Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made it clear what Free Speech was in Schenk v. U.S., 249 U.S. 47 (1919) (1919), ruling that a restriction is legitimate only if the speech in question poses a “clear and present danger”—i.e., a risk or threat to safety or to other public interests that is serious and imminent. Yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre is not free speech. There have been many cases involving freedom of speech and of the press over the years, and what is taking place in Europe is a rejection of free speech. In Britain, they sentenced a man to 20 months in prison for saying he was tired of paying taxes to support migrants who then raped their children. They are defining much that simply disagrees with government policy as “hate speech,” which is expressing a political opinion.
In Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), Justice Hugo L. Black on the Supreme Court traced the origins of the First Amendment to a bill establishing religious freedom that Jefferson drafted and introduced in the Virginia General Assembly in 1779, but was finally passed only in 1786 demanded by James Madison. This had three main sections prohibiting compulsory religion requirements of any kind, maintaining that men were free to express their opinions on religion and choose how or if to worship. That was a fundamental right as citizens and it was the foundation as a natural right of mankind. Justice Black wrote:
“Yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that, if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.”
Justice John Marshall Harlan, whose grandfather had been on the Supreme Court from 1877 to 1911, delivered the decision in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971) where the state criminalized the word “f–k” being used in political protests against the government. He made it clear that the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense. Starmer in Britain imprisoning people for merely saying migrants raped their children was a criminal offense and sentenced a man to 20 months in prison.
Freedom of speech includes the rights to:
- Not to speak (specifically, the right not to salute the flag).
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). - Of students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”).
Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). - To contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns.
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). - To engage in symbolic speech (e.g., burning the flag in protest).
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).
What you MUST understand is that the EU is collapsing. The failure to ever consolidate the debts has led to (1) disparity among members, and (2) the Euro has never been able to replace the dollar, lacking a unified debt market to attract capital. The more desperate the financial crisis unfolds in Europe between war and debt, the more authoritarian the government will become. This is why Scholtz has the audacity to claim Germany has free speech as long as you are not their opposition. You cannot have free speech and ban the political speech of your opposition.
With all the talk of war in Europe, we are starting to see a massive exodus of European investment by foreigners. The Japanese dumped a record $53 billion worth of Euro investments, and we see the same from European investors trying to get out before capital controls coincide with the first bullet fired. The European leaders are braindead. They cannot grasp that the harder they beat their war drums, the more smart money will get out of the EU before it is too late. The Euro has been in an overall bear market decline since 2008.
