I wanted to call this post “A Salute to Richard Marmor.” Who is Richard Marmor? Nobody really. I don’t say that in an insulting way… he’s, as far as I can tell, just another one of us regular guys (well, and a TRUE Patriot). How did he hit my radar? He wrote a letter to the editor of the Arizona Republic regarding an issue I previously posted about — The unconstitutional Arizona law that seeks to suppress the political speech rights of a T-shirt maker. The t-shirts use the names of dead servicemen along with the slogan “Bush Lied – They Died.”
Whether you agree with that sentiment or not, you can not deny that this is core political speech. So why did the Arizona legislature pass this blatantly unconstitutional law? 1) To pander to the crowd that says “if you oppose Bush, you hate the troops.” 2) The powerful always wish for the rest of us to just shut up, pay our taxes, and go to work.
Social and political change is bad for those who already have political and economic power. The Achilles heel of the cause of freedom is that it can’t fight by the same rules as the cause of dictatorship. You can’t assassinate or imprison your way to freedom — you can only achieve it through winning the war of ideas. The bullets and bombs in that war are composed of expression.
Think of the scene in Casablanca, when Victor Laslo inspires the crowd to sing La Marseillaise to drown out the nazis… watch how Strasser reacts:
This scene may take place in Morocco, involving the Germans and the French, but come on… this is an American classic. Can you think of any greater demonstration of what Free Speech is all about? There is bad speech (the nazis) and good speech (the French), and in the marketplace of ideas, the better idea wins out! Of course, then the nasty little despot gets involved.
The parallel is easy to draw. Strasser/Hitler/Vichy and Bush/Cheney/Rove have their troops, their guns, and even their legal authority. Those who cherish freedom have ideas, words, expression… We can’t take their guns away, but if we are not vigilant, they can take our right to free speech from us. But, we will need to sleep or consent in order for them to prevail.
Sending American troops to their deaths is acceptable. Who would argue that those who died at Iwo Jima did not die for something great? In fact, most of us say that we would gladly rush into the breech in order to defend our freedom. But, when a filthy little toad like George Bush lies to us and kills thousands of our own troops for a lie — that lie needs to be exposed. But, such exposure threatens his agenda. With every day that passes, more Americans awake and say “what in the hell did they do to our country?” T-shirts like this act as alarm clocks… waking up more and more of us.
Of course, Bush has his toadies in every corner of our once-great nation. I say “once great” because this administration has, with Tarquin-esque avarice reduced us to a shell of what we once were. No matter… if Europe could recover from six years of nazi occupation, we can recover from eight years of neo-con rule. We will be great again.
But back to the Bush toadies — that 28% of the population who still give him a favorable rating. They don’t want his power threatened, because it is directly connected to their own. Free speech is the greatest threat to this administration, because when we speak of its illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and unethical actions, we blow wind on the fires of change. Therefore, the neo-cons/neo-fascists focus their cross hairs on our free speech. Shut down Rick’s Cafe at once!
I don’t know Mr. Marmor’s view on the war. I don’t care what it is. I support pro-war speech as much as I support anti-war speech. I support pro-Bush speech as much as I support anti-Bush speech. I have confidence enough in my beliefs that I know that they can stand in opposition to the beliefs of others. It may take time, but if free expression is protected, justice will prevail.
The Republic is meaningless without a free marketplace of ideas. Many of us have forgotten that, but not Mr. Marmor. After reading this letter, I want to track down Mr. Marmor, and pin a medal on him. He, unlike many sheep in this country, understands that free speech means ALL speech… not just speech you like.
Here is Mr. Marmor’s letter — reproduced in its entirety with the utmost respect for the author.
T-shirt maker another price we pay for free speech
Regarding “T-shirt maker, Montini fail to hear ‘free speech,’ “(Letters, Thursday):
My heart went out the parent of the serviceman killed in Iraq who was enraged that a T-shirt maker would capitalize on the deaths of our sons and daughters in Iraq.
I, too, was dumbfounded that the T-shirt guy would so desecrate those names. It disgusts me, too.
I might also have agreed about efforts to silence such conduct but for an experience I had 30 years ago in Chicago. It wasn’t a grand incident. Rather, it was one was one of those quiet moments of revelation. I now understand that what the T-shirt bum did is a matter of free speech.
I was living and practicing law at the time in Chicago when a neo-Nazi group announced plans to stage a march in Skokie, Ill., a community with a large Jewish population, of which a huge percentage were then Holocaust survivors. Skokie officials denied them the permit.
David Goldberger, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, himself Jewish, represented the Nazis in a suit to obtain the parade permit. The entire community was appalled, not just at the Nazis – they are by definition appalling – but that someone would defend them!
I resented the attorney on many different levels. As a member of the community, had he no values? As an attorney, isn’t our rep bad enough as it is? And as a Jew myself, how could he stab us in the back like that?
The Nazis got the permit and, in the end, they didn’t actually march.
The representation they had received reverberated in the legal community for a long time. It was devastating for the ACLU. Thousands terminated their memberships.
The bar association sponsored a luncheon at which Goldberger was invited to speak. I went primed and ready to leap to my feet with all the indignity I could muster to tell this guy what I thought.
And then I heard him speak.
It was clear that he, too, was disgusted by his clients; he, too, believed the planet would be a better place if they weren’t on it.
But it was just as clear that he did not step up to defend them. He fought for a principle: free speech.
The test of free speech, he reminded us, is not the ability to say what we all want to hear. The test of free speech is the ability to say – and the burden of hearing – the thing no one wants to hear.
No one leaped to their feet angrily. He got a round of applause.
Some people fight for our principles with bullets whizzing past them, and some do it with words. This man, a true patriot, had put his entire career on the line to fight for an ideal.
We respond with horror when events like the Nazis marching in Skokie or the T-shirt guy capitalizing on our dead children come into our lives. We want to silence them.
But what makes us Americans is a principle much bigger and nobler and more important than either of those events. I just wish all of us – and our Legislature, which responded with a knee-jerk reaction – understood that better. – Richard Marmor,Phoenix
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July 2, 2007 at 11:23 pm |
What I find truly unsettling is how the Arizona Legislature officially justified this law: “to preserve the public peace, health, and safety.” Do they really believe this T-shirt – however crude and insensitive it might be – will threaten the safety of Arizona?
This is truly the oldest trick in the book. Lest we not forget when other leaders have used “public safety” as a masquerading justification for censorship and, in some cases, far worse deeds…
82 BC: Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, a.k.a. “Sulla” becomes Dictator of Rome under the auspice of preserving the safety of the Roman State. He extends this six-month position for two full years, and carries out an estimated 9000 executions, or “proscriptions” of his political opponents.
1793: Robespierre leads the “Comité de salut public” (Committee for Public Safety) on the two-year Reign of Terror, denouncing and executing thousands of critics of the French Revolution.
1798: In fear of French Sympathizers who might be “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States”, President John Adams signs the Alien Friends Act, effectively giving the president unlimited power to deport any resident aliens living legally in the United States. The law was later deemed unconstitutional under Jefferson.
These instances carry-on in the headlines today: On May 1st, 2007 the LAPD determined that “public safety” was more important than an immigration rally at the downtown MacArthur Park.
I realize “public safety” is not a completely obsolete consideration in determining the legitimacy of first amendment rights claims (i.e. “fire” in the movie theatre). However, Americans should refrain from insulting the Constitution by callously using said-phrase to censor (physically) harmless political speech. We must remember that republics are far more fragile than we want to believe: when they start to bend, they start to break.
Despite making a (very) humble salary in the non-profit educational sector, I continue to donate to the ACLU every year for issues such these.
