Justice Wears A Burqa

I can't believe I'm actually having to type this, but - second look at Koran burning?:

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on GMA that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning.

“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,” Breyer told me. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”

...

For Breyer, that right is not a foregone conclusion.

“It will be answered over time in a series of cases which force people to think carefully. That’s the virtue of cases,” Breyer told me. “And not just cases. Cases produce briefs, briefs produce thought. Arguments are made. The judges sit back and think. And most importantly, when they decide, they have to write an opinion, and that opinion has to be based on reason. It isn’t a fake.”

Um, no, that opinion has to be based ON THE CONSTITUTION - what the text actually says.  And what the First Amendment actually says is this:

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.

If burning the American flag is "speech," then so is burning Korans.  Ain't no nooks, crannies, or "penumbras" about it.  No matter what judges "think," reclined or otherwise.

Which, of course, requires judges to exercise self-restraint ever since Chief Justice Marshall tore down any external barriers to what became the Imperial Judiciary.  Justice Breyer's constitutionally heretical ruminations demonstrate pretty clearly what he thinks of limitations on judicial power.  I bet he'd flick his Bic on them personally, as he's already done so rhetorically.

I still don't think much of "Pastor" Jones and his international publicity stunt, but I am sourly compelled to acknowledge that, even in the absence of the unholy bonfire, it proved to be a highly educational cultural rectal exam.  Even the possibility of a symbolic free speech exercise taking aim at Islam triggered [heh] a wall-to-wall dhimmist wail across the cowering Western world and beyond based on the assumption - by implication accepted by its likely victims - that Islamic Fundamentalists would make blood flow to the horses' bridles for two hundred miles in every direction, and otherwise make a big fuss about it.  Now a denizen of Olympus itself, of the "free speech is absolute as long as it insults and denigrates Judeo-Christianity" school of judicial "sit back and thought" thinks formally according Sharia law a foothold in American constitutional jurisprudence might just be a dandy, super-duper, peachy-keen idea.

Why?  Because it could "lead to violence" by those who don't like the speech.  You see the problem, no?  Speech that "offends" some is still protected - indeed, is that not the argument for enshrining everything from flag-burning to pornography as constitutionally sacrosanct?  The "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" argument has always been an indicator of the limits on restricting speech, not a mandate for it at the behest of effectively establishing a particular religion.- which is the logically inevitable endpoint of this line of "judicial thought".

I can't believe I'm actually having to type THIS, either - Eeyore is an optimist in posing this question:

If the left suddenly decided the First Amendment had a “Koran” exception — which would also surely be extended to the Bible, the Torah, etc, in the name of “neutrality” — how would they go about justifying it?

That is what we in the logic game call "missing the whole point."  No, a "Koran exception" WOULDN'T be extended to the Bible, the Torah, etc."  Why?  Because when Jews or Christians or Buddhists or Hindus or Shintoists, etc. are insulted or their beliefs and symbols are desecrated or even their brethren persecuted or martyred, none of those groups fly into blithering, murderous rampages against those who have offended them.  Islamic Fundamentalists do.  It doesn't matter that they don't NEED to be supplied reasons to do so; they don't waste any opportunity the infidels provide them, be it a cartoon or a "Pastor Pyro" or the Great Satan briefly mustering the national will, if not cultural self-confidence, to take the enemy's war to them.  The common thread is jihadism, not the excuses its cowed intended victims rationalize up for it.

If it wasn't completely antithetical to Biblical doctrine, I'd call evangelicals fools for not following Muslims' example: cross [heh] us, and you pay a price in blood.  Make libs regret they ever smeared us with the bigoted stereotypes we'd be bringing to actual life.  And make Islamic Fundies think twice about their "holy war" fetish.

How'd that be for "more speech, not less"?

Personally, I'd settle for the First Amendment gaining four strategic additional words:

Neither Congress nor the Judiciary shall make any 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.

That lack may prove to be a bigger "Mack Truck hole" than the Commerce Clause will EVER be, if Justice Breyer gets his way.