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Amusing satire on collective rights view
Rand Simberg does a good job of reducing collective rights to absurdity. The Framers lived in a time when printing presses were rare, and only responsible people owned them; they could not have foreseen the internet, which allows virtually anyone to spew out misleading ideas, to the entire world, at thousands of words a second.
(Actually, one could make a still stronger historical argument. Until 1695, you had to have a goverment permit to publish a book on politics; in the early 1800s, a Congress that included some Framers enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, that allowed prosecution of any person who made false and defamatory statements about the Congress or the President).
Comments
Actually, the Alien & Sedition Acts were passed in 1798. And were one of the reasons that Jefferson won the presidency in 1800.
Posted by: Brian Frye at May 18, 2005 03:55 AM