The

Simple-Ideas Occasional
A publication dedicated to the study and celebration of common sense and repeatable experiments Robert L. Nuckolls, III Medicine Lodge, KS Number 007E, 10 June 2011

First Amendment Rights and Other Popular Myths

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that bullying is a constitutionally protected right.. I have observed there are but four reasons for humans to communicate with each other. To (1) inform, (2) entertain, (2) constructively persuade or (4) to injure. Communication for the exchange of information, entertainment or constructive persuasion are relationships of mutual consent. Any individual living in a state of personal and communal liberty (civilized society) may choose not to participate in such exchanges at any time for any reason. Injurious speech can be for the purpose of perpetrating force (bullying) or fraud (deception). Either is a fundamental violation of an individuals liberty. Victims of fraud many be unaware of their plight if the deception is covert. However, the victim of bullying is always aware (sometimes painfully) of their attacker(s) and their intent. The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Ks(1) has been in the news for years. They recently launched a mission to picket funerals of US soldiers. They bully other individuals for perverse personal pleasure. Marauders? Some might say, theyre not pillaging or plundering their prey, theyre just poking sticks at them. I suggest they ARE involved in pillage and plunder . . . not of physical property but of human peace and dignity. Bullying is an invasion of personal space. A bully does not attack under rules of communication common to a civilized society. The bully chooses situations where victims are relatively isolated or captive. Popular venues for attack include front yards of homes where crosses have been burned(2). Schools where Casey Heynes(3) had the audacity to rise up to his own defense. Nineteen bullies imposed their perverse pleasure on thousands of innocents confined to their places of work on 9/11. The Westboro Marauders like to set up shop outside churches hosting a funeral. The KKK justified their behaviors based on some belief in genetic superiority . . . as did the Nazis. The Jihadists and Westboro Marauders both claim some celestial justification for their sadism. The teen-aged antagonist of Casey Heynes is a garden variety, home grown bully. But give him time, environment, and perhaps some tutoring by a contemporary constitutional lawyer. He still has time and opportunity to elevate his bullying to celestial status. History chronicles countless examples of human abuse at the hands of other humans. For the moment well focus on the fact that our nations highest court has granted constitutional protections to an activity that is nothing less than bullying on a grand scale. The court tells us a citizen under rule of constitutional law has a protected right to express their ideas no matter how unpopular those ideas might be. Quoting from the Huffington Post:(4): WASHINGTON The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a grieving father's pain over mocking protests at his Marine son's funeral must yield to First Amendment protections for free speech. All but one justice sided with a fundamentalist church that has stirred outrage with raucous demonstrations contending God is punishing the military for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality. The 8-1 decision in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., was the latest in a line of court rulings that, as Chief Justice John Roberts said in his opinion for the court, protects "even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate." I am astounded at this demonstration of shallow thought by a body of judges to whom we have entrusted the keys of liberty. How can anyone believe that a noisy, abusive mob picketing a funeral is engaged in public debate? Liberty is a condition of existence that protects a citizen from the effects of force or fraud against their property or person. In short, liberty is a right to be left alone. The Westboro Marauders are a cowardly mob with a lust for visiting misery, disgust and perhaps even fear upon a

Copyright 2011 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.

peaceful, vulnerable gathering of fellow citizens in their time of grief. Bullying is an activity intended to produce mental anguish or physical pain for the pleasure of being able to do it and get away with it(5). I suggest that the term bullying is a short step down from terrorism where bullying falls just short of inflicting serious injury or death. To understand the degree to which our Supreme Court has abandoned First Principals, we need to understand a few simple-ideas about our Constitution. Every feature of the Bill of Rights goes to the establishment of limits on actions imposed upon citizens by a new government. There are no words in the Constitution that speak to the relationship between citizens. The founding fathers were focused on the inevitable erosion of honorable behaviors when one group of individuals (government) is given legislative power over other individuals (honorable citizens). Every idea expressed in the Constitution goes to protection of the citizenry from such erosion. The First Principal of constitutional law is the protection of honorable citizens from the dishonorable behaviors of other individuals. The law was never intended to become a tool of largess, coercion, power or plunder (bullying or terrorism) to be applied to any honorable citizen. The Constitution is not a set of rules and ideas handed down from government to the citizens. It is a recipe for success crafted by citizens being handed up to a government that did not yet exist. Generations ago the courts opined that one does not have a right to shout fire in a crowded theater when indeed there is no fire. Well duh . . . theres a deep thought. What sort of individual would indulge in such behavior? Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the Italian Hall Disaster of 1913(6). Somebody yelled fire in a second floor hall filled with Christmas revelers. 500 individuals attempted escape down a narrow stairway. 73 individuals died in the crush on the stairs. 53 of them were children. Some ass holes outside the Irish Hall inflicted terror and death upon innocent victims, a blatant attack on the liberty of those individuals. But the citation for yelling fire is a classic case of misdirection. It fails to acknowledge the First Amendments most profound significance. For anyone (particularly a judge) to discuss the shouting fire prohibition within the context of the First Amendment is hogwash. This gross mis-interpretation of the First Amendment puts the courts into a position of deciding

