Corporate & Securities Law

Obama on Koran burning

Today the president pressured a pastor to stop the planned burning of Korans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11. On TV this morning, the president said: “If he’s listening, I hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans.” I’m not an expert on the Constitution, but, as one of my favorite professors used to say, that just can’t be right.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea of burning Korans is a stupid, insulting, ignorant, and dangerous one. I’d like to drive down to Florida and punch this guy in the face — he definitely deserves it. But the president is being a bit hypocritical in his invocation of the First Amendment. To see this, compare the president’s words about the planned “community center” (nee mosque) to be built in lower Manhattan. There the president defended the right of the imam to build the center, invoking the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, but said he would not comment on the wisdom of the decision. And, he has a point. This country was founded in large part on the idea of free exercise of religion, and we should be skeptical of government attempts to single out particular religions. (Was Waco this?) But the country was also founded on the idea of free expression and the marketplace of ideas. Right there in the First Amendment we also find this concept in the free speech clause. So why is it “contrary to our values as Americans” to exercise speech (yes, the Supreme Court calls burning stuff, like flags, speech)?

It isn’t. Liberals (and me) praise Court decisions allowing Nazis to march in Skokie and idiots to say whatever they want. How is this different? It isn’t. The president could have said exactly the same thing about this moron’s stunt as he did about the imam’s stunt in NY — “it is consistent with American values to tolerate all kinds of speech, especially speech with disagree with, but I won’t comment on the wisdom of this.” The president didn’t because he is OK with an Islamic community center nearish to Ground Zero, but he isn’t OK with America’s image in the world being hurt by some nut burning Korans. Here the president is guilty of a crime perpetrated daily by most constitutional law scholars. Their theories of the Constitution seem to be driven less by strong theoretical underpinnings and neutral analysis than by their own policy preferences. If your theory of constitutional interpretation spits out outcomes that are perfectly aligned with how you would vote as a politician, it is not a valid theory but an exercise in politics cloaked in law.

As for me, I think both ideas are dumb, insensitive, and attention-seeking stunts, but I think both should be immune from government pressure. If you don’t like the planned community center, go protest, build your own counter-center next door, speak out against radical Islam, or whatever else you can think of to peacefully show your discontent. The same is true about Koran burning. The best antidote to bad speech is more and good speech, and that is as an American value as I can think of.

Full post as published by Truth on the Market on September 09, 2010 (boomark / email).