Jack Petree says,

The video is funny as hel… er… heck but you really should go to the Herald political blog both to see the video and to take a look at the accompanying discussion.

Jack’s right, the comments at the Hairball sum it up quite well.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/01/06/2339703/letter-finds-reason-in-eye-of.html

I say let’s give Jack a break and agree to conclude he must’ve been just really drunk.

If Jack Petree was shit-faced drunk when he wrote that incoherent letter, that that doesn’t explain his obnoxious and boorish conduct over the last three decades.

Like most of Jack’s gibberish, the letter makes perfect sense to people who already share his delusions.  To the rest of the world, it looks foolish, mean-spirited, self-interested and deeply bigoted.  Not to mention inept, petty and obnoxious. 

Any letter that Godwins itself by the fourth sentence has already ended any reasonable discussion.

If Petree can’t man up and admit he’s wrong, then his opinions are just loudly expressed prejudices, not a reasoned discussion in search of truth or consensus.  If all Jack wants is a fight, then he has come half-armed to a battle of wits.

The best test of Truth…not accepted, by some in the Marketplace of Ideas.

Hitler studied Martin Luther’s religion.

Martin Luther studied a Catholic religion.

Did not the Rev. Martin Luther King, also discuss Hitler, the Jew’s, and the Warsaw Ghetto’s religous sheep?

Shit Faced Drunk, now there’s a local party description, defined wirth perfection.

“..Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence [p376] coerced by law—the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law tends in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of it. Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions of approval add to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated.
Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.  Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it…”

Todd,  that is too long a quote for just being ‘fair use’.  And, lets at least give attribution for who wrote that. 

More to the point, comments are for your own writing - not for extensive quotes of others.  This is a dialog, not instruction.  It would serve your purpose better to simply link to the author and article that you are quoting.  If you want, let me know and I can tweak your comment to link to this person’s writing.  You could still take out a sentence or two for a ‘fair use’ taste of what you hope the reader will gain from following your link.  Email me the info and I’ll make the change.  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Thanks.

Ok John,
A Jew and a Presbyterian, Brandeis and Holmes.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0274_0357_ZC.html

Speech, many times related to the truth and it’s consequence.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm