SVA Decision – Link
Here’s the text of the decision. The server’s getting hammered right now due to the release of the health care reform decision at the same time, so it may be a while before it’s easily viewable.
Will defer to TSO for detailed analysis, but wanted to get this link up pronto.
Category: Politics
The link between the Government’s interest in protectingthe integrity of the military honors system and the Act’srestriction on the false claims of liars like respondent has not been shown. Although appearing to concede that “an isolated misrepresentation by itself would not tarnish the meaning of military honors,” the Government asserts it is “common sense that false representations have the tendency
to dilute the value and meaning of military awards,” Brief for United States 49, 54. It must be acknowledgedthat when a pretender claims the Medal to be his own, the lie might harm the Government by demeaning the highpurpose of the award, diminishing the honor it confirms, and creating the appearance that the Medal is awardedmore often than is true. Furthermore, the lie may offendthe true holders of the Medal. From one perspective it insults
their bravery and high principles when falsehoodputs them in the unworthy company of a pretender.
Yet these interests do not satisfy the Government’sheavy burden when it seeks to regulate protected speech.
Read the decision and what the justices said was that publicly naming and shaming phonies was adequate consequences for those who claim false military honors.
So Jonn, Mark, and all the other denizens at TAH the Supreme Court has just made you the ruling authority for Stolen Honor/Valor cases.
So I am about a quarter through the decision findings and I agree with Grunt. They say that there are already internet datatbases created by private individuals who seek to find and let it known to public about lies and stolen valor. They do not feel that it is wrong for the liar to be brought to public light.
It strikes down the Stolen Valor Act but gives leeway to websites such as this and Mary’s. Which in turn means they cannot be charged with a crime, but neither can any website that brings light to their false claims.
But without any legal action people will be doing it over and over again.
Would kicking a poser’s nuts up around their ears be considered an act of free speech?
I certainly wouldn’t discourage it.
If “online ridicule” is the only weapon we have to fight those who dishonor the military with falsehoods and deceit, then so be it. The war is not over, it has just begun and if you think this is “fighting speech” then you haven’t seen nothing yet.
@5 & 6, if you do please get pictures, so I can live vicariously through you until I find a poser myself to kick.
However, after just reading through all 49 pages of that brief, I understand the point that the plurality makes. I still disagree with it though. I think Alito, Scalia and Thomas in their dissension paper make it clear that there is a marked distinction between false speech in regards to military matters and false speech in general. As such the slippery slope argument about states/feds making laws restricting other types of speech based on a precedent set by the Stolen Valor act would not be applicable/valid.
Regardless, the only two recourse we have are to either pressure our senators/reps to pass a more focused SVA or step up our efforts to reveal and revile those who steal the valor from those who have earned it.
I think that both will be in order.
In effect, the SCOTUS has given its permission for private individuals who catch douche-bags in the act of douche-baggery to contact their places of employment, places of recreation, and places of congregation and let them know what the douche-bag is doing.
I can support that.
No. 2 Just A Grunt:
AMEN.