The ‘bedrock principle’ of the First Amendment

  Many people recoil at the notion that the First Amendment protects the speech that they most dislike or detest. The late great Nat Hentoff captured this censorial impulse in his “Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee.”

  But the reality is that the First Amendment protects much speech that is obnoxious, offensive, and repugnant. Justice William Brennan captured this principle eloquently in his majority opinion in the flag-burning decision Texas v. Johnson (1989):