FIRST AMENDMENT

FREEDOM OF SPEECH & THE FOUNDERS’ INTENT

Annie Oakley - 1 July 2014

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

"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."

In this editorial I will address the 2nd part of the First Amendment:

"....or abridging the freedom of speech,...."

These rights are pretty self-explanatory and quite clear. The federal government cannot under any circumstances infringe upon our rights to free speech and freedom of the press and state governments were restricted from infringing upon any of our Constitutional rights by the 14th Amendment. However, as we have seen, especially in the current tyrannical regime, the government does not consider itself bound by the U.S. Constitution. I would also like to point out that the Founders never intended for the freedom of speech to be

applied to the private sector, instead, the sole intention was to restrict the government from stifling dissention from the citizenry. Now, let's take a look at what our Founders and the High Court had to say about these fundamental rights.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

On 15 March 1783, George Washington made a surprise appearance at an assembly of Army officers and made an impassioned speech to calm the disgruntled officers who were angry with Congress for not honoring their promise to pay them - the Newburgh Conspiracy; in his Address to the officers of the Army to quell revolt, Washington stressed the need to always protect the citizens' rights to free speech.

Washington said, "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." And history has shown, especially very recent history

and current events, that Washington was right.

Currently there are members of Congress who do not believe the People have a fundamental right to free speech and have strongly suggested passing legislation restricting or even extinguishing our rights to free speech altogether. The mere thought of our representatives in Congress suggesting legislation to eliminate our rights to free speech is treasonous and they should pay the price for their treason just as all other traitors in history have had to do. We must never let them eliminate our First Amendment rights! Ever!

Recently, Senator Ted Cruz, speaking at a Family Research Council event said, “Senator Chuck Schumer has announced the Senate Democrats are scheduling a vote on a constitutional amendment to give Congress the plenary power, the unlimited authority, to regulate political speech,”

Senator Cruz went on to explain why the democrats want to eliminate the First Amendment, “Because elected officials have decided they don’t like it when the citizenry has the temerity to criticize what they’ve done. They don’t like it when pastors in their community stand up and speak the truth. And it makes their lives inconvenient when they’re not standing for principle and actually that’s pointed out back home.”

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The Senate co-sponsors of S.J. Res. 19:

1. Tammy Baldwin (WI)

2. Mark Begich (AK)

3. Michael Bennet (CO)

4. Richard Blumenthal (CT)

5. Cory Booker (NJ)

6. Barbara Boxer (CA)

7. Sherrod Brown (OH)

8. Benjamin Cardin (MD)

9. Thomas Carper (DE)

10. Christopher Coons (DE)

11. Richard Durbin (IL)

12. Dianne Feinstein (CA)

13. Al Franken (MN)

14. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)

15. Kay Hagen (NC)

16. Tom Harkin (IA)

17. Martin Heinrich (NM)

18. Mazie Hirono (HI)

18. Tim Johnson (SD)

20. Angus King, Jr. (ME)

21. Amy Klobuchar (MN)

22. Edward Markey (MA)

23. Robert Menendez (NJ)

24. Jeff Merkley (OR)

25. Barbara Mikulski (MD)

26. Christopher Murphy (CT)

27. Patty Murray (WA)

28. Jack Reed (RI)

28. Harry Reid (NV)

30. John D. Rockefeller, IV (WV)

31. Bernard Sanders (VT)

32. Brian Schatz (HI)

33. Chuck Schumer (NY)

34. Jeanne Shaheen (NH)

35. Debbie Stabenow (MI)

36. Jon Tester (MT)

37. Mark Udall (CO)

38. John Walsh (MT)

39. Elizabeth Warren (MA)

40. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)

41. Ron Wyden (OR)

You will note that they are all democrats with the exception of Angus King (ME-I) and Bernie Sanders (VT-I), admitted socialists.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Now, fully digest that for a minute....done? This type of language coming out of the mouths of our delegates in Congress is not only dangerous but flat out treasonous. Not only are they saying that We the People do not have the right to free speech but they're trying to back up their dangerously flawed ideology with a Constitutional amendment! Our Founders are

surely rolling in their graves.

