Condoleeza Rice: physically threatened, then attacked to prevent free speech.
Ann Coulter: physically threatened, then attacked to prevent free speech.
Sarah Palin: threatened with attack to prevent free speech.
David Horowitz: physically threatened, then attacked to prevent free speech.
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren...
...physically threatened...
...then attacked, to prevent free speech.
Bill Kristol: physically threatened, then attacked to prevent free speech.
Dick Cheney: physically threatened, then attacked to prevent free speech.
Karl Rove: physically threatened, then attacked to prevent free speech.Free speech. Constitutionally protected. Legally permissible. Desirable in a free society.
But intolerable to Democrats and Islamic extremists.
The protections in the Bill of Rights are protections of the people from the government. "Congress shall make no law that...", as an example.
ReplyDeleteMost, if not all, the examples you have are interactions between private citizens. If, in those interactions, one of the citizens breaks a law, then they should be arrested or similar. However, as they are not acting as a government representative, they are not imposing on other party's constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.
As such, constitutional protection in this case is irrelevant. This isn't a triviality or technicality, because one can not make guarantee an absolute freedom between two parties at the same time, as the protection of one will always infringe on the other. However, the government does not have freedom of speech, so there are no problems in this regard.
It seems justifiable to complain about the behavior of these people all you want, but the "they're taking away constitutional rights" kind of talk is likely wrong.