Customer Reviews

No Liberty for License: The Forgotten Logic of the First Amendment

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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!!

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.