The USA can not have their right to free speech taken away by legislation.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Their Constitution Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. |
Any such legislation would (or should) be tossed out on First Amendment grounds, and has been on various occasions.
For the most part the Supreme Court does uphold the constitution, but there are exceptions. The exceptions are generally ones that the people would consent to having restricted, while the basic right is still protected.
Regardless, the Supreme Court is not a legislative body, it is judicial. Congress is the legislative body and they're constitutionally forbidden from abridging free speech.
Doesn't stop them trying, though.
Howard doesn't want us to have a Bill of Rights because then he'd be legally obligated to adhere to it and he's not real keen on letting us keep the rights we already have. He only says it to make people think better of him. The reality is, him and his party have been in control of parliament for a good long while now, so if he wanted us to have one they certainly have the numbers to get it voted up for a referendum or whatever would be necessary for such a useless piece of paper.
There's no point to having such a thing as it's not going to give us the right to do anything we can't already do now. And it would be structured in such a way that the Government would be able to revoke any right listed if they wanted to do so, because if it wasn't then it would never be approved in the first place. Etc.
Thus Howard can crap on all he likes about how we need a Bill of Rights, because he knows full well that any such Bill would only get through Parliament if it was only going to be as effective as a wet paper bag. And in which case he'd be quite happy, since then he'd actually get to fulfill something he's backed, without really having to do anything but give some study group (carefully selected by the government to return the result they desire) millions of taxpayer dollars...
Who me? Cynical?
