@INVAR
But it can be limited.
Only if you want to reclassify a Right into a Government-granted privilege. And, as history teaches - once Government is granted power to regulate one surrendered aspect of Rights, it very quickly comes to claim the rest, almost always in the name of public and state safety.
One cannot call up a hospital and impersonate a police officer, despite the Right of Free Speech.
Impersonating someone else is not an aspect of freedom of speech. TALKING about police officers, condemning them, ridiculing them, praising them, demanding they be fired or rewarded - THAT is free speech. Dressing up as a cop to convince others you have law enforcement authority is a crime. Not a free speech issue at all. Bad analogy.
Similarly, one cannot shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
Shouting a false alarm in order to incite a panic to cause mayhem and injury is not an issue of freedom of speech, especially political speech. It's a bad straw man used to justify the divine right of government to regulate a Right as a Privilege.
There are limits to the rights in the Bill of Rights.
NO, THERE'S NOT.
If there is, then we do not possess Rights at all, we possess merely privileges which government may grant, require license, tax, limit, regulate or abolish on its own whim and authority. As it stands, the BOR does not establish Rights at all - but lists them for the specific purpose of enumerating what government may not touch, and how it must operate around and with them intact and unspoiled.
Freedom of the Press doesn't mean there can't be laws against libel. In fact, some state Constitutions (e.g., Pennsylvania) mention libel explictly, so it was recognized at the time.
Speaking evil to do public harm to another person is just another version of assault. It used to be legal in times past, when libel and slander was issued, that a duel to the death was the honorable way of settling the score rather than to tie up the courts.
Etc.
Unfortunately, some idjits forget (or are willfully ignorant of) that, and think that the right to keep and bear arms is limitless. And that hurts our cause.
Then we have no right to keep or bear arms. We only have a government-granted privilege society may empower them to revoke, limit, tax, abolish or otherwise confiscate upon a whim of an emoting mob whipped up into a frenzy.
Limiting any Right - relegates an inalienable and insoluble Right into a grant and permission of Government. To think we must limit rights, reveals just how dead and buried Liberty actually is in this country.
