In an original and iconoclastic reassessment of the First Amendment, a distinguished political philosopher reaches unorthodox yet compelling conclusions about the place of free speech and religion in the American constitutional order. Revisiting the internal logic of the Amendment's language and the legal culture from which it emerged, Professor David Lowenthal attacks the legacy of Holmes and Brandeis, whose judicial heirs have twisted the First Amendment into a vehicle for degrading and destabilizing the republic it was meant to strengthen and preserve. Professor Lowenthal demonstrates that the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights had an understanding of freedom quite different from that to which we have grown accustomed. They saw that freedom without limits degenerates into mere license, itself a threat to freedom, and devised the First Amendment to guarantee the political freedoms requisite for republican self-government. Lowenthal then examines the modern Supreme Court's treatment of revolutionary groups, obscenity, and church-state questions, showing how in each area the Court has been led astray by its fixation on individual rights at the expense of the common good and the health of the republic.
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Lowenthal (political science, Boston Coll.) excoriates the status of our constitutional republic in general and the Supreme Court in particular. He sees a republic imperiled, primarily owing to what he considers the unwarranted handiwork of a Court whose members have forgotten or chosen to ignore the original intent of the First Amendment. Though this account offers a jurisprudence of original intent meant to reclaim the republican experiment begun in the late 18th century, Lowenthal's reach ultimately exceeds his grasp. Writing as a constitutional preservationist opposed to constitutional innovation by the judiciary, he lays all that is wrong with contemporary politics and law in the United States at the feet of the Supreme Court. But his selective treatment of Court decision-making prevents the work from having the appeal and impact it otherwise might have realized. Recommended for academic libraries.?Stephen K. Shaw, Northwest Nazarene Coll., Nampa, Id.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
David Lowenthal, a native of Brooklyn, New York, has taught political science at Boston College since 1966. He holds undergraduate degrees from Brooklyn College and New York University and a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research, where he studied under Leo Strauss. Professor Lowenthal is also the author of a forthcoming book from Rowman & Littlefield on the moral and political thought of Shakespeare. He lives in Princeton, Massachusetts.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A well researched and documented history of major changes.,
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This review is from: No Liberty for License: The Forgotten Logic of the First Amendment (Hardcover)
The author presents a very interesting and readable history of the major changes and the cases involved in the interpretations of the first amendment to the constitution. He shows how these changes have negatively impacted our society allowing us too much freedom without any real responsibility, leading to the degradation of society and what he sees as the eventual downfall of our government - perhaps even into dictatorship. He gives two appendices to help the reader (especially the novice to law) understand the cases. The most important part of the book is the first section and the conclusion, though the other parts are also important. The only drawback I see is that the author did not mention the presidents who appointed the justices to the Supreme Court who were involved in the changes in interpretation of the first amendment. It would have added interest and weight to the book to know the presidential involvement in the choices made for justices and the influence each president had over his justice choice, if any. Also, the recommendations for change and his call to action appear to be weak in outline and ability to actually be accomplished. Finally, anyone (perhaps students) without a thorough command of the English language better read the book with a dictionary in hand!!
15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great insight into origins of Supreme Court decadence.,
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This review is from: No Liberty for License: The Forgotten Logic of the First Amendment (Hardcover)
The author beautifully demonstrates the intepretation of the US Constitution in modern times is contrary to that of its original intent. Well written and accessible to those without legal background, though extensively referenced.He further shows that the original intent is superior politically, logically and morally to what has replaced it. That the current interpretation that has replaced it, due to its internal contradictions, must disrupt in time, taking any government based on it down with it. The most fascinating point of the book, perhaps, is where the author shows the exact point in 1919 where the Supreme Court first lost touch with Constitution. Then again, in 1925, when it solidified that in a ruling written by Holmes and Brandeis: "If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of freedom speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way." It was with this statement that US Constitution, as designed by the founding fathers, being based on centuries of experience and articulated in part by John Locke, was instead replaced by one based on John Stuart Mills and Charles Darwin. Instead of the original intent of allowing citizens to protect themselves from those who seek to strip them of their inalienable rights (liberty as "We the People"), the courts adopted a position that supresses that, stating that our original constitutional democracy is only a "fighting faith" and cannot be held as deserving protection from other "fighting faiths", even if the people loath them and believe them destructive to representative government. These poisonous seeds are buried in history but have been blooming throughout the century, as judges draw on precedence and their own personal cultural background as isolated legal elites. The people who designed the US government and those who lived in it for the first 140 years would find the present situation a bizarre distortion almost beyond belief and rationality. Certainly not sustainable and actually the opposite of what was intended, achieving and surpassing the very European decadence they designed to prevent. Here in LA, I've been vexed to go to the US Post Office and see the parking lots stuffed with pornographic literature blowing all over the place while children praying in school is criminalized. A demented society indeed. This book traces the legal development of the insanity.
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