“Protected sexual speech” is such a bizarre phrase. Nobody who wrote the first amendment envisioned that. How can you say the First Amendment prohibits a democratically elected legislature from banning something that was never envisioned as being protected by the First Amendment by the people who wrote it? It makes no sense. Surely the views of either the writers of the first amendment of the past, or the democratically elected legislature in the present, must prevail.
because that pretty much is the state of any kind of speach it could apply to. either we operate from it as a first principle/“sacred text” or its scope shrinks as modern life loses any literal comparison to life in the late 1700s
That doesn’t make any sense. To the extent that “modern life” diverges from the late 1700s, then you don’t need the First Amendment. Voters in 2026 can decide what kind of speech they want to ban or not.
What doesn't make any sense is proposing the constitution be interpreted as it was when there was no general right to vote or general right to political speech... then claiming this is the "voters decide" option.
Your argument undermines the whole idea of written constitutions. It just means that we should ignore the First Amendment altogether. If there is a problem with what people thought in 1789, how can words written back then possibly bind elected legislatures in 2026 in any whatsoever?
First, the US constitution as it currently stands admits modifications. Amendments are version bumps. My understanding is that they’re harder to come by these days.
Second, the constitution may be written but the interpretation is always changing. In particular, the interpretation of laws around restriction of free speech have lots of history of being interpreted in ways that may or may not be congruent with the intentions of the original authors, who’re dead, so we’ll never know the truth of it. It’s only been 107 years since the US Supreme Court decided that anti-draft speech in time of war COULD BE ILLEGAL. Apparently that was partially overturned in 1969.
Thirdly [naming, caching and out by one bugs!] it is far from clear that a written constitution will lead to a durable republic. It’s only been ~250 years. Too soon to tell.
> Voters in 2026 can decide what kind of speech they want to ban or not.
No, they can’t. The point of the constitution is to prevent arbitrary changes that violate the civil rights of the individual. A tyranny of the majority (the flaw in democracy) does not get to override fundamental individual rights.
> Voters in 2026 can decide what kind of speech they want to ban or not.
You're essentially arguing against a constitution. Governments can work without one but it should at least be recognized what we're losing. There are no longer any practical limits to what laws legislators are allowed to enact.
There's a huge disconnect between what the voters want and what legislators actually enact which is why I'm glad we have a constitution. My home state, Ohio, actually tried to limit ballot initiatives because they knew they knew the upcoming abortion ballot measure was going to pass. Literally the definition of legislators not representing the will of the people. I wouldn't ever argue "some state legislature passed a law therefore it must be what the people wanted."
This is an incredibly ignorant comment. Iran isn’t Palestine and it’s a category error to project your feelings about Palestine into Iran. Iran’s attacks on Israel aren’t like Palestinians attacking a country that is occupying their territory. Iran is a sophisticated country that uses military action to further its own geopolitical interests. Iran has been attacking Israel—launching missiles and funding terrorists like Hezbollah—for decades.
Moreover, out of all the countries that attack Israel, Iran has the least reason to do so. Iran is a thousand miles away from Israel and has no security concerns from Israel’s existence. In fact, the two countries had peaceful relations for decades before the Islamic theocracy took over in 1979. Iran was the second Muslim majority country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty and the two countries had peaceful relations for decades.
Iran is getting attacked by Israel because it has chosen for decades to launch offensive attacks against Israel for no reason.
Obviously I hate the Iranian Regime as well, maybe even more than what you might imagine because I had a friend in Tehran,Iran whom I met who hated the regime and everything that came with it.
I had helped them prevent censorship from their own regime from using psiphonvpn which is insecure and helped them install protonVPN and helped them be more safe as they were using malware version of minecraft (tlauncher) and helped them use open source alternative instead so that they can enjoy a game in the world of inflation and repression and played the game with them and we have talked so much about Iranian regime.
There were scheduled blackouts and a lack of Battery storage due to prices so when blackout happened, everything turned off in most households of Tehran, the capital city of Iran.
The regime had done so many atrocities to its own people too.
But what I am trying to just say is that in this war against Iran though, The very same people I told you about who hated the regime are getting killed too.
My point is that atrocities are being done perhaps as we speak as US/Israeli forces strike tehran. Innocent people are losing lives and the same people who used to protest against the regime are getting killed as well and even school children aren't safe[0]
My comment had hoped that I could urge that this war on Iran is killing civilians and doing atrocities and there is no end to this war as far as I can tell.