July 4, 2007 at 2:33 am |
I’m pleased to see that others are recognozing the trampling of the first amendment by the current political climate. The neocons seem to feel that they are above the constitution by continually ignoring their breaches of constitutionality. The administration is not actually what we would call transparent or willing to explain their actions. This really doesn’t have much to with the first amendment but was just a thought. As far as the first amendment goes it is distrubing to see where the courts are leaning today. It seems as if something is drug related or anti – party in power it is not protected. That conclusion upsets me because I feel that an optimal soultion and political environment develops based on a vioce for everyone including dissenters and fringe elements. I know it sounds cliche, but the marketplace of ideas will sort issues out and produce an acceptable if not superior solution to a dictatorial implementation of rule of ideas. The day that the government censors the ideas and speech we wish to express, it will be the day we lose our vioce entirely. If we do not assert our rights and consciously fight, we will lose them because of our own apathy.
kurt brickman
July 8, 2007 at 4:04 pm |
This story is one with many contradictions as far as my ” belief ” system is concerned. I want every AMERICAN to have the right of free speech. But when the free speech is so desecrating and injurious to so many, do you propose that we just let the likes of Dan Frazier continue to harm the PUBLIC? I like the new law the legislature of Arizona has passed and the ACLU…is a joke. It has became a political arm of the Democratic party and attempts to advance the secular-progressive agenda and socialistic dogma of the Liberal Democrats with every ” injustice ” they purportedly support.
Now as far as ” Bush lied…they died ” propaganda….I don’t believe he did. All intelligence from all the Major Intelligence gathering agencies throughout the World all reported Saddam had WMD prior to President Bush taking any action against Iraq. You find me 1 piece of evidence before the War began that says Saddam DID NOT have Weapons of Mass Destruction and I’ll buy your argument. Good Luck.
MJR Response:
This is the kind of thinking that has caused so much damage to the Constitution since we handed the keys to the Republic to the idiots in charge today.
Lets set aside the xenophobia in that statement for a moment. Since when is free speech “desecrating?” How is it “injurious”? How does it “harm the public?”
To answer the question, yes, I do propose that we allow Frazier to continue to exercise his First Amendment rights. I propose that we extend that privilege to the Ku Klux Klan, Dan Frazier, The Dalai Lama, Broken Lizard, Marty Klein, Andrea Dworkin, and anyone else. That is the foundation upon which the First Amendment, and ultimately the Republic, stands.
With respect to the ACLU – I disagree with some of its stands — for example, on affirmative action. Nevertheless, there is nothing in my wallet of which I am more proud than my ACLU membership card. It is shameful to disparage an organization that exists solely to protect your Constitutional rights. You are free to do so — even on my blog — but I only allow this comment to stand so that I may combat it with more speech.
With respect to your parrot-like ability to regurgitate what Bill O’Reilly tells you to say, I admire your ability to speak without thinking.
As far as the Bush Lied issue goes, I said in my original post that I take no position on that for the purposes of this debate. Nevertheless, your request that I find evidence that there were no WMDs is nothing short of absurd. Here you go. That took me all of 20 seconds to find.
Nevertheless, I also have no evidence that Belgium has no WMDs. I have no evidence that Japan does not possess them. Same with Canada. I have no evidence that Jordan has no WMDs. Liechtenstein? I know that regime is up to something. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg — now there is a country that has never had a UN Weapons Inspector certify it as WMD free.
Please, I love a good debate as much as the next guy, but I refuse to enter into a further battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
August 22, 2007 at 1:29 am |
Bush did lie, and these folks did die. The truth desecrates what soldier? No it shows what a criminal Bush is only. I don’t get you Bush apologists who see their murders otherwise. You make me sick. I LOVE THE TROOPS while you don’t give a damn how they were wasted by this fallacy of an administration and continue to promote their rhetoric and outright lies. This is no liberal speaking but a true American and direct descendant of James Madison.
November 23, 2007 at 7:46 am |
[...] case, previously blogged here, “Bush Lied – They Died” T-Shirts and Free Speech has resulted in a federal court giving the State of Arizona a remedial course in First Amendment [...]