"Put Colloquially, American Law Believes That Talking Out Prevents Acting Out." A Free Speech Primer
Abstract
"Put Colloquially, American Law Believes That Talking Out Prevents Acting Out." A Free Speech Primer, argues that the Federal First Amendment, textually against Congress, and as incorporated by reference against the Several States, states a preference for sanctioning harmful speech and expression (1) in civil proceedings rather than (2) penalizing the speaker in a criminal prosecution.
The article argues that whether in the 1988 theft of an unflattering portrait of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, titled "Mirth and Girth," by three city aldermen from the Chicago Art Institute ranging to then President Clinton's perjury regarding his sexual abuse of a state employee, [Paula Corbin] Jones versus [William Jefferson] Clinton, 36 F.Supp. 2d 1118 (E.D.Ark., 1999), American law prefers not to criminalize speech or expressive conduct.
The article concedes that several well-worn exceptions exist: For example, (1) fraud, (2) national defense, and (3) sexual speech or expression to or about minor children, even fictive minor children in comic books.
The article questions whether an additional contemporary exception also exists in the case of a public flag burning of the Saudi or other Islamic flag with green (the heraldic color of Muhammad and his descendants) with the saying "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet" written in Arabic. The article predicts a conflict - a cloud much larger than a man's hand - on the horizon between the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Muslim Sharia law.
The article concludes wondering why the West is so paralyzed by its own formula "One Man, One Vote" in the mouths of rulers whose men and women have no vote. The article ends with the ultimate authority of Christ's last words, spoken from the cross, "It is finished."