FREEDOM IS RESTORED: 1st AMENDMENT WINS!

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Is there no recognition at all, that this didn't happen after McCain-Fein was passed?

Should that have been a consideration of the Court in its ruling, do you think?

@Irishk,

Irishk wrote:

Quote:
Is there no recognition at all, that this didn't happen after McCain-Fein was passed?

Should that have been a consideration of the Court in its ruling, do you think?

They seem to have completely abandoned any logical analysis of the actual effects of either McCain-Fein., or what the removal of these rules will have on our electoral system.

I mean, I can tell you that some legislation should be knocked down, because it will lead to 'a plague of locusts O'er the land!' But when no locusts actually show up, should my reasoning still be held as a good reason to overturn the legislation? No way!

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@parados,

correct. I'm just trying to go on memory of McCain Feingold when it passed.

Have we all forgotten how obsurd the advertising was before McCain Feingold? GAWD! I do not want to hear all that again. I don't have time to read the Decision right now. How many of you think the majority of voters will have time to decipher the rubbish that will certainly flood the airwaves before an election? I can't get many in my family to Snope check one thing before they forward it to me, let alone have them check the accuracy of every ad the night before they vote.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Hmmmm, I wonder if that was mentioned in any of the dissenter's opinions. Take heart, though..........I'm betting Stevens and Ginsburg may be retiring in the near future.

1 Reply

@Irishk,

You haven't convinced me that I've misread the campaign propaganda I received before the most recent election, Irishk. Throughout the text you've linked, they keep coming back to "broadcast ads", and "ads" in general. Broadcast is the very opposite of propaganda sent (or phoned) directly to members. Remember that CB radio can be used for commercial purposes, but only as narrowcast, as distinct from broadcast.

That is, there is nothing in this link to convince me my memory is faulty.

http://www.examiner.com/a-279321~Bradley_A__Smith__Yes__senator__McCain_Feingold_does_censor_political_speech.html

Quote:

WASHINGTON (Map, News) -
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., takes issue with The Examiner’s editorial criticism of the McCain-Feingold bill and its “ban” on certain broadcast ads. The indignant senator responds that the law “doesn’t ban or censor any speech.”

[img][/img]

1 Reply

@roger,

Here's their concern (one of them) and part of what SCOTUS struck down:

In its current form, S. 27 seeks to severely restrict communication that "refers to" a federal candidate if that communication takes place during a specified period before a primary or general election. In other words, if S. 27 were to become law, you could soon see alerts coming from NRA that urge you to call your lawmaker (although the law would prohibit us from telling you who your lawmaker is), because that lawmaker (remember, we cannot name him) is considering doing something (sorry, but the law prohibits us from telling you what he is about to do) that should be of concern to you (but remember, we can't tell you what he is going to do, or if we think you would support or oppose what the unnamed lawmaker is considering doing).

http://nrawinningteam.com/0103/cfr2.html

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@Irishk,

Irishk wrote:

Hmmmm, I wonder if that was mentioned in any of the dissenter's opinions. Take heart, though..........I'm betting Stevens and Ginsburg may be retiring in the near future.

Stevens and Ginsburg were in the dissent; why would I take heart that they are retiring?

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Yes, they both dissented, but who knows if their replacements would? Stevens has made some comments (plus, he's 90 I think) and Ginsburg, last I heard, isn't in the best of health. OK, I don't really know and maybe they won't, but I'm betting they will LOL.

1 Reply

@Irishk,

Irishk wrote:

Yes, they both dissented, but who knows if their replacements would? Stevens has made some comments (plus, he's 90 I think) and Ginsburg, last I heard, isn't in the best of health. OK, I don't really know and maybe they won't, but I'm betting they will LOL.

I WANT more people to dissent! I can't take heart in the fact that two of the dissenters are maybe going to retire!

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

OK, I was thinking more along the lines that the ruling could be reversed if the case was revisited in the future with replacement justices. Sorry for the confusion.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Well, Bill..

