Author Topic: Judge Napolitano: the liberty to speak badly about race  (Read 352 times)

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rangerrebew

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Judge Napolitano: the liberty to speak badly about race
« on: May 01, 2014, 07:54:33 pm »
NAPOLITANO: The liberty to speak badly about race

Freedom gives haters the room to reap contempt of society

By Andrew P. Napolitano

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Cliven Bundy should be happy for the public revelation of the private comments of fellow racist Donald Sterling.

The latter has replaced the former as the person Americans most love to hate. These two bigots recently spewed racial hatred: Mr. Bundy suggesting that blacks might do well to consider slavery over freedom, and Mr. Sterling offering disjointed comments that reveal his evident beliefs in white supremacy.

Mr. Bundy is a Nevada rancher who became a hero to the right for standing up to the heavy hand of federal suppression of property rights in the West. He and his family had been grazing their cattle on land they thought was theirs or the state of Nevada’s for more than 100 years, when along came the federal Bureau of Land Management, which claimed the land and assessed Mr. Bundy for his use of it. A federal judge upheld the claims and the million-dollar assessment, yet Mr. Bundy refused to pay. Instead of filing the judgment in a courthouse, as you and I would do if we had a judgment against Mr. Bundy, the feds showed up with 200 camouflage-clad, machine-gun-bearing federal agents determined to steal his cattle.

Soon, thousands of Nevadans showed up to support Mr. Bundy, whereupon the feds enacted a “free-speech zone.” They ordered the protesters either to disperse, or to enter the zone and protest there. The zone was a 25-square-yard patch of earth in the Nevada desert, three miles from the site of the Bundy-vs.-government confrontation.

Mr. Sterling is a billionaire who owns the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association and was a hero to the left for his public support of liberal causes. He has given generously to the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP and to the Democratic Party in California. He is white, married and apparently enjoys the company of a biracial girlfriend. Recordings of his several wild, weird, disjointed rants directed to the girlfriend and uttered in the privacy of his own home have been played publicly. In them, Mr. Sterling directs his girlfriend not to attend Clipper games in the company of her black friends.

Both of these men used hateful and hurtful words that were animated by truly condemnable attitudes about race. No moral person credibly could suggest that slavery is preferable to freedom, and no moral person credibly could suggest that whites are superior to blacks in any respect. Those were attitudes advanced by antebellum slaveowners and 20th-century supporters of laws that used the machinery of government to harm blacks during the 100 years following the Civil War.

All rational people, understanding the colorblindness of the natural law, have a moral obligation — but not a legal one — publicly to treat persons of different races with equal dignity and respect. I can morally prefer a friend or a mate who is of my race, but I cannot morally hate a potential friend or mate just because the person is not of my race. I do not know what is in their hearts, but Mr. Bundy and Mr. Sterling are apparently haters.

What to do with them because of their speech? Nothing. I mean nothing. Racially hateful speech is protected from government interference by the First Amendment, which largely was written to protect hateful speech. Neither Mr. Bundy nor Mr. Sterling has been accused in these instances of racially motivated conduct — just speech animated by hatred.

In the Bundy case, the feds did suppress speech by keeping it three miles away from them. Free speech, free assembly and the right to petition the government would become empty and meaningless if the governmental targets of the speech and assembly could not hear it. The First Amendment will condone outlawing the use of a bullhorn by protesters in front of a hospital at 3 o’clock in the morning, but it will not condone free-speech zones for the sake of government convenience. The entire United States of America is a free-speech zone.

In the Sterling case, is it fair to punish someone for speech uttered in the privacy of his home? It would be exquisitely unfair for the government to do so, but the NBA is not the government. When Mr. Sterling bought his basketball team, he agreed to accept punishment for conduct unbecoming a team owner or conduct detrimental to the sport. Is speech conduct? For constitutional purposes, it is not; the Constitution does not restrain the NBA. It is free to pull the trigger of punishment to which Mr. Sterling consented.

But it needn’t do so.

Hateful and hurtful words have natural and probable consequences where the people are free to counter them. The government has no business cleansing the public marketplace of hateful ideas. The most effective equalizer for hatred is the free market. It will remedy Mr. Sterling’s hatred far more effectively than the NBA can. As advertisers and sponsors and fans desert Sterling-owned properties, he will be forced to sell them, lest his financial losses become catastrophic. The free market has removed Mr. Bundy from the public stage altogether.

Don’t hold your breath, though, waiting for the forces of freedom to nullify hatred. Soon the forces of darkness will attempt to do so as creative prosecutors and hungry litigators bring the government into the fray. I hope they stay home and follow the natural-law principle of subsidiarity, which mandates that public problems be solved using the minimum force necessary, not the maximum force possible — and no force at all where peaceful measures are just as effective.

