The 1st Amendment

06/28/2025

If you're not a free speech absolutist, you're for censorship.

07/06/2020

Yes, this includes people whose ideas YOU hate.
To silence them, is to be an enemy of freedom.

Don't be an enemy of freedom.

Defend the rights of those you despise,
to earn your own right to be free.

Check out Walter Williams' full interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzqsoM7-q4
He says it at about 43:10

07/04/2020

In Common Sense, Thomas Paine laid out the conditions under which it's reasonable to oppose a corrupt and authoritarian government.

With the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson agreed. He and Paine affirmed John Locke's recognition: That when the state tries to impose extreme restrictions on the People, they have a right to rise up and refuse, stripping it of the authority it is abusing.

This is as true today, as it was back then. The complaints listed 246 years ago today apply just as much now, in their own way, with a long list of new ones added.

01/02/2020

Happy Gregorian New Year!

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07/04/2019

Jefferson was using John Locke's set of criteria for when rejection of a corrupt state is obviously justified. Here are a tiny sample of Federal offenses that fit into his list perfectly. Let's note that there are at least as many here and elsewhere that apply to state and local government.

○ Violation of states' rights (this covers a HUGE number of offenses)
○ Protecting government officials and cronies from prosecution for wrongdoing
○ Delaying or politically gaming the appointment of judges
○ Civil Asset Forfeiture
○ Tariffs and trade restrictions that make Americans poorer
○ Having a higher rate of imprisonment of its own people than any other country on the planet
○ Military spending for a standing army centered around enriching cronies
○ Submitting to the UN and foreign treaties when they violate US sovereignty
○ Taxes not passed legitimately, like the Obamacare tax that was passed in the Senate using a procedure that is illegal to use on tax bills

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

06/09/2019

Laws that Encourage Suing a Person Who Expressed Their Honest Opinion Violate The First Amendment.

06/03/2019

The philosophical foundation of The 1st Amendment

We're starting a new section at Heroes of Liberty, the Freedom Folio. These are documents that have contributed to our understanding of the cause of freedom, throughout history.

Today's book is the one that kicked off classic liberalism, John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government".

It was published almost a century before the Founding Fathers of the US used it as the philosophical basis for their secession from the British monarchy and to expand the protection of natural rights and liberty in the New World.

○ "Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent."

○ "In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity"

○ "The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction. So when someone declares by word or action—not in a sudden outburst of rage, but as a matter of calm settled design—that he intends to end another man’s life, he puts himself into a state of war against the other person"

○ Despotic power can only come from an aggressor’s giving up his right to his own life by putting himself into a state of war with someone else.

○ "A state of nature, properly understood, involves men living together according to reason, with no-one on earth who stands above them all and has authority to judge between them."

"Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."

In Two Treatises, John Locke lays out the foundation of classic liberalism, people governing themselves consensually, instead of being ruled by force

"But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression."

• The first treatise refutes the idea that the state has the divine right to patriarchal rule.
• The second treatise explains that people form society voluntarily, to benefit from cooperation, therefore only respect government if they the choices would have without it are enhanced, instead of being violated.
• Locke goes on to point out that if the state violates those natural choices of society's members, it is putting itself into a "state of war" against the community itself, whose members will rightfully resist
even if told to be obedient, leading to strife and discord.
He therefore describes those choices as a requirement for the legitimacy of social order, calling them "natural rights".

05/31/2019

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05/03/2019

This idea pretty much defines good vs evil

12/29/2018

s'truth

12/27/2018

There are statutes in the US that forbid the advocacy of lawbreaking.
They are unconstitutional.
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" advocated lawbreaking.
The Founders recognized dissent as the most important free expression.

“When EVIL men make bad laws,
righteous men disobey them."

Be sure to Like An UnJust Law is No Law at All