The appropriate reaction to criticism of constitutionally protected rights by a member of the British royal family is certainly an eyeroll. After all, we fought a revolution to make sure British aristocrats would no longer have a say over the freedoms Americans exercise, so the reminder that we dodged a bullet on that front is no surprise. What is more concerning, though, is that opposition to free-wheeling speech is more widely shared among people who are in a position to impose a disgruntled prince’s vision of good policy on the world at large.
Prince Harry’s comments came on the May 13 episode of actor Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. As the Hollywood- and Hollywood-adjacent celebrities commiserated about the awfulness of the paparazzi and their behavior, the wayward prince mused about the legal framework that allows intrusions into the private lives of famous people.
[42:50] I don’t want to start sort of going down the First Amendment route because that’s a huge subject and one which I don’t understand because I’ve only been here for a short period of time. But you can find a loophole in anything. And you can capitalize or exploit what’s not said rather than uphold what is said….If there’s an ideology or you want to spread hate. Laws were created to protect people, right? That’s how I see it.
[44:50] I’ve got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I still don’t understand it. But it is bonkers.
As difficult as it is to…
