Tim Walberg Quotes

No man, who is depending purely upon the words of the Constitution, will ever say that we have unabridged freedom of speech and press so long as there is any law which prescribes a penalty for the utterance of anyone's sentiments …

Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and least tolerable infringement on First Amendment Rights.

What we have is two important values in conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can't have both.

I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up.

The Libertarian position on the freedom of speech is a strong support of freedom of speech, and we oppose government intervention in controlling what is or is not moral.

The First Amendment is not without limits.

If you don't think a television news show represents the truth, you can turn off your TV. If you don't think a magazine represents the truth, you can cancel your subscription. You have the right to expose yourself to whatever information you want. But to have the government prescribing what the truth is or limiting the information available for the citizen is contrary to the 1st Amendment.

If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that the state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

The Constitution does not allow the unnecessary trammeling of free expression, even for the noblest of purposes.

The speech at issue are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature that they present a clear and present danger that they would bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

If you care for the quality of life in our American democracy, then you have to be for censorship.

If one seeks to disseminate his ideas by means of periodicals or pamphlets, the post-office officials may decline to transmit anything that does not suit their taste; and the courts have decided that the United States post-office has precisely the same right to refuse to carry The Masses that it has to exclude sulfuric acid and dynamite from the mails.

Under the privilege of the 1st Amendment many, many ridiculous things are said.

Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech.

The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.

If the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press is to mean anything, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.

The notion that the First Amendment has no limitations whatsoever is balderdash.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have to defend the First Amendment rights of everybody.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

Freedom of expression is not absolute. Countries have laws that define the framework for exercising this right and which, for instance, condemn racist language.

When I began we did not really have a lot of First Amendment law. It is really surprising to think of it this way, but a lot of the law - most of the law that relates to the First Amendment freedom of the press in America - is really within living memory.

It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on.