September 12, 2007
The law is an ass
Clayton Cramer is bothered by the school ban on the American flag (see below), and offers this take on the issue:
One of the recurring problems of free speech law is the concept of being "content-neutral." A government agency is allowed to prohibit certain forms of speech as long as the content of the speech is not a factor in making the decision. Thus, a public university can prohibit speeches by uninvited speakers as long as the decision isn't based on the content. If they let uninvited speaker A deliver a speech about the evils of capitalism, they can't let uninvited speaker B deliver a speech about how capitalism is a good thing.
A high school in North Carolina has banned the American flag on campus -- as a result of one of these insane triumphs of ACLUism over common sense.
[...]
Does it bother anyone besides me that the laws of the United States have been twisted to put a symbol of the United States at the same level of protection as symbols of other nations? I'm not sure that I am keen on a ban on flags from other countries -- which I suspect is aimed at Mexican nationalists who, for some odd reason, love Mexico so much that they have to move to the U.S. -- but banning the flag of our country just to prohibit antipatriotic uses of the Mexican flag is nonsensical.
Thus do bright-line tests and rigid rules of law hammer common sense into oblivion.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 12, 2007 10:51 AM
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Comments
I rise to defend bright line tests.
For those of us in the private sector it is nice to be able to tell a client "if you do this, that will happen"
If EVERYTHING is a balancing test (cough, Justice O'Conner, cough); everything is a question of fact and has to go to the jury.
We need more bright lines, not less. Just make the lines in the correct place.
Posted by: Andrewdb at September 12, 2007 11:44 PM