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Comment by pfannkuchen | Hacker News Reader

I’m pretty sure the men who actually wrote the first amendment would have been strongly against any non-European foreigner being educated in America, let alone those among them with anti-American views.

I agree with you that this violates the spirit of the first amendment as it is currently interpreted and portrayed, but how do we square that with this interpretation producing results that are squarely at odds with the intent of the founders? Pornography being protected by the first amendment is another example that is pretty straightforwardly against the original spirit.

If this is actually about anti-Israel sentiment being policed though then I’m just confused generally. If the views in question aren’t “destroy America” or “revolution in America”, both of which should be left to US voters and not foreign agitators, I don’t think that is really any of the US government’s business.

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https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

> In the eighteenth century, bookstores in the American colonies carried an extraordinary array of erotica, ranging from Boccaccio’s Decameron to such explicitly sexual works as Venus in the Cloister, The Politick Whore, and Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman, and there were no statutes forbidding obscenity during the entire colonial era. To the contrary, throughout this period, the distribution, exhibition, and possession of pornographic material was simply not thought to be any of the state’s business.

> The first obscenity prosecution in the United States did not occur until 1815, at the height of the evangelical explosion of the Second Great Awakening, which triggered a nationwide effort to transform American law and politics through the lens of evangelical Christianity.

Benjamin Franklin would've loved Pornhub.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing...

> I’m pretty sure the men who actually wrote the first amendment would have been strongly against any non-European foreigner being educated in America, let alone those among them with anti-American views.

Is there any example of colonial or early federal period governmental actions demanding that anyone make a record of all of their correspondence available for review to determine whether they had anti-American views? Even at the level of senate confirmations, did the standard of "we should be able to check that you never wrote anything which we view as unacceptable" ever turn up? Bear in mind that for years after the fight for independence, many of them lived in communities where they knew and interacted with former British loyalists, so this wasn't an idle concern.

I think a bunch of them were on record making very broad statements in defense of personal liberties, and a bunch of them had been accused by the crown of being treasonous based on stuff they had written, so one could understand them being _not_ on the same page of creating punishments for categories of speech.

> Pornography being protected by the first amendment is another example that is pretty straightforwardly against the original spirit.

Is it? My understanding is anti-obscenity laws at the federal level in the US really go back to the Comstock act in the 1870s, i.e. the founders and multiple generations after them didn't attempt to ban porn. I think it's entirely consistent to believe that the founders didn't imagine that a government had any business making such stipulations.

>how do we square that with this interpretation producing results that are squarely at odds with the intent of the founders?

By not pretending we can read the minds of the dead, not letting racist rapists dictate our society from beyond the grave and enforcing the law as written and as interpreted by the courts. This idea that the founding fathers are the sole source of truth is not only dangerously destructive, it's explicitly denied by the constitution itself. This doesn't violate the spirit of the first amendment as currently interpreted, it violates the first amendment.

What kind of country do we want? One that welcomes a broad set of views, and in turn ensures its future by not attaching itself to any single point of view dogmatically, or one where people use references to the founders to justify their insecure political choices?

> the men who actually wrote the first amendment would have been strongly against any non-European foreigner being educated in America

What makes you think that? Slave-owning aside they were a pretty outward-looking, foreign-fashion-following, elitist bunch.

I'm having a hard time thinking of any non-Europeans who would be interested in going to the US for education when European schools were closer and better. I'm having a harder time wondering why Madison et al. would care.

By "foreigner" do you include Native Americans? From what I gather, Harvard, Dartmouth, and other colonial era colleges nominally encouraged educating Native Americans, as part of their Christianization. There wasn't much of it, to be fair, but it was a stated goal. There were also schools like Moor's Indian Charity School.

By "foreigner" do you include the Black population? We know there were schools for black children, like the Williamsburg Bray School. From what little I know of slaveholder Madison, I don't think he was against free blacks getting an education.

Could you point to anything specific from Madison on this topic?

Some of the founding fathers were non-european foreigners. Wasn't Hamilton originally from the Caribbean?

Hamilton's parents were entirely of European ancestry, though.

The men who wrote the First Amendment didn't even see it fit to have border control beyond customs & tariffs.

This is most certainly vetting against anti-Israel views. I know first hand that rich donors to the Trump campaigns (Adelsons and others) made Israel their top priority. They are seeking to control the narrative around this war, and are unable to do so with college-aged students that do not consume Facebook or Fox News media. It seems with everything else failing, they are resorting to vetting. Their concern is empathetic students coming into positions of power, which threatens the well-being of their darling (Israel). Among college aged students, Israel is viewed like Iran (and rightfully so, because the videos coming out of Ghaza are incompatible with western morals and values). America naturalized Trevor Noah during a Trump admin, who was critical of America on his show for 5 years. It seems Israel is where they draw the line, mainly because of the power some groups hold over the Trump admin (like every other admin frankly). In our country, you can criticize everything and everyone but free speech does not include a criticism of the darling of most of America's billionaires

> how do we square that with this interpretation producing results that are squarely at odds with the intent of the founders

Jesus christ. Don't you feel at all obligated to provide support for the thing you're "pretty sure" about before asking people to accept it at face value? Based on your surety? It's hard to tell if this is basic rage-baiting with the absurdity of your claim sans support, or if you truly believe that wild claims don't require any, because enough people's reactionary vibes align with yours.

Frankly, who cares what the founders as slave owning dead men think?

They were right about the first amendment but were wrong about a bunch of other things.

Don’t forget that the first amendment isn’t the only amendment. America didn’t even achieve equitable civil rights until the last half decade or so. Within living memory women weren’t allowed to get bank accounts without spousal consent.

This idea that we should go back to the original ideas thought up before industrialized society was invented is super weird.

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