We must vote these traitors out office and then put them on trial, in a court of law, each and every one of them, for treason

against the United States of America. No more pandering to the left, we are in the fight of our lives, for the defense of our freedoms, the U.S. Constitution and our Republic.

The government conveniently wants the First Amendment to only be applicable to their right to spread lies to the public.

And for proof I refer you to the recent argument before the Supreme Court in the case SBA List v. Dreihaus where

Obama's U.S. Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., claims that lying in political campaigns isn’t merely protected by the

First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, but that it is an especially protected form of speech, which must not be

hindered by any state government. WOW!! So the right of politicians and the government to blatantly and willfully lie to the American public is, according to the tyrants, protected by the First Amendment. Yet, if we are to believe the tyrants in charge, the rights of the People to openly speak out against the wrongs committed by our government (free speech) and to

petition the government for a redress of grievances is NOT protected by the First Amendment. Those are flat out, and blatant, treasonous assaults against We the People and the U.S. Constitution. I cannot fathom how ANYONE in this

Country would openly and willingly support this type of attack against America. Yet we have so many Americans who do, and they refuse to abandon their flawed ideology for reasons that I can only assume are for being too darn arrogant and ignorant to accept that they're wrong, they refuse to accept defeat.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Although different scholars and legal counsel interpret free speech in a variety of ways, these are the basic categories currently NOT protected by the First Amendment:

Defamation (libel & slander)

Threatening or Fighting words

Treason

Obscenity including child pornography

Lying in Court–Perjury (LIES)

Profanity

Speech containing copyright infringements - meaning plagiarism of copyrighted material is not protected

Sedition

Trade Secrets

Incitement or solicitations to imminent lawless action (i.e. riots, or shouting "fire" in a crowded venue)

Words that cause Contempt of Court

Blackmail

And for further proof of the democrats assaults against free speech, we can look to the debates preceding and proceeding the passage of that monstrous nightmare and train-wreck, Obamacare. Pelosi vehemently said that the People who speak out against the passage of Obamacare are "un-American."

Democrats consistently get a score-index rating of ZERO when it comes to protecting our Constitutional rights and freedoms.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

And just in case you're still in the dark about the nefarious agenda of Congressional democrats and their comrades across the aisle, why did they refuse a vote to restore First Amendment rights to churches and tax-exempt organizations, instead referring it out to committee where it has been sitting with no action ever since 3 January 2013? It is important to note that the Bill was not supported by one democrat.

See, H.R.127 — 113th Congress (2013-2014)

What many in Congress and our government forget is that the church pulpits were where fiery political speeches were made before, during and proceeding the American Revolution. And it was a common occurrence for citizens to stand in the town square on a rock, box or platform and give fiery speeches around election time or when aggrieved by the government. Now the government wants to take that right away from the citizens. Congress has already proven that it can pass un-Constitutional laws at will, whenever they deem fit, heck they did it to the churches, they did it with gun-control, they did it with the Administrative Procedures Act, they did it with the Patriot Act, they did it with Obamacare and they did it with the NDAA. We must defend our Constitutional rights to our very last breath. Otherwise, we will be enslaved and ripe for the slaughter by the tyrants who intend to lord over us as if they themselves are Gods. They intend to silence us using whatever means possible.

And the High Court is in lock-step with the government's agenda to silence the People. See Schenck v. United States — the case where the Supreme Court ruled it CONSTITUTIONAL for the government to suppress dissent during wartime and upheld the imprisonment of Socialist Charles Schenck. In that decision, Justice Oliver Wendell coined the now infamous metaphor of “crying fire in a crowded theater” is not free speech and therefore not protected under the First Amendment. The Schenck decision is a shameful episode in First Amendment history. Although I DO NOT agree with Schenck's socialist opinions and agenda, I do support his right to speak openly without fear of imprisonment by the government. If Obama declares martial law and then declares America to be in a wartime environment, he could very realistically round up millions of Americans, like you and me, who publicly speak out against his policies and jail us under the very un-Constitutional Schenck decision which is now a part of U.S. Case Law. Now, when we add that piece of arsenal in the war against We the People to the un-Constitutional Patriot Act and NDAA, we have a trifecta of un-Constitutional laws to be used by the government in their sinister attempts to legally justify their rounding up, imprisoning, and God forbid executing, millions of innocent, law-abiding, Patriotic Americans.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

