Written Feb 3, 2017, in response to the 1st wave of Leftist anti-Trump “Resistors” and “Indivisibles”, before they scuttled underground to metastasize into more violent BLM and Antifa manifestations.
Our beleaguered Constitution, if it could think, might conclude, “The rule of law ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Take the 1st Amendment, please, before another group of masked idiots assemble and cite it while shouting obscenities as they hurl flaming projectiles and beat innocent bystanders while the police stand by watching, boxed out from law enforcement by a cohort of ACLU lawyers waiting in the wings for ripe circumstances to torture into a social justice legal crusade.
Take the 1st Amendment, please, before another third world religious zealot seeks to dismantle the entire Western legal system for a piece of cloth draped over her head and flowing robes that all symbolize a spiritual commitment so deep, that some righteously choose to destroy themselves and take as many innocent bystanders as they can down with them to satisfy their metaphysical requirements.
Take the 1st Amendment, please, before another elected official abandons all proportionality and connection to real causation, and misrepresents through innuendo and character assassination the persons with whom they disagree as they drip crocodile tears onto their prepared scripts.
Take the 1st Amendment, please, before another round of misinterpreted facts get shoe-horned by a televised media panel of experts, paid by the minute to deliver prejudgments in a telegenic manner according to program directions and their contractual requirements, who call themselves the free press.
On speech, the 1st Amendment codifies both a right and a remedy for the violation of that right. Except in a couple subjects, 1st Amendment rights and remedies compete equally with no legal advantage given to either side. The Founders, however, contemplated that the right to free speech needed constitutional protection primarily for political speech.
Enter militant mass demonstrations that threaten violence, political attacks on the Constitution hidden under religious veils, misrepresentations by elected officials, and media malfeasance.
Can any of these contemporary manifestations stretching the envelope of 1st Amendment protected speech be construed to somehow improve our political form?
Not in the least. They all dissolve the meaning of the Constitution like salt in water, where nothing grows thereafter.