1 / 8

First Amendment

First Amendment. Are you an absolutist or a relativist?. Nat Hentoff: Absolutist. Northeastern graduate Wrote liner notes for John Coltrane and Bob Dylan First Amendment views formed by getting kicked off the News. Robert Bork: Relativist. Served Richard Nixon Failed Supreme Court nominee

chiko
Download Presentation

First Amendment

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. First Amendment Are you an absolutistor a relativist?

  2. Nat Hentoff: Absolutist • Northeastern graduate • Wrote liner notes for John Coltrane and Bob Dylan • First Amendment views formed by getting kicked off the News

  3. Robert Bork: Relativist • Served Richard Nixon • Failed Supreme Court nominee • Blames liberal judges for protecting “vulgarity and obscenity”

  4. Understanding“make no law” • Hentoff: Any restriction on speech, even libel law, violates the First Amendment • Bork: The First Amendment was meant to protect political speech, not indecency and violence

  5. Hentoff on obscenity • Founders were unconcerned • Supreme Court didn’t mention until 1957 • Brennan, in Roth, introduced social value

  6. Lenny Bruce • A satirist with a dirty mouth • How do you define social value? • Won on appeal, but it was too late

  7. Bork on obscenity • Criticizes Snoop Dogg, Nine Inch Nails • Driven by aesthetic as well as legal judgments • Hentoff may be wrong — Chaplinsky,Near v. Minnesota

  8. Hentoff versus Bork • Protection of political ideas versus threat of censorship • A loophole for censors versus a loophole for pornographers • Minority rights versus majority rule

More Related