Hypothetical scenario: The President, the Senate, and the House are afflicted by brain slugs that command them to repeal the First Amendment. So they repeal the First Amendment.
What is most likely to happen next? Riots in the streets (if so, are you part of them)? Mass impeachments? How would the judicial branch respond?
Without state ratification?
Well, since the president, senate, and house don’t have the power to either repeal or enact an amendment I’m not sure how your hypothetical is supposed to work. I guess it would mean some sort of coup has occurred so I’m not sure what would happen without some more details.
In a constitutional process, either 3/4 of the state legislatures or ratifying conventions in 3/4 of the states need to approve it. If this was how the amendment came to pass I’d be personally disappointed but I don’t see any mass hysteria since the vast majority of the population was presumably in favor of the amendment.
If the First is repealed use the Second to get it back, since the government had become tyrannical and it’s time for a hard reset.
Just for the record, an amendment must be proposed by 2/3 of each house of Congress and ratified by 3/4 of the states. There are other scenarios, but I don’t think they have ever been used. They could be proposed by a convention requested by 2/3 of the states and they can be ratified by conventions held for the purpose in 3/4 of the states. In no case is the president involved.
It wouldn’t be the repeal of the first amendment itself that would lead to rioting, it would be the enforcement of subsequent laws that would cause any serious reaction. Presumably if the amendment was repealed, and then some state legistature passed a law saying that, for instance, all atheist literature was banned, and anyone who published, possessed or distributed it would be jailed, that would be cause for political protests. I think the nature and degree of the protests would depend on the specific laws, their impact, and to what extent they reflected the views of the public.
I’m a very strong supporter of the first amendment, and would oppose it being overturned, but I can’t see that in and of itself being cause for a violent overthrow of the government. Other presumably enlightened Western democracies lack first amendment rights and manage to maintain a reasonable degree of freedom (I’m thinking of things like British libel laws, Germany’s ban on neo-Nazi materials, and various countries that have a state-sanctioned religion).
It’s been a long time since I took government, sorry. Assume that all the necessary politicians involved (outside of the judiciary branch) have been taken over by brain slugs.
Then on something as critical as the First Amendment, the people would remove as many legislators as possible from office, elect new pro-First Amendment legislators, and amend the Constitution as soon as possible.
My brain slug says it’s a good idea.
Now you have to shut up.
Right, Australia and the UK are perfectly functional countries, but they don’t have the same level of protection over speech that we do. A lot of times this does lead me to disagree with actions the government takes (especially in regards to censoring what they deem excessively violent video games and such), but the lack of a first amendment isn’t just going to cause the country to go to hell overnight.
The worrying aspect isn’t the lack of a first amendment, a sane government can function without one. The worrying aspect is the motivation for removing it. It’s the sort of thing you don’t really have a good reason to touch without a plan. I’d be more worried about why the [del]yeerks[/del] brain slugs need the amendment removed than I would about the amendment’s removal in and of itself.
First off, the Judicial branch can’t respond to the new amended itself. Not directly anyway. The best the judiciary can do is wait for a law to be passed and challenged, then rule on it. When they rule on Constitutional issues, they have to use the current Constitution as amended. They could look to some other portion of the Constitution and argue that those freedoms are implied by that section. They’ll be setting precedent from scratch to some extent.
As for rioting… it’s always hard to say when or if people will riot. However, I’d expect riots to happen on a local level first, as each state approves the measure. These may be half-hearted riots; most people only get really active after they’ve been harmed. A lot would depend on the leadership and organization of the rioters. (Think Occupy Wall Street. As a rudderless protest against vague injustices, it achieved nothing. Had someone taken direct leadership with a specific list of achievable measures, it might have been a whole different affair.)
You could certainly imagine a scenario in which the 1st is knocked down, but then Congress never passes an unpopular law using its new powers. In that kind of scenario, you wouldn’t expect rioting.
I’m not so sure of that. If 2/3 of the members of both House and Senate, plus a majority of both houses in 34 of the states have all voted in favour of repeal, then I would say that would be a clear indication of a fundamental change in popular opinion. The brain slug hypothetical doesn’t take you very far. If that many elected officials, at both the federal and state level, feel that they can vote with impunity for repeal, then there’s been a major change.
The 21st Amendment, repealing prohibition, was proposed by Congress, but ratified by state conventions rather than by the state legislatures.
If the First Amendment mysteriously disappeared tomorrow, I doubt very much would change. The individual states would either already have provisions very similar to it, or else create them.
The more conservative states might see a certain rise in government entanglement in religion, but I would be very surprised if any of them would actually create an “establishment of religion.” Americans may be religious, but they are also very divided. No one would be able to agree on what State (in both senses of the word) church to have.
I can’t see it happening just out of the blue (barring brain slugs). Something that fundamental would arise out of some existing popular movement and that movement would direct the follow-up to the repeal.
A new religion sweeping the country? Expect legislation to make it the official state religion.
Concern about an out-of-control press? Establish a national censorship board.
Fear of parades? Enact laws against public assemblies.
My point is that the First Amendment says there are laws the government can’t enact. So you could theoretically repealing the First and have everything stay the same if the government decided not to use its new powers. There wouldn’t be any change until the government enacted a new law that would have been unconstitutional under the First.
Or just decided to enforce an old law that they couldn’t enforce under the First Amendment. There are still sporadic cases of ignorant police officers and prosecutors trying to enforce flag desecration laws.
First, I would explain to the 80% of Americans who don’t know what this “First Amendment” thing is…
Wait, do I sound jaded?