4 ms·

> A lot of people forget that the word "press" in the phrase "freedom of the press" refers to an actual printing press, not the modern term that people confuse

by akerl_ 3y ago

> A lot of people forget that the word "press" in the phrase "freedom of the press" refers to an actual printing press, not the modern term that people confuse for corporate journalism. Can you cite that? It's pretty clear that freedom of "speech" isn't limited to literal verbal speech. I'm not sure I've ever seen the suggestion that the authors of the constitution were overly concerned with the literal mechanism of printing, so much as the ability of the citizens to publish information.

gruez 3y ago
It's a reference to how a common talking point against gun rights is "there's no way the founding fathers would have imagined modern day assault rifles, therefore the 2nd amendment shouldn't apply to them"
- Spivak 3y ago
  This reasoning is a good live-demo of how politics has wormed its way into the current crop of judges due to the fact that this is a more than valid textualist argument that has been applied in other cases but you'll never see it actually argued by one for 2A. It really ought to be the progressive judges who make the case for 2A being expanded wider than the founder's could reasonably intend but they also won't argue it. So we end up in this weird land because originalism and conservatism usually agree and so too progressivism and liberalism to the point where the lines of thought shape how more than the courts think of issues. But both sides end up having to do tricky mental gymnastics on this particular issue to resolve the two. But this is, of course, silly. It appeals only to the lizard brain who when faced with decisions far beyond the ability for humans to understand or are effectively arbitrary need a made up framework on which to post-hoc justify what are really just gut feelings. When the answer to what path better is more obvious like "should people be allowed to buy a bazooka at Walmart" nobody is out here asking if the founders would have intended it, everyone just goes, "oh fuck no" and we move on.
  - madengr 3y ago
    [dead]
chrisco255 3y ago
You're conflating "freedom of speech" with "freedom of the press". Speech, of course covers the conveyance of ideas in all forms. Why was it important to also call out "freedom of the press" separately then, if speech was already mentioned? Presses were large, expensive, exclusive tools for a long period of time. It would be trivial to control the types of essays, books, newspapers and papers that could be published and distributed by simply slapping a fine or attaching a civil penalty to the mere act of publishing controversial material. In fact the Alien and Sedition Acts that cost the Federalists their existence in American politics were largely seen to be unconstitutional, and made the mere printing of seditious material an exportable offense, although the act was repealed so quickly it was never tried at Supreme Court. The word press quite literally meant printing press. People did not refer to journalists specifically as "the press" until around 1868: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3131525/world-press-freedom-day-what-are-origins-words https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/art...
- akerl_ 3y ago
  I’m not conflating anything. I’m drawing a comparison, and asking you to back up why you think “the press” literally means “the printing press, as an object” in a way that would somehow extend to “3d printers”, rather than the concept of printing and distributing news and information. You’re the one who keeps bringing up the terms journalists and journalism. It’s not clear to me why the constitution predating those terms implies that “press” was meant literally.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    Quite simply, because in 1789, "the press" meant the printing press. I pointed to historical references when that began to pivot to mean more broadly "journalism" in general, but in 1789, the printing press was the only meaning "the press" carried at the time. They of course couldn't have envisioned alternative mediums that the "press" might alternatively refer to. They couldn't have predicted radio, television, and the internet as alternative forms of "publication". There was the spoken word and the written word and that's all there was for thousands of years. The press simply made the written word more scalable. I understand that Constitutional rights are interpreted by Courts to carry meaning through progressions in technology or society norms. Clearly the spirit of the "freedom of the press" is partly an implied "right to publish" as you say, and as the 9th amendment underscores, the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. There is no mention of "distributing news and information" with regards to "freedom of the press" in the Constitution. It simply says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press. It doesn't justify it or give a reason for it. It's held to be self evident. It should be understood that the U.S. was founded on the principle of "liberty by default". There is no need to justify liberty. The purpose of the bill of rights was to provide extra protections against the egregiousness of government, to preserve liberty, but not to box it in and define it for all time to mean "these specific things." Clearly the founders couldn't foresee the advent of 3D printing, either. However, milling machines and molds very much did exist. It would be equally unthinkable to the founders to enable the government to restrict the usage of mills and molds on the basis that they might be used to produce arms (another right they saw fit to enumerate), as it would be to restrict 3D printing. On the basis of the 1st, 2nd, and 9th amendments, and the principles of liberty itself; the 3D printing press should remain as equally free as the 2D printing press.