what actions are (or are not) constitutionally protected forms of free speech. As you read these words, individuals in China are being bullied, abducted, imprisoned, and disappeared for speaking out publicly against the behavior of their government(8). There was a time in colonial America that effective speech deemed unfaithful to government could produce similar demonstrations of force from the kings operatives. Many of our ancestors died in a war which tossed that particular gang of bullies out of our budding nation. Can we take the Westboro Marauders Decision as a predictor of Supreme Court behavior? Would our learned justices have Casey Heynes simply stand motionless while his antagonist wailed away on him? Would our DesPro-guided court opine that individuals simply stand by while men in white robes burn a cross on the yard? Shucks . . . its just a few good ol boys engaging in public debate. Nobody got hurt. No physical contact between individuals. No real property damage. Do you suppose the good ol boys would drop by in the morning, clean up the ashes and plant some new grass? Yeah, right. Thousands of people died in a bit of bullying on 9/11, yet some individuals have expressed sympathies for the perps. They suggest that the hijackers were just participating in public debate over American colonialism, racism (insert favorite floobydust term here). Extending the courts reasoning to other situations suggests I can stand in front of my neighbors house in the middle of the night with a bullhorn and berate him for his choice of political yard signs. I could encourage my kids to accost his kids on the school grounds in a boisterous and intimidating manner, Hey kids! Its our fundamental right to express ourselves. Just dont make them bleed. If a responsible adult tries to intervene, well just sick the Supreme Court on them. The manner in which our courts, congress and administration have distorted the purpose and intent of the First Amendment (indeed the entire Constitution) is astounding. This re-interpretation of perfectly clear words is no mistake. Mistakes are errors of action. The accountant hitting the wrong key on an adding machine is a mistake. We are witnessing a deliberate and calculated action to dissolve the Constitution. That erosion is masked by 100+ years blizzard of legislation, court decisions, and hip-pocket rules proven effective in keeping the honorable productive citizens distracted from whats really happening.

Copyright 2011 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.

The Constitution gives no charter for nor does it excuse dishonorable behavior by any citizen. Common sense tells us that demonstrably bullying behavior by the Westboro Marauders cannot be a constitutionally protected right. The fact that 8 out of 9 judges on our highest court rendered a contrary opinion is cause for alarm. Any individual who interprets the Constitution to mean anything different is not to be trusted with the protection of our liberty. Trends are demonstrating that few institutions of government will come down hard on bloodless bullying. Bloodless bullying . . . oops . . . dynamic public debate is a time honored tactic of virtually every faction of our present day government. Thousands of pages of legislation have been jammed through our government of, by and for the people using all manner of procedural chicanery (congressional bullying).. Too many members of OUR legislature consider the Constitution an impediment. When queried about the constitutionality of their legislative actions, theyve openly scoffed at the question. The DesPros have crafted rules of order that trump the efforts of any honorable legislator attempting to do the right thing. DesPros worship rules that aid and abet their goals while rules to the contrary are re-interpreted on the fly.. . . . or simply ignored. So-called representatives of honorable citizens and protectors of liberty have put their despotic progressivism on bright and open display. Sprinkling holywater on the Westboro Marauders is but one example amongst thousands. When called to answer for their actions, the DesPro threatens the inquirer with unpleasant consequences. Theyre well known for using the powers of administrative bureaucracy to side step due process of law to bring coercive forces to bear against their detractors. For generations, OUR courts have a demonstrated a history of blatant attacks on the liberty of honorable citizens(9). They have created new law out of whole cloth. Justices who took oaths to be arbiters of constitutionally crafted law have become competitors with both the Congress and the White House to see who can exert the greater despotic progressive force upon an otherwise civilized society. Sounds like bullying to me. OUR White House is commanded by a community organizer who is proud of it. Exactly what projects can Dear Leader cite as successful outcomes of his top qualification for president? How many new businesses were started? How many individuals were elevated from

