Sunday Forum: The Subtext of the First Amendment; Bring Vermont Inmates Home; Universal Health Care Cant Wait

The Subtext of the First Amendment

To the Editor:

As a fellow Harvard grad (though not a former Lampoon editor!), Id like to reply to the letter from David Binger ( Charlie Isnt Funny or Helpful, Jan. 14) about Charlie Hebdo. He takes issue with the title, the quality of the cartoons and the editorial tone, and asks how a country that loved Honor Daumier could support such trash.

First, I would posit that our own beloved land is the world leader in the degradation of taste. Were the country, after all, that not only produced Larry Flint and Hustler but supported his right, in the Supreme Court, to publish a highly offensive cartoon that depicted not the Prophet Muhammad, May Peace Be Upon Him, but a known, specific individual. Virtually all American newsstands hawk tabloids full of salacious trash, partially fabricated stories and outright lies. All of this is protected by our glorious (and widely misunderstood) First Amendment, the first item in the Bill of Rights.

More to the point: Certainly there is a world of difference between Charlie Hebdo, on the one hand, and The Harvard Lampoon and The New Yorker on the other. I grew up with and appreciated both publications, but they clearly appeal to different audiences and readerships. There is a place for the high and the low, and times have changed since Daumiers day. A certain amount of shock value is needed to gain the attention of readers in this high speed, Internet-crazed world. The tragedy in Paris, albeit horrific and a shock in its own right, at least elevated Charlie Hebdo, for a time, into the ranks of newspapers known around the world. Thankfully, we Americans are free to choose what we think and read, and I would suggest that an unwritten subtext of The First Amendment is that any one of us has the right, if he or she chooses, not to hold any religion, not to petition the government, not to peaceably assemble, and not to read anything offensive.

A. E. Norton

Woodstock

Bring Vermont Inmates Home

To the Editor:

Thank you for the article by Laura Krantz of VtDigger covering the modest reduction in out-of-state placements in the Vermont Corrections system (Vt. Out-of-State Prison Population to Dip, Jan. 14).

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Sunday Forum: The Subtext of the First Amendment; Bring Vermont Inmates Home; Universal Health Care Cant Wait