Anthony Lewis Quotes
After 200 years, the 1st Amendment remains only as strong, or as weak, as the citizens it is designed to protect.
Anthony Lewis, 1927-2013, Columnist, "Staving Off the Silencers," New York Times Magazine, December 1, 1991
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In 1836 the House of Representatives adopted the so-called "Gag Rule" whereby the house could not act on all further petitions regarding slavery, even though thousands of petitions were being received. Adams was one of the few who protested the Gag Rule:. Adams even submitted petitions with which he did not agree:. Every year Adams attempted to get the Gag Rule repealed. He was even threatened with censure for his efforts, but his status as an ex-president protected him. Finally, in 1844, Adams' perennial resolution carried:
Striking down a law making cross burning a crime:
It is ironic that Pakistan, the creation of Jinnah’s efforts, has to a great extent adopted Sharia (Islamic Law) resulting in severe curtailment of freedom of speech and thought. Professors languish in jail for not teaching the history of Muhammed in the orthodox way, people are sentenced to death for what the local mullahs regard as blasphemy—results which from Jinnah’s point of view were terrible.
There was a well orchestrated Congressional effort to pass a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit flag burning. There had been no recent incident of flag burning and there had been little or no flag burning for decades since the Vietnam War. Yet a small group of Congressmen had managed to get the issue onto the American national political agenda by skillful manipulation of the media and excellent PR.
Anthony Lewis was an American public intellectual and journalist. He was twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and was a columnist for The New York Times. He is credited with creating the field of legal journalism in the United States.
