February 12, 2012
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693

RE: “Free Speech For Me But Not For Thee” – With apologies to Nat Hentoff. Some comments on your column on how a new variant of Gresham’s Law has been discovered in this year’s election cycle/

Mr. Pitts,

The pre-dawn reading on my thermometer said 49 degrees.

Hey! It’s not Green Bay or even Allen, Texas but crisp winter mornings down here give me 2 great opportunities.

#1 – Put the underwater lights on. Toss some 10 day old endive, arugula, Swiss chard, tofu, and organic pomegranates for fiber into the trap and stand back because here come the dumbass manatees. I know it hasn’t caught on yet but as soon as I get the South Beach Diet dudes to endorse manatee sushi and manatee sweetbreads I’ll “create” more jobs in Florida than those ohmadanish jackasses in the White House could imagine.

#2 – Thanks to Rachel Carson, the Bernie Madoff of pseudo-science and one of the 20th century’s great charlatans, Right Guard deodorant in a spray can was outlawed. Before it became verboten I bought a truckload of it. That’s right. The Ozone layer killer.
3 decades of trial and error experimentation showed me that the best time to spray is on a cool winter morning. Imagine a rocket disguised as a biodegradable inorganic chemical predator. You can almost hear it tearing up the supine Ozone.

As you can see I had my morning all mapped out.

Then I got to your column about “bad” money driving “good” money out of the political arena. I guess Gresham was right. “Bad” vs. “Good” is the kiss of death for “Good”, right?

You say that when Lord Barack the Beneficent and Blessed be his name and may his tribe increase turned his back on his self-proclaimed principles you were “disappointed but not surprised”.

Would I be a cad or a rotter if I point out that the one great principle of modern American Liberalism is that principles don’t count? Since plaid is the favorite color of all card carrying modern American Liberals it is easy to understand. If you believe in nothing you’ll believe in anything.

You say the “2010 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case was disastrous”. It “paved the way for corporations to pump unlimited money into the electoral process”. .

I was unaware that unions were precluded from doing the same. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Would I be correct in assuming that money from the Koch Brothers is “Bad” while money from George Soros is “Bad”? George Orwell was more prescient than we knew when he said that while “all animals are equal some animals are more equal than others”.

Having spent a long time in various Federal Courthouses I agree with your premise that Justice sometimes is a commodity that serves at the whim of the highest bidder. Only a naïf would believe that Justice and Law are the opposite sides of the same coin. O.J. Simpson and Leopold & Loeb are two separate chapters in the same book.

But I digress.

Let’s say that I am a legatee of the perfectly legal tax dodging trusts created in 1936 by that old corsair Papa Joe Kennedy. My political passion is meatless Tuesdays and putting James Buchanan on the soon to be introduced $3 dollar bill. I will support any candidate who believes likewise. It’s my money, isn’t it? Who the Hell are you to tell me, and worse, try to prevent me from speaking my mind?

There is one guiding principle here.

Even though Justice Ginsberg thinks it’s “old and tired” the Constitution spells it out in 5 magnificent words:

“CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW…”

There is a connection between pregnancy and free speech. Either you are or you aren’t. Either it is or it isn’t

The First Amendment doesn’t say “Congress shall make no law except when rich guys, doubtless all Republicans, give money to people or causes that Emperor Leonard doesn’t like”.

The Constitution, and despite Justice Ginsberg’s speech showing she has lost a bit off her fast ball, is simultaneously the first and last man standing. It was the first to put in writing certain rights that were ours from birth, rights that were ours “from beyond the stars”. It may be the last bastion against men who disdain the Rule of Law without which we become subject to the whims of the thug du jour.

It allows American flags to be burned in America by Americans.
It allows wing nuts to picket American GI funerals.
It allows columnists to say anything.

The consequences of stopping someone from saying something would normally be the classic definitions of modern American Liberal nightmares: the scary “slippery slope” and the more ominous “chilling effect”

Who will decide who will speak?

You?

Me?

Juvenal, another DWEM, said Quis custodiet ipso custodes. Who will guard the custodians?

Now that it is too late to catch some manatees – the babies are the best – or begin an unauthorized incursion into the weakened Ozone layer my day is ruined. I think I’ll try to figure out the difference between “Principle” and “Principal”.

When asked what was the main thing to look for in a candidate for public office James Madison, a true Constitutional scholar, replied “Character. Character is all.”




Kevin Smith