Does the 'right to free speech' actually exist in the US?

They can sue but, if they don't have standing, it won't get to court. That has happened. So there is no reason for a state to sue anybody if they don't have standing in the case.

 

It presupposes that one will falsely shout fire but does not take into account the possibility that one has a concern about what one believes is an actual fire. This is from Justice Holmes. Holmes also wanted mentally challenged people to be sterilized against their will saying “three generations of imbeciles is enough” and wanted there to be an anti trust exemption for baseball cause he loved baseball. The power of SCOTUS clearly went to his head as he was a narcissist.

 

I'll jump in. IMO Kavanaugh has some kinks in his conservative armor. Roberts has lost most of his conservatism.

 

They can, of course, but without standing the suit won't ever get to trial.

 

Roberts lost all of my respect after allowing Obamacare. There is nothing in the US Constitution that allows the regulation of non activity.

This is why I think there should be a US constitutional amendment requiring SCOTUS justices to be elected.

They have no accountability, presently.

 

No, states can sue the federal government only if they are directly harmed. But remember whether a party has standing because of professed direct harm itself can also be adjudicated.

 

The issue was about whether or not a fine could be considered a tax. It was considered a tax. Poor decision.

Heaven forbid. Imagine the politics involved in that. It would certainly be worse than what we do now.

 

When a Supreme Court justice nominee is questioned in the US senate about his political ideology and states a position and then, realizing he has secured a life long position of enormous power and simply ignores what he has stated he needs to be removed. What the US has in its Supreme Court right now are Kings and Queens.

 

Roberts' ruling on Obamacare was the first time a justice literally and actually rewrote the law in real time to twist it into constitutionality

I really don't like electing judges, but I would support term limits.

Therein lies the rub. There is nothing anybody can do about a rogue or unfavorable ruling by the supreme court. One amendment suggestion in the Convention of the States project that I like is that the states or the congress, with some limitations and restrictions, can overturn some court rulings.

 

Just exactly why should one be forced to pay for a private service? Doesn’t matter if it’s called a tax or a fine. A dangerous precedent likely starting with auto insurance industry which initiated legislation requiring all drivers to have insurance and padding their purses. The difference is that one has a choice not to drive but not one to continue to live barring suicide. This is the problem with US common law which is precedent driven and why I prefer civil law as practiced here.

 

The original US constitution up until about a hundred years ago required Senators to be appointed from within the state legislatures and I do think that direct election is a better thing.

SCOTUS justices feel entirely free to do what they want without accountability. Because they can.

The US elects judges locally so why not nationally but it should be staggered so as not to create wild swings in the court every election cycle.

The justices need to explain their judicial philosophies in open debates and be held to them by voters.

Seems this present process is vestigial to royalist thought.

 

The framers explicitly set up the senate as representatives of the states, particularly the state legislatures. I think that was good and proper for a republic. That went away with the direct election of senators, who now represent the political party of a majority of voters who happen to reside in various states.

BTW, welcome to PF.

 

Thank you. I sincerely appreciate that!

I find your positions to be well reasoned and well warranted and as an observant student of argumentation (rhetoric) I appreciate that.

I have several problems with the original US constitution. One is that there should be no restriction on place of birth for the US president. The other is that I think the US president should be chosen from the US governors, present and former as these were executive positions used to dealing with a smaller congress.

I frankly don’t even understand why there is a senate unless the founders had great respect for the House of Lords.

But why waste one of my three wishes on things that could be amended?

This is where people usually say, you’re in Amsterdam and seeking citizenship so stay out of US politics but I learned that US politics affects this little country more than people can imagine and I spent more than 90 percent of my life in America and have too many connections there and the very last thing America offers the world is a searchlight for Truth through unfiltered media debate. If America gives that up it is as facile and superficial as the rest of the world says.

 

No. Give me an example. And explain why it's ridiculous.

Sure. My other policy is not to waste my time on ridiculous questions that have an obvious answer. That was NB2

Absolutely I would. But I'm not the President. I'm not bound by an oath of office. White supremacists are a different thing. But if President Biden ever threatened with shutting down Fox, I would have an even bigger problem with that.

I don't know of any basis for the legal pursuit of journalists.

 

Two of the fundamental precepts of the framers was that the legislative branch should be separate from the executive branch, unlike England and most other countries. Another was that the legislative branch needs to be bicameral with one house directly representing the people while the other house directly and equally represents the individual states. The latter is in part a definition of a republic, and a recognition that the tyranny of the majority is every bit as bad as the tyranny of the despot.

 

That is positive thinking but the framers definitely did not want average people making potentially bad decisions. So they didn’t trust them.

I dislike California and New York political attitudes more than you can imagine but to have Wyoming with as much power in the Senate seems absurd.

 

I'm thinking of Hawaii v Trump for example.

 

What about Hawaii v Trump?

 

Canadian conservative Mark Steyn has had numerous free speech battles with Canadian censors.
Bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Steyn
Site: https://www.steynonline.com/

And for a terrific pro-American conservative Canadian site: https://canadafreepress.com/

 

The right to free speech does not include every expression you could possibly make.
No one has ever argued otherwise.

 

So does Canada have free speech? How about Germany?

 

Don't know. Tell me.

 

Sorry, I'm not familiar with it.

 

It wasn't that the framers thought an individual is not smart but that individuals en masse, when emotions are high, do do massively bad or irrational things, things that an individual wouldn't do on his own but is an avid participant in a crowd. In fact at the base they said only the House can initiate revenue bills (and there goes Obamacare, but that's another story) because the House is more directly accountable to the people.

Wyoming does not have the same power as California. In the House it has one Representative while California has 53. Each have two senators making their power equal in the Senate. This is by design so that states, not people, have equality which is a fundamental concept of a republic. The two powers counterbalance the authority of the people through indirect elections with the authority of the states. The authority of the states were watered down significantly with the 17th amendment, heavily supported by Wilson and the Progressives who wanted to water down the republic in favor of centralized national control.

 

All states, as entities unto themselves, are equal among themselves.