'We lack the power': Justice Barrett basically admits SCOTUS can do nothing if Trump violates rulings

https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/we-lack-the-power-just...

Not for the President, unfortunately. Supreme Court precedent has effectively set him as immune from prosecution, and it's not like at his age he'd serve much time anyways.

I expect a lot of his administration to spend their latter years in jail though. Siding with him has basically never paid off for anyone.

That's why they're not leaving office. Check out Venezuela for a preview of what's in store for the US.

Silenced by whom?

Contrarian on taxes, spending, organizational issues, democracy versus monarchy?

Or it, you know, those contrarian views? You know the ones.

(Personally, I'm a contrarian about the presence of fire in crowded theaters, and boy have I been silenced)

Why is alignment necessary? In our system compromise is the typical alignment sought where no single view dominates the decisions or direction. With enforced alignment no compromise is more than not necessary it’s not possible. That’s the dysfunction of the present because there’s a perception that holding office entails enforcing alignment, and opposing voices not only need not be heard but are forcefully silenced. However the system we have in the US doesn’t allow for that, and explicably, it’s even more dysfunctional than normal. Sooner or later they have to stop and compromise, over throw the system, or be removed. That’s precisely how it’s designed to work.

So, you shouldn’t be silenced, your opinions should be heard, and to the extent they’re reasonable, they should be considered proportional to your ability to influence. The more to which this is prevented or ignored the more unstable the system is.

What exactly do you think you deserve that you're not getting?

They also had their own messages removed.

It's not clear to me that they're guaranteed a platform on their work email, but having been allowed to set a message and then having it removed and then replaced with a different one is not a good look for free speech.

> What happened to intellectual honesty?

It’s gone. The ACLU itself is pretty anti free speech these days and happily looks the other way when censorship on private social media platforms aligns with their ideological views. People have been writing about free speech issues at the ACLU for about a decade now:

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/is-the-aclu...

I mean it depends on what we are talking about. The case you mention was about the right to peacefully assemble, and that the swastika does not count as "fighting words" and thus not grounds to say the assembly isn't allowed. In the case of Europe, they don't have the same constitution as the USA so I'm not sure how to compare that, and if those extremists are merely being silenced over swastikas or calls for the deaths of people since you didn't specify.

Plus the comparison to Europe and that specific case is especially untenable because if the specific case in Europe was in Germany, then they have a special relationship with the swastika.

Free speech is out of vogue

> In the 1970s, Jewish lawyers at the ACLU defended the American Nazi Party’s right to march in Skokie.

Well, that doesn't mean that

a) they were right to do so then, or

b) a better understanding can't have been reached since then.

The Paradox of Tolerance is a very real thing. If you want to make free speech absolutism a religious principle within your own beliefs, go wild, but for those of us who just want to make this world the best place we can to live in, we have to consider what the consequences of different kinds of speech are.

And the consequence of being tolerant of hate speech is that the speech of those being hated diminishes. Their freedom diminishes. Their safety diminishes. Sooner or later, they are driven out of communities that permit hate speech against them.

"Free speech for all", in the sense that absolutely anyone is fully free at any time to say anything they want, and everybody remains equal in this, is a fantasy. And American jurisprudence has rejected that level of "free speech" since very early on—there are laws against libel, incitement to violence, false advertising, and other forms of speech.

> It's another thing entirely to be told "you have to make 3 posts a day about how great the CEO is".

This is perfectly legal and not a violation of any rights. Companies literally have entire departments dedicated to promotion of their products. If you say "I hate this product and don't want to work on promoting it" you will just be fired for refusing to do your job.

So the judge's quote from the article is "and they certainly do not sign up to be a billboard for any given administration's partisan views."

I thought that's exactly what you signed up for when you become a government employee.

You’re not actually refuting the argument of the person you’re replying to. They’re saying that when you’re employed by the government, you’re paid to do a job and you’re at the service of the agency and leaders you work for. Your rights as a private individual do not apply when you’re paid to do a certain job.

As an example, if an agency wanted to perform a marketing campaign, and you decide to do go off script as an employee, you can be fired. There is no legal right to say whatever you want in the context of the job.

But government employees obviously do not have 1A rights in their role as employees. e.g. if a government employee feels like wearing a nazi uniform to the office every day, they will be fired, even though 1A prevents the government from punishing private citizens for doing the very same. Firing the employee is not violating 1A but charging them with a crime would be.

And how do you define "partisan" here? How can your job be to implement the policies set by politicians, but not be "partisan."

There is a huge difference, but both are compelled speech. The difference is that when it is a message in support of one political party the government is violating the Hatch Act (as they clearly are in this case), not the first amendment.