Alex Kozinski Quotes

There is no reason for the government to limit political speech.

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better.

To me, I was right from the beginning, because it's my right as an American to speak up and question our president, have my point of view, have my opinion, question what I want to question, and say what I want to say about our government.

Free speech has remained a quintessential American ideal, even as our society has moved from the ink quill to the touch screen.

Donald Trump doesn't care about free speech. The man who tweets everything that enters his head doesn't care about the amendment which lets him do that.

Individuals have a right to freedom of speech.

When you start punishing and censoring comedians, that's a real bad sign of us as Americans losing our First Amendment rights. As a comedian, I'm gonna push the boundaries. Some things you're going to love, and some things you're going to hate. But this is America. Great people died for us to have this right.

Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with. We do not do so because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.

I support the ability of people to be able to burn the American flag if they want to. But people have the right in this country to debate it.

Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.

This is what democracy is all about. People have every right to protest whoever's in the White House, without fear of persecution. If this happened in Iran, people would be shot on the streets. This is the United States of America, and we have a First Amendment that protects this kind of speech.

The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.

We should love the fact that we're not just getting one point of view. That we have this diversity in entertainment, and people are not scared to be themselves, and people are not scared to make people uncomfortable, and that's all part of it. That's all part of being free.

I've been criticized because I've had the temerity to speak out and done a couple of interviews since I left office. I don't find anything surprising about that. I don't say - I've been careful not to get personal in terms of my criticisms for my comment, but I think the issues are simply too important for the future of the nation for us to operate as though those of us who disagree somehow shouldn't speak out and be heard. I think we need to be heard.

If we set the precedent of limiting the First Amendment, in order to protect the sensibilities of those who are offended by flag burning, what will we say the next time someone is offended by some other minority view, or by some other person's exercise of the freedom the Constitution is supposed to protect?

Our First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears.

When people say that entertainers should "know your place," they might as well say the same thing about plumbers and teachers and cab drivers. We all should be able to express our views.

Think 'free speech,' not 'free beer.'

I have never conceived that having been in public life required me to belie my sentiments, or to conceal them. Opinion and the just maintenance of it shall never be a crime in my view, nor bring injury on the individual. I never will by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance. I never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own; a reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people, but less from myself.

Because of the free speech clause in the First Amendment, which is very clear, "The government shall make no law abridging freedom of speech," and it literally is about political speech. You can say anything you want about politics, a candidate, and the government cannot stop you. And the Democrats hate that.

Antonin Scalia was saying, and Donald Trump knows this as well, the answer to it is not to punish people, to shut 'em up, to put 'em in jail. The answer is more speech. If there's some clown burning the flag, drape yourself in the flag and go run around right in the guy's face and start telling him how much you love America. Donald Trump's not gonna put anybody in jail. He's not gonna strip their citizenship. This is how Donald Trump tells people what he thinks about it.

America is a great place, speech is free and you're able to expose the fact that you're an idiot.

Freedom of speech is a great thing and we have said nothing that is not allowed.

I forget, is freedom of speech when it's legal to say what you want or is it when it has no consequences for some reason?