Obscene Threat
July 2008
While it is easy to find political fault with the United States, one aspect of our civic culture commands unalloyed enthusiasm: a remarkable commitment to freedom of expression.
The First Amendment, with its bold and seemingly absolute assertion that there shall be “no law abridging freedom of speech, or of the press,” has been given increasing power and reach in its first two centuries of history. Courts have expanded its protections so that today, all sorts of dissent or criticism that would have been punished in the past — and that remains punishable elsewhere in the… Continue reading