Hand’s holding that copyright law did not mandate a standard of individual comprehension, while, clarifying specific point of law, also, serves to remind the citizens of the Republic of the desire of the Founders to ensure that the freedoms granted under the First Amendment remained available and accessible to succeeding generations of Americans through the preservation of the sum total of the intellectual efforts of their descendants uniformly without any distinctions being accorded to them because, of their beliefs, values, and mores, id: Reiss v. National Quotation Bureau, Inc., 276 F. 717 (S.D.N.Y., 1921). The decision handed down in Reiss reflected I would argue Judge Hand’s belief that the greatest dangers to a society as a whole lay within legally sanctioned compulsory uniformity:
Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers. (Learned Hand. The Preservation of Personality, VII, 7 Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin 7-14 (1927) reprinted in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses of Learned Hand (Irving Dillard ed., 3d ed., New York, A.A. Knopf, 1960)
This belief was reaffirmed by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Robert H. Jackson in 1943 during the depths of the Second World War, demonstrably highlighting his belief that the freedom to express oneself was a treasure to be protected in both war and peace, see: West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
It seems to me that the Executive and Legislative branches have forgotten the idea illustrated above, and have allowed the government to be forcibly fettered by the shackles of extreme partisanship and its attendant rhetoric because, they have allowed themselves to forget Voltaire’s long held belief on the need for freedom of speech as a form of expression as restated by S. G. Tallentyre (Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her 1906 opus the Friends of Voltaire, when she wrote the following: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Truth told the situation as it now exists reminds me of the 1868 Impeachment of Andrew Johnson which was orchestrated by the Radical element within the Republican Party in the sense that then as now the United States was in a time of turmoil, decimated by partisan bickering. During the early years of Reconstruction politicians on either side of the political fence possessed of a spirit that was either unwilling to compromise, and unable to recognize the validity of the concerns raised by their opponents, threatened the stability of nation as a whole, and only the courage of a single Senator prevented the wholesale renewal of armed conflict.
The unwillingness of partisans on both sides to stipulate that even though they possess fundamental disagreements that the other side has legitimate concerns that should be considered and addressed in a civil manner has led to a divisiveness and intransigence that is dangerous and could potentially either stunt the growth of, or be fatal to continued growth of the Republic
I argue simply argue that radical partisanship on either the left or right when unrestrained by moderating influences poses a threat to the country as whole, because, it only serves to encourage and facilitate division which given the current economic woes would be function as a hindrance to the recovery of the nation.
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