In honor of a recent book reviewed, two Justice Douglas quotes:
Activist judges have brought federal habeas corpus into disrepute at the present time. It is guaranteed by the Constitution. It is a built-in restraint on judges - both state and federal; and it is also a restraint on prosecutors who are officers of the court. Our activist tendencies should promote not law and order, but constitutional law and order. Judges, too, can be tyrants and often have been. Prosecutors are often eager to take almost any shortcut to win, yet as I have said they represent not an ordinary party but We the People. As I have noted, their duty is as much "to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one," Berger v. United States, supra, at 88.
He was, however, speaking to a representative of government, the police. And it is to government that one goes "for a redress of grievances," to use an almost forgotten phrase of the First Amendment. But it is said that the purpose was "to cause inconvenience and annoyance." Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet. The situation might have indicated that Colten's techniques were ill-suited to the mission he was on, that diplomacy would have been more effective. But at the constitutional level speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive.
The first can be applied to Duke, the second any number of stuff, Bushie related especially. Therfore, I leave open the ability to cite them again.