Word Wars: Napoleon’s Palm, Our Henry Lee and Hitler’s White Rose ~ New WCHU on the Bryan William Brickner Blog

“The wonders of 21^st century communication,” opened Bryan W. Brickner, “were cultivated by an 18^th century amendment: the US Constitution’s first one.”

In Word Wars: Napoleon’s Palm, Our Henry Lee and Hitler’s White Rose, hosted on the Bryan William Brickner Blog, America’s constitutional efforts in support of free speech are compared to two other twin traditions: silence and violence.

“On 25 August 1806,” noted Brickner, “Johan Phillip Palm, a German publisher living under Napoleonic rule of law, was tried in a mock court. Palm had published news on the behavior of Napoleon’s soldiers in Germany; at the mockery Palm wouldn’t reveal the author of the pamphlet and was executed August 26th.”

“With Henry Lee and the White Rose resistors,” continued Brickner, “the same pattern continues only the names change; with Lee it’s an angry mob ~ with the White Rose it’s an angry dictator.”

“Many stories on this topic,” Brickner closed, “and yet those 18^th century words ratified into the rule of law remain ageless ~ and constitutional.”

Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of several political theory books, to include The Promise Keepers: Politics and Promises (1999), Article the first of the Bill of Rights (2006), and The Book of the Is: A book on bridges (2013). The Bryan William Brickner Blog is an ongoing resource for the political science of constitutions and the biological science of receptors.

Next on Ew Publishing’s WCHU: a double feature honoring rebels and constitutions. The Rebels of Harlem Heights begin the summer series finale on Tuesday, 16 September ~ followed by Constitution Day 2014 on Wednesday, 17 September.