect in their eyes

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The threat of sanctions may deter [the exercise of First Amendment rights] almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions." NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433, 83 S. Ct. 328, 9 L. Ed. 2d 405 (1963); see also Aebisher v. Ryan, 622 F.2d 651, 655 (2d Cir. 1980) [**15] ("Where the use of coercive power is threatened, First Amendment rights may be violated by the chilling effect of governmental action that falls short of a direct prohibition against speech.").

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[T]he Supreme Court has set forth two separate tests to determine whether a governmental restriction on speech violates the First Amendment--strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny. The key to deciding which test to apply to the government's conduct is whether the restriction was content-based, in which case the strict scrutiny test applies, or content-neutral, in which case we apply intermediate scrutiny.

Strict scrutiny, as applied to content-based restrictions of speech, requires the government to show that the restriction at issue is narrowly tailored to promote a compelling governmental interest. United States v. Playboy Entm't Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813, 120 S. Ct. 1878, 146 L. Ed. 2d 865 (2000). If a less restrictive alternative is available, the governmental restriction cannot survive strict scrutiny. See id. Intermediate scrutiny, on the other hand, requires the government to demonstrate [**17] that: (1) the restriction is within the constitutional power of the government; (2) the restriction furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; (3) the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and (4) the incidental restriction on First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest. United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377, 88 S. Ct. 1673, 20 L. Ed. 2d 672 (1968); Horton v. City of Houston, 179 F.3d 188, 194 (5th Cir. 1999). Courts often shorten this inquiry into whether the restriction is narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest and leaves open alternative channels of communication. See Horton, 179 F.3d at 194. In the context of intermediate scrutiny, "narrowly tailored" does not require that the least restrictive means be used. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 798, 109 S. Ct. 2746, 105 L. Ed. 2d 661 (1989). Rather, so long as the restriction promotes a substantial governmental interest that would be achieved less effectively without the restriction, it is sufficiently [*344] narrowly tailored. Id. at 799.

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vetteman said:

I was under the impression they forced her to cancel her Twitter Account.

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4est_4est_Gump said:

See, we agree on something.





Now, can we be friends?

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CrackerjackHrt said:

perg, i don't have time to break the analysis down completely. this excerpt from a case, though, explains the analysis fairly well.



had the girl been forced to write an apology, that certainly would have been an exercise of coercive power; it would have triggered the first amendment.

had she only been required to apologize for violating the school's electronic device policy--which is content neutral--the intermediate scrutiny test would apply. schools have good reason for restricting phone use during school hours; the school would probably win.

had she been required to apologize for criticizing the governor, though, then the content of her speech--political speech, to boot--would have been punished. the school would have to justify its actions under the much more stringent strict scrutiny test; the school would lose.

i am willing to bet that the principal's "talking points" included things like showing respect for the office of the governor; if so, the school had little chance of prevailing.

finally, schools are a bit of a special case; as others noted earlier, it's easier to justify curtailing speech that disrupts the learning environment. it looks to me, though, like the governor is the only person who disrupted the learning environment.

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