All Posts Tagged With: "First Amendment"
Contraception: Insuring the Uninsurable
It makes no sense to talk about insuring against the eventuality that a particular person will reach child-bearing age and use contraception.
10Feb2012 | Sheldon Richman | 13 comments | ContinuedMoney Is Not Speech
“The Supreme Court said that money equals speech!” Proponents of campaign finance regulation have thrown this trope around freely since 2010’s landmark Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. Fortunately, the Court never actually made such an absurd equation. It would be hard to take the Court seriously if it had. But [...]
30Nov2011 | Michael Cummins | 2 comments | ContinuedWhither Glik . . . and Why?
The Glik case is important for advancing police transparency and accountability, without which it is not safe for anyone to walk down a street in America.
13Sep2011 | Wendy McElroy | 15 comments | ContinuedThe Day FEE Was Called before Congress
In 1950 Leonard E. Read faced one of the most difficult challenges of his life as he prepared to appear before a hostile congressional committee. His friend W. C. Mullendore warned that the committee was out to destroy him: “You should be under no illusion whatever but that the intention is to smear and not look [...]
24Feb2011 | David T. Beito | 2 comments | ContinuedYou Can’t Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Anti-Discrimination Laws
The chiseling away of constitutional limits on government power is a topic familiar to readers of these pages. For a long time the First Amendment’s prohibition against laws that infringe freedom of speech remained relatively untouched by people who would like to use state power to silence their opponents. But as David Bernstein, a George [...]
7Jul2010 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedA Manifesto for Media Freedom
Americans are blessed with access to an unprecedented variety of media–not to mention ways in which information can be stored and the points of view and ownership interests represented. As documented in the brisk book A Manifesto for Media Freedom, this cornucopia of media options has led not to celebration of the marvelous diversity that [...]
23Sep2009 | Brian Doherty | 0 comments | ContinuedTherapeutic Censorship
Freedom of speech is one of the most distinctly American political values. In many European democracies people take for granted that their freedom requires criminal sanctions against the expression of certain odious ideas, exemplified by the denial of the Holocaust. In the United States, that would be a clear violation of the First Amendment. To [...]
1May2007 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedRestoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus
American colleges and universities are hothouses of hypocrisy, and the principal exhibit is that while their spokesmen talk endlessly about their commitment to openness, tolerance, critical thinking, diversity, and so on, many of them have adopted policies designed to stifle the expression of unpopular sentiments and empower certain groups to punish others for having the [...]
1Apr2006 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedPolitics Corrupts Money
In September the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the heated battle over campaign finance reform legislation—the so-called Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA. That law, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2002, has been challenged by a wide array of parties, including such strange bedfellows as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce [...]
1Jan2004 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedEducation and the First Amendment
In June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school vouchers do not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition of the establishment of religion. The case arose out of Cleveland’s voucher program. As would be expected, both pro- and anti-voucher forces have engaged in rhetorical combat. One of the forward divisions of the anti-voucher side is Americans [...]
1Sep2002 | Barry Loberfeld | 0 comments | ContinuedOn Freedom of Association
Freedom of association is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The relevant portion states, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Seems simple enough. We may assemble ourselves into whatever peaceful associations we choose, and the government is forbidden [...]
1Jul2002 | Charles W. Baird | 11 comments | ContinuedUnfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform by Bradley A. Smith
Princeton University Press • 2001 • 304 pages • $26.95 Reviewed by John Samples Responding to Watergate, Congress a generation ago passed draconian restrictions on campaign spending and fundraising. The Supreme Court eventually struck down the spending limits, but affirmed contribution ceilings and the legality of the new agency empowered to oversee the regulatory regime, [...]
1Jun2002 | Bradley A. Smith | 0 comments | ContinuedHow War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century
This article is reprinted from the July 1999 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. After surveying the Western world in the past six centuries, Bruce Porter concluded: “a government at war is a juggernaut of centralization determined to crush any internal opposition that impedes the mobilization of militarily vital resources. This centralizing tendency of [...]
1Dec2001 | Robert Higgs | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Is the State Needed for Defensive Force? To the Editor: Donald Boudreaux, in “The ‘A’ Word” (July 2001), says “it’s possible that even the best feasible stateless society will be worse than a society with a well-structured government constitutionally limited to protecting its citizens from violence and theft. But let the case be made.” I [...]
1Nov2001 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedConstitutional Protection of Economic Liberty
Norman Barry, a contributing editor of Ideas on Liberty, is professor of social and political theory at the University of Buckingham in the UK. He is the author of An Introduction to Modern Political Theory (St. Martin’s Press). The Supreme Court has been deliberately neglectful of traditional American economic liberties. With the exception of some [...]
1Nov2000 | Norman Barry | 0 comments | ContinuedMandatory Student Fees and Freedom of Speech
On March 22 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Southworth v. University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, that requiring students to pay fees to support campus groups, a common practice at many colleges and universities, is not unconstitutional. The Court has spoken—but did it speak wisely? Let’s consider the case and the issues it raises. [...]
1Aug2000 | George C. Leef | 2 comments | ContinuedBanned in Austin
People love competition. It is wonderful to have others trying to outdo rivals in finding new and better ways to serve you, giving you more alternatives at lower prices. But people also hate competition. How annoying it is to have others trying to take away “your” customers just so they can make money. What nerve! [...]
1Aug1999 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued-
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