And, in spite of democrats' claims to the contrary, the Founders were very clear about their intent with the freedom of speech in the First Amendment. Let's start by taking a look at some of the writings and speeches of the Founders. They saw the freedom of speech as a "natural" right, one given by God and therefore with deliberate intent, they legally bound the federal government from infringing upon that right by protecting the citizens' rights to free speech in the First Amendment and bound the states in the 14th Amendment. However, for a long time it was thought that the restriction was only binding upon the federal government, so in 1925 the Supreme Court incorporated it into state governments through the 14th Amendment, in Gitlow v. NY (also cited as Gitlow v. People), thereby preventing the states from infringing upon the First Amendment right to free speech.

It was James Madison, our 4th President who did most of the "heavy-lifting" so to speak when it came to drafting the U.S. Constitution. He labored and toiled endlessly in the effort to protect the citizens while establishing a new Republic, and as such, he more than earned the title and great distinction of being named the "Father of the Constitution." Although initially, Madison did not think that the Constitution needed a Bill of Rights and he may have been late in joining the movement to add the Bill of Rights, he was no less committed to its ratifying. Madison was very intense in his drive to properly draft the first 10 Amendments and he took special care to ensure that the First Amendment was strong and binding upon the federal government.

James Madison proposed the Freedom of Speech idea to Congress when he gave a speech to the First Congress on 8 June 1789. In his speech, Madison proposed several amendments to the Constitution in response to the concerns of the Anti-Federalists that the Constitution was not strong enough in protecting certain inalienable rights of the citizens.

James Madison spoke of the dangers from a government that had the power to stifle the speech of its citizens who were speaking out in opposition of the actions of government and of the utmost necessity it was to preserve the rights of the citizens to freedom of speech. Madison considered information to be the equivalent of knowledge and that for a representative form of government to succeed, there had to be a free flow of information from the government to the people and vice versa. Madison felt that the sharing of information (ideas, opinions, etc.) put the governors and the governed on equal footing, thereby preventing tyrannical rule by a well informed government upon a less informed citizenry.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

With that said, Madison did not consider the right to freedom of speech as a right to freedom of expression. He fundamentally disagreed with the expansion of the First Amendment to include freedom of expression. The primary purpose of the freedom of speech was to keep in check any potential abuse of powers by the government. Madison saw the First Amendment PRIMARILY as being about the freedom of "political" speech.

In Federalist Papers No. 10 (22 November 1787), Madison said, "Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency." Madison saw the freedom of speech as a vital aspect of

a healthy republic.

Madison also said "Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." And he was right, just look where we are today. We have exactly what Madison tried to

warn us about, an absurd and bastardized form of illegal and tyrannical government. A government that tramples the Constitution on a daily basis; one that is oppressively wielding usurped powers in its power-hungry war to silence and enslave its citizens. And, we are downright fools for letting it get this out of hand.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

In his speech before the First Congress on 8 June 1789, Madison argued for the need to add a Bill of Rights to the U.S.

Constitution, he said, "It will be a desirable thing to extinguish from the bosom of every member of the community any apprehensions, that there are those among his countrymen who wish to deprive them of the liberty for which they valiantly fought and honorably bled." Madison knew all to well the dangers of

power in unworthy hands; he knew the horrible mischief that would ensue if the citizens were not properly protected from the government, hence the Bill of Rights.

In his speech for the proposition of the Bill of Rights, Madison stressed that, "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.

The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good, nor from applying to the legislature by petitions, or remonstrances for redress of their grievances." You can read Madison's fiery speech in full here: James Madison Speech 8 June 1789

On 19 December 1791, Madison said, "Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one."

James Madison, National Gazette Essay on 27 March 1792, "As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

On 6 June 1788, Madison in his Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, said "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes." Those words ring as true today as they did in 1788 and we are seeing the

poisonous fruits of the labors of those in the progressive movement and our very own government who have set a slow but deliberate course to separate us from our Constitutional rights, just as Madison warned us about 226 years ago.

