In other words, you only believe in the 1st Amendment insofar as it means Congress can't make a law taking it away. You have no problem infringing on a fellow American's right to free speech if he says (or wears) something you don't like. Does that about sum it up?
I'm saying if you get in my face and say something that offends me, you are going to regret your life choices that day.
So yes, that does sum it up for you.
However, that doesn't answer the question and does not apply in this case anyway. We're talking about an 81 year old man who said nothing to no one, was minding his own business and doing his grocery shopping when he was attacked unprovoked.
Besides all that, "something that offends me" is entirely subjective. What offends you does not offend others. Your personal feelings do not take precedence over the law. The law dictates that he had the right to wear the hat but more importantly, the law does
not give you the right to assault him for it and in fact expressly forbids you to do so and provides legal penalties for its violation. Get it?
Also, if the 1st Amendment only means that Congress cannot make a law prohibiting the exercise of free speech then why is it that "Most of them (liberals)" believe it? Why not all of them? To you, is it just a law or a matter of fact that the government can't take away free speech or is it a principle we all should adhere to?
Because I have this funny idea that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. The 1A is a great principle, but you really have to temper it with a bit of reason. You can't shout "Fire" in a crowded theater. You can't let your cult leader molest kids because he's thinks he's Jesus. And if you are stupid enough to walk up to a bunch of black guys wearing a Klan Hood or a Swastika or a MAGA hat, you should kind of expect the resulting ass-kicking.
You're talking about things that are
against the law. To begin with, shouting "fire" in a theater is not a matter of free speech. Secondly, by comparison, wearing a MAGA hat in a theater will not cause a panic (then again, it just might, given the childish milksop mentality of a lot of anti-Trumpers these days). Thirdly, molesting children is illegal.
His being unarmed is irrelevant, it's against the law to commit murder. Just as it's against the law to assault someone in the first degree. Get it? The law is the law and applies to everyone. This means you don't get a free pass to assault someone because you don't like his ******* hat.
There is a distinction here that I'm not sure you're aware of. You're telling me that if one "mixes it up" with black people while wearing a MAGA hat then he should expect to get his ass kicked. You're absolutely correct. What you're not saying is that you think they should kick his ass and they would be justified in doing so, in spite of the law. Am I wrong?
I'm saying that the concept of "Fighting Words" is a concept in our law.
Fighting Words
Fighting words are, as first defined by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), words which "by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."
Fighting words are a category of speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment. Further, as seen below, the scope of the fighting words doctrine has between its creation in Chaplinsky and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it today.
Irrelevant. A hat is not "fighting words" or even an "utterance" as described above.
And this is my main problem with Trump overall. Other presidents have talk about the division of ideas. Conservatism vs. Liberalism, Keynesian Economics vs. Supply Side, Activist Government vs. Limited Government. These are good conversations, we should totally have them.
Trump has sought to divide people. He calls the press the enemy of the people, mocks the disabled, calls people of certain ethnicity "rapists" and "animals", and generally stirs up the nastiest hatreds, and then wonders why the small minded fool who goes out there with a MAGA hat gets his ass kicked.
Given how the press has leaped on stories like the Covington kids in D.C. and the Jussie Smollett case and completely misinterpreted the facts or blindly accepted the liberal's testimony without looking further into the matter or at least waiting for more facts to come to light, I'm inclined to agree that the press is, if not the enemy of the people, the enemy of objective and sound journalism.
Ironically, the story about Trump making fun of the disabled or calling "people of certain ethnicity 'rapists' and 'animals'" is precisely why he calls the press enemy of the people. Neither of these stories is true.
His supposedly making fun of the handicapped journalist has been debunked. It was shown that Trump often did this as a way to mock a person's attitude and demeanor and had done it before with other non-disabled people. Besides, I would bet that Trump did not even know the guy had a disability anyway. He is a newspaper journalist, not a visual media journalist or reporter.
As for his supposedly calling people of "certain ethnicity" rapists and animals, this is not true either. He was referring to MS-13 gang members and other ne'er-do-wells that come here illegally from Mexico and commit crimes.
The fact that Trump only ever talked about
illegal immigrants and
illegal immigration is an important distinction that just about everyone on the left has willfully and knowingly overlooked.