I would not invite Mr. Bundy or Mr. Sterling into my home, nor would I befriend them, but I will defend with zeal and diligence their constitutional freedoms.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/30/napolitano-the-liberty-to-speak-badly-about-race/#ixzz30UmXv1iM
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« Last Edit: May 01, 2014, 07:55:41 pm by rangerrebew »

Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Judge Napolitano: the liberty to speak badly about race
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2014, 08:32:05 pm »
Quote
Mr. Bundy is a Nevada rancher who became a hero to the right for standing up to the heavy hand of federal suppression of property rights in the West. He and his family had been grazing their cattle on land they thought was theirs or the state of Nevada’s for more than 100 years, when along came the federal Bureau of Land Management, which claimed the land and assessed Mr. Bundy for his use of it. A federal judge upheld the claims and the million-dollar assessment, yet Mr. Bundy refused to pay. Instead of filing the judgment in a courthouse, as you and I would do if we had a judgment against Mr. Bundy, the feds showed up with 200 camouflage-clad, machine-gun-bearing federal agents determined to steal his cattle.

There's just so much wrong with that statement that it is difficult to find a place where to begin.

"Mr. Bundy is a Nevada rancher who became a hero to the right for standing up to the heavy hand of federal suppression of property rights in the West."

How can this be a case of "property rights" when the land in question clearly never belonged to any member of the Bundy family?

"He and his family had been grazing their cattle on land they thought was theirs or the state of Nevada’s for more than 100 years, when along came the federal Bureau of Land Management, which claimed the land and assessed Mr. Bundy for his use of it."

The Bundy family got to Nevada in the 1870's. The U.S. Grazing Service began charging fees for the use of the land sometime around 1934. That's just about 64 years, give or take a year or two. The BLM replaced the Grazing Service in 1946, which is STILL far short of that "more than 100 years that Napolitano mentions. I particularly love the "thought it was theirs" part. Didn't the absence of a bill of sale, tax records or a title to those lands dissuade them form the idea that it was "theirs"?

"A federal judge upheld the claims and the million-dollar assessment, yet Mr. Bundy refused to pay. Instead of filing the judgment in a courthouse, as you and I would do if we had a judgment against Mr. Bundy, the feds showed up with 200 camouflage-clad, machine-gun-bearing federal agents determined to steal his cattle."

The judgement was against Bundy's business, a corporation, not against Bundy, so how would a judge go about putting a lien on Bundy's personal property stemming from his business dents?

"... steal his cattle..."

Napolitano was a judge.

Bundy was/is in violation of TWO Federal Court orders, and those Federal agents were there executing a Court order.

As a Judge, is Napolitano encouraging the people of the United States to disregard Court orders they don't agree with, and is he suggesting that Federal agents should likewise not execute Court orders if they don't want to?

Is that how Judge Napolitano ran his Court?

He would issue Court orders and people and agents then decided whether or not to adhere to them?

I used to respect this guy.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

rangerrebew

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Re: Judge Napolitano: the liberty to speak badly about race
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2014, 05:55:28 pm »
And Harry Reid owns 93 acres next to Bundy.  I'm sure that has nothing to do with it all.

I was watching the History Channel last night and there was a feature on how Hitler took over the country.  Such "land grabs" were used then and for no purpose than to intimidate the citizens in to not fighting the government.  The media collaborated with Herr Goebbels just like our media is with Herr Obama They armed thugs to further intimidate citizens much like the BLM, Post Office and so many other agencies.  It wasn't about the land then and it isn't about the land now.  It is about compliance and control.  History is rapidly repeating itself. :smash: 11513 :2gunz: :bash:
« Last Edit: May 02, 2014, 05:57:51 pm by rangerrebew »

Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Judge Napolitano: the liberty to speak badly about race
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2014, 05:58:22 pm »
And Harry Reid owns 93 acres next to Bundy.  I'm sure that has nothing to do with it all.

He does not.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Judge Napolitano: the liberty to speak badly about race
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2014, 06:03:13 pm »
I was watching the History Channel last night and there was a feature on how Hitler took over the country.  Such "land grabs" were used then and for no purpose than to intimidate the citizens in to not fighting the government.  The media collaborated with Herr Goebbels just like our media is with Herr Obama They armed thugs to further intimidate citizens much like the BLM, Post Office and so many other agencies.  It wasn't about the land then and it isn't about the land now.  It is about compliance and control.  History is rapidly repeating itself. :smash: 11513 :2gunz: :bash:

In order for this to be a land grab, the land in question would have to belong to Bundy... IT DOES NOT. It never has belonged to Bundy.

That land belonged to Mexico unto 1848, when ownership was transferred to the United States via the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War and remains the property of the United States to this day via the Constitution of Nevada of 1864.

 
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx