How can someone be so confident but also so wrong?
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EDIT: Let's remind ourselves of where FEDERAL freedom of speech comes from. Firstly, of course, is the First Amendment:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
You may notice that it doesn't say "free speech is for citizens", but rather that there is a negative-right against Congress from legislating to restrict speech. But what about the President, or the judiciary, or the States? Well, Gitlow v. New York established the following:
> Assumed, for the purposes of the case, that freedom of speech and of the press are among the personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.
Judges need to get better at this: it NEVER is just for that case. And so the case set a precedent that the 14th Amendment's due process clause contains within itself a more powerful version of the First Amendment. Now let's remind ourselves of what the due process clause says (with the equal protect clause for good measure):
> nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Now, to quote the notorious RBG:
> Nor shall any State deprive any person, not any citizen. And the choice [in] the word 'person' was quite deliberate. And similarly, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. So, the United States constitution surely recognises the fundamental human rights of all persons.
Now, reasonable people can disagree on whether the due process clause should be so expansive, indeed I find the US's tendency to amend the Constitution via Supreme Court precedent to be deeply troubling, but even under a textualist reading of the First Amendment, the idea that Freedom of Speech in America is limited to citizens is deeply, deeply ignorant.
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EDIT: Let's remind ourselves of where FEDERAL freedom of speech comes from. Firstly, of course, is the First Amendment:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
You may notice that it doesn't say "free speech is for citizens", but rather that there is a negative-right against Congress from legislating to restrict speech. But what about the President, or the judiciary, or the States? Well, Gitlow v. New York established the following:
> Assumed, for the purposes of the case, that freedom of speech and of the press are among the personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.
- https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/268/652/
Judges need to get better at this: it NEVER is just for that case. And so the case set a precedent that the 14th Amendment's due process clause contains within itself a more powerful version of the First Amendment. Now let's remind ourselves of what the due process clause says (with the equal protect clause for good measure):
> nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Now, to quote the notorious RBG:
> Nor shall any State deprive any person, not any citizen. And the choice [in] the word 'person' was quite deliberate. And similarly, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. So, the United States constitution surely recognises the fundamental human rights of all persons.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYR414Q8v6A&t=3925s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYR414Q8v6A&t=3712s (timestamp for the question she's responding to)
Now, reasonable people can disagree on whether the due process clause should be so expansive, indeed I find the US's tendency to amend the Constitution via Supreme Court precedent to be deeply troubling, but even under a textualist reading of the First Amendment, the idea that Freedom of Speech in America is limited to citizens is deeply, deeply ignorant.