Lindsey Graham Quotes
Free speech is a great idea, but were in a war.
Graham, Lindsey. Interview by Bob Schieffer. Face the Nation, CBS, 3 Apr. 2011.
Note how the second paragraph nullifies the first of the government declares an emergency. This is a trick that is very common in constitutions.
Marlette was inundated by complaints from Muslims for his 2002 cartoon depiction of Muhammad driving a Ryder rental truck like the one used by convicted Oklahoma City terrorist bomber, Timothy McVeigh. The caption was, “What would Muhammad drive?” He was front-page news in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations. He received death threats. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim World League both demanded an apology. Marlette refused. When he was killed in an automobile crash in July of 2007, many Muslims believed that this was the retribution of Allah.
In WWI Congress had passed a law that prohibited anyone from undermining or interfering with the war effort. The defendants had passed out anti-war literature to young men heading for military service. The court then overlooked the First Amendment and came up with a strange logic where the “clear and present danger” was the test of whether the First Amendment would apply. The anti war pamphleteers went to jail. Today, we look back on this and find it very surprising but this is yet another example of erosion of freedom and civil liberties when the nation is at war. By the 1950s, the Supreme Court had reversed itself and the First Amendment was restored to its original intent.
Originally it was published in Boston under the name “A Columbian Patriot.” This was written before the Bill of Rights had been added. Criticism like this led to their addition by Congress in order to obtain ratification.
There has in the United States, since the Constitution was ratified, a tension in every war or conflict, where some Americans wanted to reduce civil rights in order to better cope with the conflict and others observed that what we were fighting for is precisely those civil rights and liberties. John Adams and the Federalists, did not want anyone to be allowed to publicly criticize the Government while we were in conflict with Great Britain. They passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans felt that that the freedom should not be given up in the name of national security—we could prevail without that incursion on rights. They repealed the Adams laws. In WWI, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson wanted to jail anyone who claimed that the military draft was improper, immoral or illegal, and he did. Republicans, when they assumed office, then released the prisoners and restored freedom of speech. In the war on terror, most Republicans like sessions, wanted to torture prisoners, allow the imprisonment of suspected terrorists indefinitely without any charges or trial, and bug American telephone calls without the usually required court warrants. Democrats disagreed. That stimulated Sessions statement.
After 4 years as president he became less idealistic. See {633099}.
Lindsey Olin Graham is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. A member of the Republican Party, Graham served as chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 2019 to 2021.
