In a First Amendment win with many future implications — most immediately for the Washington Redskins football team — the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does not allow the Patent and Trademark Office to withhold trademark protection from a rock band because it considers its name to be possibly racially disparaging (or self-disparaging). The holding was unanimous, although the Justices divided on rationale. [Ilya Shapiro/Cato, Betsy Gomez/CBLDF, Eugene Volokh and more (“Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms: There is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment”)] Earlier here (“Did Cato just file the most not-safe-for-work amicus brief in Supreme Court history?”), here, etc.
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NPR started in this way: “America may soon become a land of offensive trademarks in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling…” And I’m thinking, you could have just as easily started by saying, “In a victory for free speech, a unanimous Supreme Court yesterday…”
On Above the Law, the moronic Joe Patrice headlines, “Supreme Court confirms Bill of Rights is All About Making Money.” And again, I’m thinking, THAT is your take?
The media considers anything politically incorrect to be de facto illegal.
I always thought of myself as a “Liberal” (I’m very sensitive to the rights of the little guy), but the political Left in the United States has been pushing me away for the past decade or so, and the pace has been accelerated since January 20th. I even changed my voter registration from Democrat to Republican as a “protest” and left my happy-clappy Liberal Synagogue to join Chabad!
NPR makes me scream at the radio nearly every day. And I don’t think I’ve changed. I think they have.
And we have the double pleasure of supporting it with tax dollars!