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When they took the Fourth Amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the Sixth Amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the Second Amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the First Amendment, and I can't say anything at all.
Tim FreemanI'm not up for changing the 10th amendment or the 14th amendment, the first amendment or the second amendment.
Andrew BreitbartNow I realize it's fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible. That we're told we'll violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment. The First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny.
Ronald ReaganThere's no way you are going to get rid of the Second Amendment, there's no way you're going to get rid of the First Amendment, and people have to understand how important this is. But I think when they see more and more killings, we have to figure out, of course what we are going to do about it. And I don't think the criminal justice system has an answer.
Chuck ToddIn my view, if the Court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that Amendment was very important when the nation was new, it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms but it was for one purpose only, and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation.
Ruth Bader GinsburgI understand the Second Amendment. I respect the Second Amendment. I think we need to use common sense tools to keep the American people safe, to keep our streets safe.
Eric HolderThe Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s.
Noam ChomskyThe word Amendment itself is an encouraging thing, isn't it? Because an amendment, it tells of a system of government that allows for the improvement of itself. Just move forward a little bit, one day at a time.
Daniel Day-LewisUltimately, I wanted to own a big truck, exercise my second Amendment rights, listen to hardcore music, and let my congressman know how poorly he represents me. None of this could occur in France.
Mark Twight... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life.
Joycelyn EldersSome men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
Thomas JeffersonWhat I would like to see is for people to come together and say: Of course we're going to protect and defend the Second Amendment. But we're going to do it in a way that tries to save some of these 33,000 lives that we lose every year.
Hillary ClintonI wish the constitution, which is offered, had been made more perfect; but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time. And, as a constitutional door is opened for amendment hereafter, the adoption of it, under the present circumstances of the Union, is in my opinion desirable.
George Washington'The want of proper examination, true contrition, and a firm purpose of amendment, is the cause of bad confessions, and of the ruin of souls.'
Benedict Joseph LabreI support the Second Amendment. I lived in Arkansas for 18 wonderful years. I represented upstate New York. I understand and respect the tradition of gun ownership. It goes back to the founding of our country.
Hillary ClintonAnybody who pretends that how you read the 10th and 11th Amendment doesn't have a fundamental impact on the things we care about is kidding themselves. They're either uninformed or they're kidding themselves.
Joe Biden[I watch] all that stuff - Game of Thrones and all the other series. How about House of Cards? As for Boardwalk Empire - that's another period of government overreach, but at least they use the amendment process! In real life, the executive branch, by violating the Constitution, is using statutes in place of constitutional amendments to diminish our liberty.
Edward SnowdenThe Second Amendment does protect the right to people to possess weapons for self-defense in the home. That's what the Supreme Court said.
Laurence TribeThe Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
Alex KozinskiAll children should be welcomed into the world and protected by the law. As President, I would immediately repeal President Clinton's five executive orders that promote abortion. I support a human life bill that defines unborn children as persons under the 14th Amendment. I will vigorously defend the pro-life plank in the Republican platform.
Gary BauerAny test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where, in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.
William O. DouglasI am opposed to special rights for gays just as I am opposed to special rights for heterosexuals or smokers. I can attest to the fact that sexual orientation is not immutable and I urge the city council to vote no on this amendment.
Alan ChambersViolating the 4th Amendment guarantees against illegal searches and seizures is not the way to solve crime problems.
Tim WiseRepublican Michigan Congressman Justin Amash said, no president is allowed to burn the first amendment.
Chuck ToddThere are people who oppose a federal Constitutional amendment because they think that the law of family should be made by the states. I can see a legitimate argument there. I think it's mistaken, however, because the federal government, through the decisions of life-tenured federal judges, has already taken over that area.
Dallin H. OaksWhen I think of civil liberties I think of the founding principles of the country. The freedoms that are in the First Amendment. But also the fundamental right to privacy.
Tim CookThe First Amendment does not extend to corporations. It's a U.S. government thing. Companies can shut speech down all they want. But the thing is this is destructive. This is discriminatory. And what they're telling themselves is they're making a much more peaceful environment. "We are creating a much more conducive and productive and peaceful environment," when they're not. They're suppressing opinion. They are inflicting their own world view and demanding that it be agreed with and acceded to. And if it's not, you get fired.
Rush LimbaughFirst Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.
John YooIt is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest.
William O. DouglasFor 180 years, we voted in English. That is the true American tradition, and this amendment is true to our heritage, not what has existed unnaturally for the last 20 years.
Spencer BachusI think basic disease care access and basic access to health care is a human right. If we need a constitutional amendment to put it in the Bill of Rights, then that's what we ought to do. Nobody with a conscience would leave the victim of a shark attack to bleed while we figure out whether or not they could pay for care. That tells us that at some level, health care access is a basic human right. Our system should be aligned so that our policies match our morality. Then within that system where everybody has access, we need to incentivize prevention, both for the patient and the provider.
David KatzI definitely do not support a constitutional amendment that has to do with prohibiting gay marriage.
Dina TitusAfter reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run.
Hank Williams, Jr.Since the writing of our Constitution, our religious liberties have been systematically threatened and whittled away by Supreme Court justices who interpret the First Amendment as a prohibition against religious activity on public property.
Tim LaHayeWe often seem to be swimming through such a miasma of sexual violence - in advertising, television programming, heavy metal, rap, films, and worst of all, in the home - that even First Amendment absolutists sometimes daydream about how nice it would be to have government-as-nanny just outlaw all this effluent.
Molly IvinsThe Constitution says nothing about anchor babies. The 14th Amendment says nothing about birthright citizenship.
Rush LimbaughI'll end discriminatory laws like the Hyde Amendment that make it all but impossible for low-income women - disproportionately, women of color - to exercise their rights.
Hillary ClintonThe basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.
Fred M. Vinson...[T]oday's Washington is about as attentive to the Tenth Amendment as the Unitarian Church is to the Book of Revelation.
Joseph SobranMarriage is not defined in the federal Constitution at all; it's a matter for the states. And applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the equality of men and women and their relationship in marriage is totally different than redefining marriage. Here is the overreach of the judiciary. This, if allowed to stand without any congressional approval, without any kind of enabling legislation, is what Jefferson warned us about. That's judicial tyranny.
Mike HuckabeeIf you don't uphold your legal responsibility to enforce the First Amendment, to provide speakers with platforms and audiences with safe, the ability to listen to speakers of all different kinds, agnostic ideology, if you don't do that as a university, you are not performing your essential function.
Milo Yiannopoulos