Essay --

First Amendment Rights During War Considering that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, sess and should government regulate hate speech, or seek to address the impairment it causes? Based on a premise that there is no such a thing as absolute right or absolute freedom, we can infer that a government can and should regulate any speech and seek to address the harm it causes but the real issue is -- where, when, and how can it be regulated? Trying to balance both, freedom of speech and the fear of an inflammatory press report, the Supreme Court has produced probably the most famous legalistic test -- perish and present danger. The underlying idea is that bureaucrats cannot punish a speaker/writer unless he/she creates a clear and present danger to others. Theoretically, this standard appears to be encouraging of the right to speak freely. However, in practice, it is difficult to determine when the danger was clear enough for an average report er, how remote it could be and yet still be considered present, and how incisively hazardous the danger should be to justify suppression of a speech. In addition to speech, the 1st Amendment protects writing, demonstrating, parading, leafleting, and certain forms of symbolic expression. The freedom of speech becomes a progeny to terra firmaable time, manner, and place regulations, as long as these regulations are content-neutral. Translating this legalistic jargon in plain English, the bureaucrats cannot restrict the content of what the speaker has to say, but it is their prerogative to reason what reasonable time, manner, and place are. And we know how they usually define what reasonable is (for them, of course). Brandenburg vs. Ohio In Brandenbu... ...otential attackers across a wider geographic area. Such a flat-out conclusion -- about one hundred eighty degrees from the trumpeted rationale for spending billions in Afghanistan -- might seem to merit more than a few dozen wo rds. The assessment, while prominent, was brief and fleeting. It seemed to cause little elicit in American news media. So, actually, First Amendment is not really a guarantee. Its a promissory ideal that can be redeemed only by media vitality in the present. If freedom of speech can be augmented by freedom to be heard, then Americans may hear enough divergent voices to disabuse themselves of easy and deadly clichs. References 1) Norman Solomons book The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media 2) Schenck Case retrieved from http//www.thisnation.com/library on 23/04/2003 3) Cases Incorporated Schenck v. U.S., Brandenburg Vs. Ohio and U.S. v. OBrien.