NYT Graciously Admits the 1st Amendment Applies to Conservatives

"The fact that conservatives benefit from the First Amendment is not something to bemoan. It is part of the constitutional bargain."- NYT

According to a new op-ed, folks on the left are “increasingly” making the claim that Republicans have “weaponized” the First Amendment. It seems the scary words are just too much for some to bear. Spoken or written ideas are simply too potent.

Fortunately, your political betters at The New York Times are bigger than that. They’ve just run an editorial written by David Cole. He’s the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. You may know them as the organization that occasionally cares about a subset of constitutional issues they agree with. Despite the allegedly-serious argument that “the First Amendment’s very neutrality is problematic, because in an unequal society, the amendment will favor the haves over the have-nots,” the ACLU (and the Times) has decided that free speech is important. That the Constitution applies to to all citizens is quiet a concept!

"Critics are increasingly making the claim that under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the First Amendment, once an important safeguard for progressive speech, has become a boon to corporations, conservatives and the powerful. But  the First Amendment doesn’t favor speech of the right or the left; it simply takes the government out of the business of controlling speakers by virtue of what they say.

The fact that conservatives benefit from the First Amendment is not something to bemoan. It is part of the constitutional bargain. 

It simply means the First Amendment is operating as it should, neutrally preserving the lifeblood of democracy. …these developments should not lead liberals or progressives to lose faith in the First Amendment. For starters, the amendment’s core requirement is that the government must remain neutral regarding the content and viewpoint of speech. As a result, a decision protecting conservative speech will equally support liberal speech."

The very fact that the New York Times felt this was worth printing suggests that even they recognize the left has drifted closer to the fascist black hole than most of us (who are already deeply jaded) have suspected. Think about it. This means that the left is so enamored with the idea of eliminating free speech that the New York Times – itself a leftist-statist standard bearer – felt it necessary to admonish them.

We’re glad you’ve finally noticed …and we’re deeply concerned that you had to.

Excerpts from Robert Laurie

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