This war, as much as I hate the Iranian Regime, I can't help but feel like was an escalation which is going to cause so many deaths of innocent lives. The deaths of these innocents lives is an atrocity.
Of course, me and you can go sit in our houses at safety and sleep at night and argue on forums on how wrong one another is, but I think about that friend that I can't contact because of blackouts, whom I was worried about from their own govt. when the protests had happened that I was worried about their lives, and right now, I am worried about their lives too.
And regarding Marco Rubio's statement which I am paraphasing that but Israel would've attacked Iran and so its better if we best attack with them feels so fickle response from US in the sense that US is a superpower which couldn't stop Israel from such escalation, rather dugging itself into blood of innocents like so many times in the pasts within the same region that I need not remind you of.
If you are telling me that US the superpower, couldn't stop Israel in starting a war so it joined it, then I am fine to hear that too but I don't believe it. I do believe that US could've definitely stopped it. This war could've been prevented just like the last wars.
I am now worried about the safety of my friend who lives in tehran in the same way that I was worried about the people of ukraine for. I am worried about the deaths of innocents, sir.
I am worried that the world has failed those people who lose their innocent lives in such conflicts and are currently in danger. The war is happening. More innocent people will lose their lives.
I don't support any sides of the war. I support peace.
> This is an incredibly ignorant comment
I am sorry if you feel that way. I had thought that my discussions with my friend of tehran and even Israeli friends could've made me less ignorant. I can be wrong, I usually am. I am unable in good conscience agree to this war
If you are interested in knowing how I feel, I think Spanish PM has been vocal about it too and that's exactly how I feel even though I am not Spanish.
'No to War.' That's all.
I am sorry if you still feel like I am ignorant though. I am just sharing how I feel/make up of the whole situation.
I just feel like this war is only going to get downward spiral in terms of the innocent lives it takes, in terms of the financial damage it costs, in terms of the diplomatic rifts in the whole region not just iran/israel or some few as the war gets more messy.
A few people have been predicting touch screen macs every year forever and they’re always wrong. Apple won’t do a touch screen mac. You can’t look cool using a touch screen on a laptop.
You may be right, but the honesty has destroyed an insane amount of good will and privilege that the US previously enjoyed (deservedly or not). To throw that all away for literally no benefit is . . . not good.
> yes but the opinion that it was illegal was the received wisdom by everybody with any sort of legal expertise in the subject
That isn’t true and you should really question whatever news source told you that. Putting aside that it was 6-3 in the Supreme Court. It was a 7-4 decision in the en banc Federal Circuit, with two Obama appointees voting in favor of upholding the tariffs. The lower appellate court opinions amounted to 127 pages: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1812.OPINIO....
You don’t get cross-party splits like that on issues where “everybody with any sort of legal expertise in the subject” agrees. If anyone with legal expertise was telling you that this issue was simple, they’re probably not very good at their job.
> I don’t like trump, I think he stinks. The democratic party has a few own-goals in this current game.
You guys should have nominated Amy Klobuchar as VP so you had a credible backup when it became apparent that Biden was too old to run again. That’s a mistake that’s going to continue holding you back, since Biden made South Carolina the first primary state: https://www.masslive.com/politics/2025/06/2028-dem-frontrunn....
As Obama said, “never underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”
You’re piling speculation on speculation. First of all, there was no such memo saying the tariffs were “very likely to be overturned.” The Supreme Court decision was 7-3, with two Bush appointees voting to uphold the tariffs. The appellate court decision was 7-4, with two Obama appointees and two Bush appointees dissenting. Second of all, there is no evidence that this legal analysis was leaked to Cantor.
Who cares? The Treasury Secretary shouldn't have family profiting off fixing illegal policy the Treasury Secretary enacted. That should never happen. It is wrong, it doesn't explicitly spelled out.
The two answers I'm hearing to my question so far are that either this decision was so obvious that anyone could have predicted it without insider information, or that this was a split decision that the administration could not have predicted ahead of time.
You're right that maybe there never was any internal memo, just thought this was funny.
> but I don't see how we could know there is no such memo.
There was no such memo because OLC isn’t full of dummies. Maybe the talking heads on CNN said the case against the tariffs was a slam dunk, but you don’t get split courts at multiple levels for cases that are slam dunks.
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