DCP wrote:Earlier this year, I participated in a conference on religious freedom and related subjects in Uzbekistan. One of the others who attended and presented there was Shima Baradaran Baughman, who was born in Iran and who is now Woodruff J. Deem Professor of Law at Brigham Young University. I’ve been impressed by an essay that she recently published in the Deseret News, not least because of the somewhat dramatic personal family story that she tells in it: “Perspective: The Constitution is not partisan — it protects us all: Having seen life without constitutional rights, I know why people across the world still long for America’s freedoms.”
And here is another article from the Deseret News, written by President Dallin H. Oaks, formerly professor and interim dean of the law school at the University of Chicago, former president of Brigham Young University, former associate justice of the Utah Supreme Court, and, of course, currently First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Perspective: Our inspired Constitution: The U.S. Constitution is the foundation for a well-ordered government of laws, and not of men.”
Apropos of these two Deseret News articles, I call your attention to three additional items:
The Wall Street Journal: “Pam Bondi Needs a Free Speech Tutorial: The Attorney General seems to think ‘hate speech’ is illegal. Charlie Kirk knew better.”
National Review: “Pam Bondi’s First Amendment Follies”
National Review: “Pam Bondi’s Ridiculous 24 Hours”
I think it worth reproducing here the full and complete text of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The reference here is to Congress. (Not coincidentally, Article 1 of the Constitution is about Congress, not about the Executive Branch or the Presidency.) However, I do not believe that, by saying that “Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” the Framers were intending to tell us that, while Congress may not make such a law, the executive branch of the Federal Government is at liberty to abridge free speech or freedom of the press at will, without such a law, by either real or threatened litigation or by presidential fiat or by imperial decree.
We've already seen the brethren hold the line on things like vaccines, in the face of some pretty harsh MAGA backlash. Do you think they have the ability to be a strong voice to return the traditional conservative movement back from the brink of all the Trump chaos? Mitt Romney certainly tried his hardest, and sadly failed.
He’s a good man, not a dodo as some here might unreasonably expect/believe. His witness of Christ in this talk is powerful. 