Stolen Valor Act Decision

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by bobabode

"My Bad" now who's springing for pizza?

You are.

Thanks.

Dave

[d-ray657]

Originally Posted by bobabode

"My Bad" now who's springing for pizza?

Herman, of course!

Regards,

D-Ray

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

If I may, it appeared to me that Bill acknowledged the validity of the Court's decision overturning the Stolen Valor Act. He was pointing out that, had it not been overturned, a logical next step for legislation would the the Truth in Political Speeches and Advertising Act, which - following the court's reasoning - would also be overturned.

The protection of political speech is one of the core purposes of the First Amendment. If the people in power were have the ability to define truth and enforce it through criminal sanction, democracy would quickly die. Rather than criminal sanction, the proper response to false speech is more effective speech. As the court pointed out, his lies resulted in some very effective counter-speech. He was called out, humiliated, ridiculed and politically ruined.

Regards,

D-Ray

It may not yet be dead but I swear I can hear the death rattle now that the unlimited wealth of corporations hasbeen turned loose on it. Think about it, my friends, a corporation has to be one of the least democratic groups extant.

[icenine]

Free Speech is good the Court did the right thing. It is pretty easy to find out who was awarded the Medal of Honor...there are not too many of them out there. I imagine that posing as a Medal of Honor winner today is quite more difficult with the advent of Google.

[Zeke]

Whilst I consider some public release of knowledge to be the antithesis of freedom, there are some things that should come with instantaneous disclosure merely for confirmation.

[piece-itpete]

As Royko said over the flagburning law, for some things a punch in the mouth works just fine. I nominate this as one of those.

Pete