Both Conservative And Liberal SCOTUS Justices Are Biased

This New York Times article gives some important information about the history of free speech and the Supreme Court in America. The article states that conservatives “weaponized” the First Amendment. Its main examples are the recent Supreme Court rulings which protected non-union workers from having to support causes they disagree with, and protected Christian pregnancy clinics from having to tell patients about how to get an abortion.

In other words, in those two cases the Court said that the First Amendment protects people against compelled speech. Laws in America may not compel people to support a particular point of view or causes they disagree with. That should be a no-brainer in the “land of the free.” Laws compelling speech are authoritarian and violate the basic dignity and freedom of the individual.

And this is in contrast to a private firm requiring “compelled speech” as a part of employment, such as the NFL requiring that players stand for the so-called National Anthem at games. If the players don’t like the rules of employment then they are free to leave and find another job. The team is a privately owned enterprise, not a government owned enterprise, and therefore the rules of the firm are under the owners’ authority.

But the government and its laws may not require some kind of speech or expression. And that’s my view on that as well. But Justice (sic) Elena Kagan thinks that not allowing the government to compel speech is “weaponizing” the First Amendment. You see, the people on the Left are only for freedom of speech when it’s their views being protected. And further they are the ones who want to “weaponize” speech through compulsion and forcing people to have to fund causes they disagree with, or forcing Christians to have to discuss abortion with patients when it goes against their conscience.

The New York Times article also mentions how the Supreme Bureaucrats under conservative control have tended to protect more conservative speech. But it doesn’t break down individual SCOTUS members’ own votes on First Amendment issues. And it doesn’t note how liberal members are just as biased. But the NYT did do that a few years ago, which I wrote about in this post, which I will quote from:

Hmmm. It seems that writing about the First Amendment and Christian-majority tolerance of religious minorities, as I wrote in yesterday’s post, really elicits quite a response from people.

But regarding the Supreme Court’s decision that I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there was a study [.pdf] just recently by USC Law and Political Science Prof. Lee Epstein and colleagues which showed that U.S. Supreme Court Justices tend to approve of the First Amendment when it fits their own ideological views.

Here is a chart showing some of the study’s findings, as shown by the NYT:

(Source: New York Times)

It appears as though the more conservative-leaning Justices were more biased against the more liberal speech or speaker, while the more liberal-leaning Justices seem to be less biased against conservative speech or speakers, albeit still biased. (However, the study mentioned above might itself be biased. Who knows?)

But, according to UC, Irvine Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, the current Roberts Court has shown more of a bias against speech which goes against the State. From the NYT:

“The court has, he said, protected hateful speech at military funerals, allowed the sale of violent video games to minors and struck down campaign finance laws. But it ruled against a government whistle-blower, a student expressing a pro-drug message, a prisoner and a human-rights activist.

“Justice Scalia was in the majority every time.”

Given how extremely and sickeningly authoritarian and fascist Amerika has become, I am not at all surprised. And it’s also no surprise that this “Supreme” Court has recently refused to even hear the case by Chris Hedges et al. in opposition to the NDAA’s provision of indefinite detention of Americans, which the President can use to have the military arrest and detain anyone he or government and military bureaucrats want to have arrested and detained, for any reason, without charges, or even suspicion.