| Topic: |
Science > Philosophy |
| User: |
"Bret Cahill" |
| Date: |
18 Sep 2005 11:32:12 AM |
| Object: |
No Way for ANYONE To End Run Free Speech |
The civil rights laws of the '60s were presented with great fanfare,
with a great sense of accomplishment. C.R. leaders of all backgrounds
were prissing around like they were up there with Paine or Ghandi.
They only forgot one thing: Ya gotta use freedom of speech on
something more substantial than nekked nazi flag burner parades ("cause
celebre! CAUSE CELEBRE!!! Can't you SEEEEEEE we're litigating a cause
celebre du jour?!") or they'll just end run the civil rights laws.
The Southern white business community met the conditions of the civil
rights laws, and to some extent equality, not by granting blacks civil
rights but by reducing working poor whites to economically insecure
wage slaves.
Republicans then used white resentment, ignorance of rights and
insecurity to fuel racism and religious fundamentalism and, therefore,
more political power for the very people aggravating the problem in the
first place.
Not too surprisingly many younger blacks have been wondering what all
those people were prissing around about back in the '60s.
In sharp contrast there is no end run around freedom of speech. No
civil rights laws were passed in the '90s that could have had a
substantial impact on black income yet black family income increased
faster under Clinton than any time since the Emancipation Proclamation.
_New York Times_ Op Ed writers were too dumb or too worried about the
ghost of Henry Ford I to figure out what many Europeans have known for
years:
The increase in opportunities for American blacks and others in the
'90s was due entirely to Clinton waving a free speech pen at
Republicans including GHW Bush, Gingrich, Dole and Greenspan.
Imagine the economic integration that would be possible if Clinton
actually used the pen.
Some federal judges have figured out the above and are trying to fight
or delay free speech. They are actually trying what they believe to be
the next defense against free speech:
They think they can end run making a decision on free speech and then
sweep it under the carpet with an unpublished decision.
Only problem here is you cannot end run a decision on the merits in a
federal/state program. Either you publish or it is right back in
court, maybe in another federal judicial circuit, maybe in another
state, maybe in the state courts.
That's American Federalism 101, first paragraph, first lecture.
The sovereignty of the states was grandfathered in before the robber
barons controlled the media, government, monetary policy and everything
else. That is the monkey wrench that cannot be removed from the gears
of the robber barons' engine of despotism.
So the classical Enlightenment notion that a federation of smaller
states under an incomplete national government can preserve rights
certainly has some merit.
Bret Cahill
"I never vacationed with blacks and I realized I was not only a liar
but a hypocrite. I already knew I was a liar."
-- Joseph Heller _Good as Gold_
"The feeble engines of despotism."
-- Jefferson
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