dependency on the largess of others by infusions of independent self sufficiency? How did the gross domestic production of any neighborhood increase as a result of his organizing? What are tools of success for a community organizer? Easy, gather up a sufficient number of aggrieved/needy individuals to make demands upon the productivity of others. But wait! It is so much easier when you become president. Just create dozens of new cabinet level offices to oversee hundreds of new government agencies, thousands of new rules administered by tens of thousands of new DesPros paid from the productivity of their victims. This is not a secretly held or covertly practiced motivation. The doors of the White House have been thrown wide open to welcome the most egregious practitioners of the bully/terrorists arts. Many if not all recent heads of state visiting the White House have held up a glass of fine wine, smiled, toasted their host and sipped. At the same time, theyre probably thinking, Wait til my bros kick your ass out so I can move into the White House! I shudder with the thought that our president and his supporters can raise a glass and smile at such individuals much less bow to them. Its as if well documented histories of bullying and terrorism on national and international scales never happened. Members of our courts expect to be addressed as your honor while they produce dishonorable rules against personal and communal liberty. Our elected representatives produce legislation that not only sanctifies bullying, it raises the practice to a high art. Plotting present trends into the future, what can we expect for the fate of our nation? Bullying is a tool for success in the despotic progressive government. Competent observers of present conditions would are not surprised when the most influential institutions of government fail to protect victims of bullying . . . especially when the activity can be redefined as constitutionally protected public debate. Post Script: I thought I was ready to publish this essay having massaged it for several weeks. It seems that yet one more man of the cloth, one Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Church has sought and received his own 15 minutes of fame. Hes much more successful having received the attention of political leaders world wide(10). It is interesting to note that the Westboro Marauders poke sticks at gentle, honorable individuals constrained by the customs of a civilized society who simply desire to be left alone. Those peaceful citizens were turned away when they petitioned their own justice system for protection of their liberty.

Copyright 2011 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.

On the other hand, Dove Outreach Marauders poke sticks at other bullies who are not constrained by the customs of a civilized society. Victims of Dove Outreach have predictably reacted in-kind . . . or worse. They could not care less for opinions proffered by our esteemed justices. A byproduct of Dove Outreach bullying has destroyed property and gotten people injured or killed. The Westboro and Dove Outreach gangs would have us believe they are sending righteous messages or attempting to correct certain wrongs. Their communications are neither informative, entertaining or constructively persuasive. If these perpetrators of misery and fear were our government representatives, their goals for molding behaviors would be obvious.. Sadly, these marauders are engaged in nothing more useful than fraudulent, cowardly, self-serving and sadistic bullying. Is it reasonable to expect more of the same from Dove Outreach now that the Supreme Court has given the green light to Westboros behaviors? The behaviors of Dove Outreach presents a vexing problem. Dove runs around poking sticks into the cages of victims that retaliate in dangerous ways.. How about it Mr. Chief Justice? Public debate or sociopathic insanity? If its okay for Westboro, why not Dove Outreach? We eagerly await your learned guidance.

What would James Madison or John Adams have to say about all this? I am confident they would confirm what I asserted elsewhere in these essays. The Constitution offers no license to any individual or group to engage in dishonorable behavior. Just because there are no prohibitions cited against libelous, bullying, or malicious speech does not mean it shares the protections of honorable activities for which the First Amendment was crafted. The First Amendment has but one purpose. It protects citizens against retaliatory or predatory behavior by government operatives who choose to be insulted by the words of any individual or group. Constitutionally lawful courts and the willingness of patriots to die for what the Bill of Rights represents is what protects us from a condition like present day China. The First Amendment is not about shouting fire. Its not about a government sanctioned freedom to be hurtful. Its about shouting DesPro! when an honorable citizen is attacked for being constructively critical of their own government. Further, Jones and Phelps, et. al. are not engaged in public debate. They are but common bullies elevated to celebrity status by a politically correct establishment and a morally bankrupt media.

-----*****----(1) http://tinyurl.com/4zwy26t Wikipedia entry on Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS (2) http://tinyurl.com/4aa7cwh Cross-burning on black family's lawn shocks Arroyo Grande (3) http://tinyurl.com/4k6m5v4 Google archives on Casey Heynes news

(4) http://tinyurl.com/5s9lby9 Westboro Baptist Church Wins Supreme Court Appeal Over Funeral Protests (5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying Wikipedia discussion on bullying (6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Hall_disaster Wikipedia entry on the Italian Hall Disaster of 1913 (7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Milquetoast How to say a lot while saying nothing. (8) http://tinyurl.com/4pve9hg China activists disappear amid calls for protests. (9) http://www.barefootsworld.net/nortonuc.html Undermining the Constitution - a history of lawless government. (10) http://tinyurl.com/2exoltk Who Is Terry Jones? Pastor Behind 'Burn a Koran Day'

Copyright 2011 by Robert L. Nuckolls, III. This document may be reproduced in any form or venue when authorship is properly cited and the work is not exploited for the purpose of securing a profit or obscuring context.