Free speech has become far more affordable today.
By a 6-3 decision, the Robes decided that free speech was more important than prostrating oneself to a piece of ribbon, or some bronze, silver or gold.
Citing the novel 1984, Kennedy wrote that no matter how distasteful it may be, lying about your military service or being awarded a medal cannot be made a crime.
The Act seeks to control and suppress all false statements on this one subject in almost limitless times and settings without regard to whether the lie was made for the purpose of material gain. Permitting the Government to decree this speech to be a criminal offense would endorse government authority to compile a list of subjects about which false statements are punishable. That governmental power has no clear limiting principle. P
From the Church of Ineffable Stupidity:
Three interesting points about this decision.
1. Our Bill of Rights is Protected. The Supreme Court has firmly put its foot down on further erosions of one of our basic freedoms - speech. Given this Court's previous decision on the FCC (Poorly drafted rules, arbitrarily applied - NO!), this Court actually put the brakes on further attacks on this right. Whether this trend continues remains to be seen, but this is actually quite welcome.
2. This welcome decision is not just theory, but practical. In 2005, in writ of fellious jage, our beloved congresscritters bravely and honorably moved on from renaming heart-damaging, fat-laden, greasy fried food from French to Freedumb Fries, to deciding that blatant nationalism, cloaked as "patriotism," demanded the protection of a class that knew not of any attacks - military medal winners, especially the Congressional Medal of Honor.
By concocted a criminal law that turned any wrongful claim of military service or winning a medal into a federal crime, one that would land you in jail for a year, Congress pretended to show their love of country, while protecting its borders from hordes of illegal brown people, invading the south, while wearing Medals of Honor - clearly a terrorist move, if there ever was one. Considering what a BIG FUCKING DEAL Congress critters make out of an alleged crime based on a failure to wear a flag pin, especially if you are a black fascist, socialist, muslin sporting, Kenyan who forged birth certificates and placed lies in Hawaii newspapers before your birth, this was the next oblivious step for Congress.
Of course, King George the Wth agreed, and proudly claimed that this Act would protect our nation's freedoms. By taking away one of them to some degree. I continue to be amazed by how clearly the GOP turned up to down, black to white, and right to wrong.
I still recall the bullshit spewed by Jon Kyl and John Boehner about how impotent this law was, and how America's security demanded its passage. What made this bad taste in my mouth even worse was how many spineless Democrats joined in this law's passage, proving again that the Democrats were scared of their own shadows in the wake of 9/11.
Xavier Alvarez stood up in a public meeting, and wrongly claimed that he fought in Viet Nam and earned a medal - all false. He was arrested, tried, and convicted under this statute, and lost again on appeal. Today, the Supreme Court called this law precisely what it was - load of crap so perverse and misguided, that hooey doesn't begin to describe it.
3. Little Tommy Scalito - the unholy trio.* If anyone would object to this infringement of free speech, it would be these three floating turds. Who else could find a permanent harm in puffing one's own CV with lies? 17 pages of nascent, childlike, bitchiness is never a pretty sight, so let me distill it to its core.
Alito wrote that wrongly claiming that you won a medal of honor is on par with claiming that you are an FBI agent, or creating a fake charity for monetary gain. To show just how critically impotent this law was, Alito noted that a review of Who's Who showed 333 instances of people claiming to have received this award, yet 1/3 of them clearly did not.
Alito also cried foul that when the truth does come out about a false claim, that the claim maker would suffer appropriately under the circumstances.
*the unholy trio are:
Antonin Scalia (Fat Tony, among friends and Fox)
Sam Alito (Mr. Slime)
Clarence Thomas (who managed to pen exactly 1.5 pages attacking the majority in the Health Care decision - almost a new high for this doubting thomas)