Monday, June 25, 2007

The slippery slope

Court tightens limits on student speech - Yahoo! News

If this were a debate on whether "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was puerile or not, I would've supported the Supreme Court. The banner was silly at best. However, that's not the issue on the table here. The issue on the table is a person's freedom of speech.

Of course, if you want to be literal about it, the First Amendment says that Congress, not the Supreme Court, shall make NO law abridging a person's right to free speech. However, the Supreme Court, I guess, has free reign to restrict you as much as possible.

But now there's precedent for any asshat teacher or principal who, if they don't agree with a student's political views, can simply say, "Well, he's only saying something with no merit, because..." And then they can just fill in the blank with any rationale they can to suppress a teenager's freedom of expression because, well, they're not 18, so they must not know any better.

Oh, the magic number 18. Except there are plenty of fuckwads running around this country right now with less of a clue than a rock, and they're over 18.

It's a slippery slope we're on, now that there's precedent. I don't care if I agree or disagree with the message, or even if the message appears to me to be juvenile. It's not our job to allow or disallow what we agree with (or not)--that's called CENSORSHIP, and it's used with great relish in places like Iran.

I served in the armed forces to protect everyone's rights, as (supposedly) guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, and this ruling makes me sick. I'm sure Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave right now.

PS. I changed the name of the blog, for obvious reasons.

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