Carlsbad beat hecklers' veto

By: Dr. MADELEINE COSMAN | Friday, August 19, 2005 9:17 PM PDT ∞

Congratulations to Carlsbad police, San Diego law enforcement, Sen. Bill Morrow, Roger Hedgecock, attorney Peter Lepiscopo and others who heroically fought the "hecklers' veto" over free speech.

I spoke at that successful Aug. 11 Carlsbad "Defense of our Nation Begins at our Borders" event with Congressman Tancredo, Jim Gilchrist, Peter Nunez, Assemblyman Ray Haynes and Commissioner Robert Vasquez of Idaho.

Hecklers who shout, curse, harass, mock, name-call and shout down a willing speaker to a willing audience are not protected under the Constitution's First Amendment. Hecklers intimidate speakers or make such a racket that speakers cannot be heard.

The real threat, however, is their brilliant manipulation of government to do the dirty work of actually silencing speech. Hecklers intimidate government officials such as police chiefs, mayors and school superintendents to fear the public disorder that hecklers intend to cause. Government then preemptively silences speech hecklers dislike. The hecklers' veto silences speech content. That imposes a prior restraint on transmitting ideas.

Freedom is never free. The formidable police presence in Carlsbad was costly, but civilized discussion must be protected against the hecklers' veto. It was, beautifully.

Government's essential purpose is protecting individual rights. Truth is best tested in the marketplace of ideas. Each listener that night in Carlsbad exerted his individual right to hear speakers using facts, logic and statistics detailing negative effects of illegal aliens on the economy, public health, criminal justice and American culture.

I spoke about 84 California hospitals that closed between 1994 and 2003 primarily because EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, requires every emergency room to treat any patient coming with an "emergency," whether or not able to pay, insured, citizen or illegal alien.

A woman in labor must remain to deliver her baby. This unfunded mandate fines hospitals and doctors up to $50,000 if they refuse to treat but do not pay for treatments. Hospitals go bankrupt.

Infectious disease perils afflict America because illegal aliens enter our open, golden door without health exams. Contagious diseases America vanquished, such as malaria, polio and hepatitis, and rare diseases of Third World poverty, such as leprosy, Chagas disease and dengue fever, erupt nationwide.

The Centers for Disease Control examined 38,291 California cases of multiple drug resistant tuberculosis, finding it was 60 percent fatal, with treatment costs of $200,000 to $1.2 million per patient. This national time-bomb ticks ominously in 38 of California's 61 health jurisdictions; 84 percent of patients are "foreign-born" non-English speakers from Mexico and the Philippines.

Illegal aliens also contribute syphilis and gonorrhea. Illegal alien sexually violent predators are so common that the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, "Operation Predator," which began in 2003, has caught 6,085 illegal alien predators. Most prey on children. Notorious rapists and killers attacked kids ages 8 (in Florida, buried her alive), 5 (in Minnesota), and 3 (in San Diego County). California apprehended 1,578 illegal alien predators, 685 of them in San Diego.

Overcoming the hecklers' veto in Carlsbad was a triumph for rationality, American law and law enforcement.

Dr. Madeleine Cosman is the author of the essay "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine," which was published in the spring 2005 edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.