The importance of the First Amendment

AOL News tells the story of an Australian writer, Harry Nicolaides, who was sentenced by Bangkok's Criminal
Court to six years in prison for "insulting Thailand's royal family" in his 2005 novel, "Verisimilitude."

The book is fiction. It sold seven copies. The passage in question relates to "the personal life of a fictional prince" which "suggested that there was an abuse of royal power."

Nicolaides' sentenced was reduced to three years by the judge because "he had entered a guilty plea."

"This can't be real. It feels like a bad dream," said Nicolaides, tearfully.

Thailand has a law, known as "lese majeste," which "mandates a penalty of three to 15 years imprisonment for 'whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the Regent."


It's a law the departing George W. Bush, the evil Cheney and the dastardly Karl Rove would love.

Compare the following and thank your lucky stars you live in the U.S. of A. where soon da Bush and his cronies will be "history":

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

--The Constitution of the United States, Amendment I.


The AOL article is here.

Palin - so dumb it hurts

The wingnuts on the right are crying that the media is being too hard on poor Sarah Palin. The media has actually dared to criticize her!

Palin herself claims that the First Amendment may be in danger when the media takes her to task for her nefarious and false attacks on Barack Obama.

As Glen Greenwald put it: "This is actually so dumb it hurts."

"Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

"'If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,' Palin told host Chris Plante, 'then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.'"


To repeat: "This is actually so dumb that it hurts."

What is truly frightening is that, not only is this ignoramus a governor of one of our states, but is running for vice president of the United States of America, and she does not understand one of the most, (if not THE MOST), vital amendments to our Constitution.

As Greenwald says, Palin has it backwards. What the First Amendment does is guarantee a free press. "Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged."

Maybe we need an amendment to the Constitution barring anyone from running for public office who cannot demonstrate a thorough knowledge of that document.

Again, from Greenwald: "It it even possible to imagine more breathtaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?"

The answer to that is "No!"


John Stuart Mill got it right: "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."