James Madison on “Property” in The National Gazette on 29 March 1792, said "Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right." Yet another reference to the importance of free speech and to its origins as a "natural right" endowed

by our Creator, God, to the people individually.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Now that I've inundated you with Madison's views about the citizens' rights of free speech, I'll add to that some of the views from our other Founders. I’ll start off with Benjamin Franklin:

This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Goverments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a Thing terrible to Publick Traytors....That Men ought to speak well of their Governours is true, while their Governours deserve to be well spoken of; but to do publick Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny: A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their Freedom of Speech....Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptom, as well as the Effect of a good Government....GUILT only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it out of its lurking Holes, and exposes its Deformity and Horrour to Day-light."

(Mrs. Silence Dogood Letter, No. 8 Thur, Jul 9, 1722 (Printed in The New-England Courant) quoted as written. Mrs. Silence Dogood was a false persona used by Franklin to get his works published after being denied several times. You can read Letter No. 8 in its entirety here: Silence Dogood No. 8

"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

On 24 June 1826, Thomas Jefferson related his hopes that the United States Declaration of Independence would have a long lasting impact on society,

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man."

And in Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address on 4 March 1801, he said "The diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man." ~Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Back in jolly ole' England, during the 1794 Treason Trials, Thomas Paine in his Letter Addressed To The Addressers On The Late Proclamation, 1792, in response to the charge of "seditious libel" brought against him after the

publication of The Rights of Man, "If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy ... to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous ... let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb."

Paine understood all too well the dangers to all free men if the right to speak freely was infringed upon by the ruling powers. Consequently, while Paine was in France, he was tried and convicted in absentia by the British Court for high treason. Paine was one of countless victims of despotic monarchy rule where man is not allowed to freely speak his/her mind; where one cannot criticize the government without the real fear of harsh reprisals from the Crown. It is this type of aggressive power by the government of England that led to the newly formed American Republic instituting protections of free speech for all American citizens in the form of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

The first assault against the First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press came in 1798 in the form of the "Alien and Sedition Acts", which made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish” anything critical of the government. An obvious direct infringement of the First Amendment. President John Adams claimed that the laws were needed to "quell insurrection" and to avoid a war with France. But this was a very lame defense for Adams' assaults against free speech. Many of that era were convinced that the laws were politically motivated as Adams was losing ground in his reelection bid and the "only" persons imprisoned under the Acts were from Adams' rival political party, the Republicans.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The most dramatic victim of the new Alien and Sedition Acts was Representative

Matthew Lyon of Vermont. His letter that criticized President Adams' "unbounded

thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and self avarice" caused

him to be imprisoned. While Federalists sent Lyon to prison for his opinions, his constituents reelected him to Congress even from his jail cell. You can read more

about Matthew Lyon here: http://www.ushistory.org/us/19e.asp

In opposition to the Federalists enacting the Alien and Sedition Acts, Madison and Jefferson wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which argued that states had the power to NULLIFY un-Constitutional federal laws. After Adams and his Federalist Party's misstep with the Aliens and Seditions Acts, the Republicans unified against the Federalists and most of the Federalists lost their seats in Congress to the Republicans, and Adams lost his reelection bid to Jefferson. The Republican controlled Congress allowed the Acts to expire in 1801 but Americans were to see more infringements upon their First Amendment rights in the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 commonly referred to as the Espionage and Sedition Acts, where citizens who spoke out against the U.S. becoming involved in WWI and the institution of the draft, were prosecuted and convicted for espionage. See Schenck v. United States (1919); Frohwerk v. United States (1919); Abrams v. United States (1919); and Debs v. United States (1919)

However, there are limitations on free speech, like the type of speech intended to overthrow our Republican form of government and our Constitution and replace it with a despotic dictatorship. Successive Justices on the High Court would later over-rule the 1919 Espionage cases with a series of decisions that one can only shake their head at in disbelief. For example, Justice Hugo Black, the avowed progressive liberal Justice, and his equally liberal comrades on the High Court rendered decisions that protected the free speech of “dubious persons” whose sole intention it was to overthrow the republican form of U.S. Government and replace it with a communist form of government. See, Yates v. United States, 354 U.S 298 (1957).

