“I define speech as any communicative activity. [Can it be nonverbal? ] Yes. [Can it be nonverbal and also not written? ] Yes. [Can it encompass physical actions? ] Yes. Watt [Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt, 703 F.2d 586 (1983)] was a case in which what was at issue was sleeping as communicative activity. What I said was that for purposes of the heightened protections that are accorded, sleeping could not be speech. That is to say, I did not say that one could prohibit sleeping merely for the purpose of eliminating the communicative aspect of sleeping, if there is any... [and] I did not say that the Government could seek to prohibit that communication without running afoul of the heightened standards of the first amendment. If they passed a law that allows all other sleeping but only prohibits sleeping where it is intended to communicate, then it would be invalidated. But what I did say was, where you have a general law that just applies to an activity which in itself is normally not communicative, such as sleeping, spitting, whatever you like; clenching your fist, for example; such a law would not be subject to the heightened standards of the first amendment. That is to say, if there is ordinary justification for it, it is fine. It does not have to meet the high need, the no other available alternative requirements of the first amendment. Whereas, when you are dealing with communicative activity, naturally communicative activity—writing, speech, and so forth— any law, even if it is general, across the board, has to meet those higher standards.”
Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, (8/5/1986), transcript https://web.archive.org/web/20060213232846/http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2422/22sep20051120/www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh99-1064/31-110.pdf at pp. 51-52).
1980s
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Antonin Scalia 100
former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United… 1936–2016Related quotes
February 15, 2003 speaking before a massive rally in New York to oppose the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq
Source: As quoted in Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) on Apartheid, War, Palestine, Guantánamo, Climate Crisis & More https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/27/life_and_legacy_archbishop_desmond_tutu, Democracy Now!, December 27, 2021
Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P. 218.
“Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and”
This is Your Brain on Music (2006)
Context: Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.
Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, quoted in: [December 5, 2014, http://www.laweekly.com/informer/2014/08/12/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-gets-another-5-years, Dennis Romero, August 12, 2014, LA Weekly, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck Gets Another 5 Years]
About
“I may,
if I can,
sleep; since I must,
die.
Some say,
rise.”
"The Monosyllable" lines 15–20, The Chinese Insomniacs: New Poems, 1981, University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0812278186