by akerl_ 3y ago

gruez 3y ago

It's a reference to how a common talking point against gun rights is "there's no way the founding fathers would have imagined modern day assault rifles, therefore the 2nd amendment shouldn't apply to them"

Spivak 3y ago
This reasoning is a good live-demo of how politics has wormed its way into the current crop of judges due to the fact that this is a more than valid textualist argument that has been applied in other cases but you'll never see it actually argued by one for 2A. It really ought to be the progressive judges who make the case for 2A being expanded wider than the founder's could reasonably intend but they also won't argue it. So we end up in this weird land because originalism and conservatism usually agree and so too progressivism and liberalism to the point where the lines of thought shape how more than the courts think of issues. But both sides end up having to do tricky mental gymnastics on this particular issue to resolve the two. But this is, of course, silly. It appeals only to the lizard brain who when faced with decisions far beyond the ability for humans to understand or are effectively arbitrary need a made up framework on which to post-hoc justify what are really just gut feelings. When the answer to what path better is more obvious like "should people be allowed to buy a bazooka at Walmart" nobody is out here asking if the founders would have intended it, everyone just goes, "oh fuck no" and we move on.
- madengr 3y ago
  [dead]

chrisco255 3y ago

You're conflating "freedom of speech" with "freedom of the press". Speech, of course covers the conveyance of ideas in all forms. Why was it important to also call out "freedom of the press" separately then, if speech was already mentioned? Presses were large, expensive, exclusive tools for a long period of time. It would be trivial to control the types of essays, books, newspapers and papers that could be published and distributed by simply slapping a fine or attaching a civil penalty to the mere act of publishing controversial material. In fact the Alien and Sedition Acts that cost the Federalists their existence in American politics were largely seen to be unconstitutional, and made the mere printing of seditious material an exportable offense, although the act was repealed so quickly it was never tried at Supreme Court. The word press quite literally meant printing press. People did not refer to journalists specifically as "the press" until around 1868: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3131525/world-press-freedom-day-what-are-origins-words https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/art...

akerl_ 3y ago
I’m not conflating anything. I’m drawing a comparison, and asking you to back up why you think “the press” literally means “the printing press, as an object” in a way that would somehow extend to “3d printers”, rather than the concept of printing and distributing news and information. You’re the one who keeps bringing up the terms journalists and journalism. It’s not clear to me why the constitution predating those terms implies that “press” was meant literally.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Quite simply, because in 1789, "the press" meant the printing press. I pointed to historical references when that began to pivot to mean more broadly "journalism" in general, but in 1789, the printing press was the only meaning "the press" carried at the time. They of course couldn't have envisioned alternative mediums that the "press" might alternatively refer to. They couldn't have predicted radio, television, and the internet as alternative forms of "publication". There was the spoken word and the written word and that's all there was for thousands of years. The press simply made the written word more scalable. I understand that Constitutional rights are interpreted by Courts to carry meaning through progressions in technology or society norms. Clearly the spirit of the "freedom of the press" is partly an implied "right to publish" as you say, and as the 9th amendment underscores, the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. There is no mention of "distributing news and information" with regards to "freedom of the press" in the Constitution. It simply says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press. It doesn't justify it or give a reason for it. It's held to be self evident. It should be understood that the U.S. was founded on the principle of "liberty by default". There is no need to justify liberty. The purpose of the bill of rights was to provide extra protections against the egregiousness of government, to preserve liberty, but not to box it in and define it for all time to mean "these specific things." Clearly the founders couldn't foresee the advent of 3D printing, either. However, milling machines and molds very much did exist. It would be equally unthinkable to the founders to enable the government to restrict the usage of mills and molds on the basis that they might be used to produce arms (another right they saw fit to enumerate), as it would be to restrict 3D printing. On the basis of the 1st, 2nd, and 9th amendments, and the principles of liberty itself; the 3D printing press should remain as equally free as the 2D printing press.