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Taking a step back for a moment, I would like to make reference to Stromberg v. California (1931; 283 U.S. 359). It is the Stromberg case where the Supreme Court expanded the First Amendment and first applied the "freedom of expression" doctrine. The High Court declared that "symbolic speech" was protected by the First Amendment and so America saw the birth of yet another dangerously flawed doctrine designed to slowly undermine the Constitution and American exceptionalism. I am 100% positive that if Madison and Jefferson were alive today, they would admonish the Justices on the Supreme Court for perverting and subverting the First Amendment.

In 1943, the Supreme Court once again cited First Amendment protection to include "freedom of expression" when in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (319 U.S. 624) the High Court ruled that it was un-Constitutional for public schools to compel students to salute the American Flag.

Then in 1969, Brandenburg v. Ohio (395 U.S. 444), the High Court ruled that Klu Klux Klan leader Clarence Brandenburg had a right to "freedom of expression" under the First Amendment when Brandenburg's conviction for advocating violence against "niggers" and "Jews" was overturned. The Brandenburg case became the "test" when it came to establishing a rule of law in cases brought against "freedom of expression". Our Founders never intended nor inferred that the First Amendment was to be expanded to include "freedom of expression" and in this instance the High Court once again perverted and subverted the meaning and intent of the Founders.

In 1968, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act which made it illegal to desecrate the U.S. Flag; the 1968 federal law expanded a 1947 law that was originally applicable only to D.C. Many states followed suit in passing their own versions of the law banning the desecration of the U.S. Flag.

The first assault against the U.S. Flag came in the 1989 case Texas v. Johnson (491 U.S. 397) where the High Court ruled that the 1989 Texas flag protection statute violated the protections of "freedom of expression" under the First Amendment. The American people, President George H.W. Bush and Congress were furious over the ruling. Congress, stopped just short of a Constitutional amendment, and responded to the ruling by overwhelmingly passing the Flag Protection Act of 1989 (P.L.101-131, 103 Stat. 777) on 28 October. The Act passed into law despite President Bush's refusal to sign the Act.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Then in 1990, the High Court in the case United States v. Eichman (469 U.S. 310), ruled that the 1989 Flag Protection Act was unConstitutional as it infringed upon a person's right to "freedom of expression" which the Justices said was a violation of the First Amendment.

It is unconscionable that the High Court has ruled that burning the American flag is a permitted and protected right under the First Amendment as a "freedom of expression." Yet, the very same Court ruled that the government could regulate activities combined with speech such as picketing and protesting by designating specific locations where the citizens can picket or protest. There are no "zones" in the First Amendment and I cannot fathom what Madison or the other Founders would say to such an abomination and deliberate hatchet job to our Constitution. Is this really what our Founders intended? "Oh yes, you can burn the Flag, it's your right to freedom of expression"...but then "oh, no you can't protest in front of Congress or the White House just because you disagree with their policies and regulations." REALLY???

These cases (noted above) decided by the Supreme Court were instrumental in undermining the Bill of Rights by not only expanding the First Amendment to include "freedom of expression" but also making it legal to desecrate the U.S. Flag, an act that our Founders would have seen as an act of treason and heresy.

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”—Voltaire

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

It is unconscionable that our delegates in Washington, D.C. are even contemplating altering or worse, abolishing the First Amendment. Should they succeed, they will surely follow suit with the Second Amendment and disarm the citizenry which can only lead to tyranny and democide as was the case throughout history with every tyrannical government that disarmed their citizenry - but I will address that in full in an upcoming editorial on the Second Amendment. I implore you to contact your members of Congress to express your absolute opposition to any Constitutional amendment that will alter the First Amendment or any other rights you are endowed and protected by through the Bill of Rights. We must stop them now if we are to retain all of our Constitutional rights.

And in closing, I leave you with the wise words of advice from Daniel Webster:

“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the World.”

~Annie Oakley, reporting from behind enemy lines in liberal-lunacy-land

Tuesday, July 1, 2014