Congress can give corporations personhood rights to conduct business and restrict their ability to interfere in politics if my amendment is passed. What part do you have a problem with? Why should corporations have the same political rights as an American citizen? Are they citizens?

You are babbling nonsense here. Or attempting to erect a strawman. Neither is interesting. If Congress thought they could give themselves such power over the Supreme Court, they would. Watch and see them NOT do so, because they are not collectively ignorant enough to think they could.

parados wrote:

Quote:
Such an amendment would be unconstitutionally vague on its face, and therefore be unenforceable anyway.

How can an amendment to the constitution be "unconstitutionally vague"? If something is in the constitution it can't be "unconstitutional".

This is simplistic nonsense. We have a living constitution and the ultimate arbitrator of disputes is the Supreme Court. Congress cannot place any limit on the subjects they review. Hence; if locked in battle, the Supreme Court is, well, Supreme.

parados wrote:

There is little question that parts of the current constitution are vague... this part for example.

Quote:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

There wasn't anything vague about that amendment when it was written, nor for nearly a century after that. Consider this: In theory, an amendment could be passed instituting anti-miscegenation laws across the country (Remember, Congress pays no heed to stare decisis, meaning unlike the courts, it can flip-flop at will), but such an absurd law would never pass muster with the Supremes, even if it could pass both houses by 2/3 and get ratified by 3/4 the states (again, when pigs fly.)

parados wrote:

Quote:
The idea of revisiting mountains of case law with an insistence that no opinion involving a natural person should be interpreted to include a “corporate person” is really pretty silly.
Who said anything about needing to revisit case law? Congress can decide to grant whatever they want to corporations. What case law are you specifically referring to where corporations are granted constitutional rights?

This would be obvious to you if you had a clue what you were talking about. Even if your vague nonsensical "amendment" were to be approved and ratified (when pigs fly), it would be completely unenforceable. Just how do you suppose you'd go about trying to stop Justices from considering corporate personhood when weighing previous decisions, whether they involved actual persons or juristic persons? And again; why would you want to? (<-- How many times are you going to duck this question?)

The tag “Special Interest Groups” seems to have taken on an evil definition. This too is silly. Some special interests aren’t in our best interest, some are. Opinions vary over which are which. Let’s take the NAACP for instance. Without it, Brown v. Board may never have taken place. Is that an evil Special Interest Group? Of course not. When they bring legal action, realize, they are acting as a corporate person… and this isn’t an option you’d likely want to see taken away. Now put the shoe on the other foot. Let’s say some small racist community in Alabama was denying business permits for the NAACP to set up shop there. Would you want them to not be able to bring action under the 14th Amendment? I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

1. Corporate Personhood is not a figment of his imagination. (Research a little before digging deeper.)

Bill, I understand that 'corporate personhood' is a real concept and has many legal meanings; but that phrase was never intended to grant corporations ALL the rights of a person.

No they sure weren't, which is why you and Parados look so silly beating on that strawman.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And it's easy to understand why: they don't have the RESPONSIBILITIES of a person.

Sure they do, to the limited degree they act as one. Property taxes, observance of constitutional rights of citizens, etc.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

2. Celebrating the defense of the very first item on the Bill of Rights is hardly unpatriotic. (What an absurd conclusion, that.)

This has nothing to do with the 1st amendment at all, really; nothing barred ACTUAL PERSONS from expressing themselves as much as they liked, before this terrible ruling. It only allows corporations to exert ever-growing influence over our system. I can't believe that you'd be for that.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, this isn't a new rule... it is a return to the centuries old rule. I agree with you that some meaningful campaign finance reform is in order... but McCain/Feingold failed at that anyway. You're reacting like it was actually working. Shocked

527's? No Problem! Swift Boaters for Truth? No Problem! Fahrenheit 9/11? No Problem! Hillary: The Movie? Big Problem! Huh? How's that again?

Did you read how this case was actually argued? Nothing to do with the 1st amendment? Huh?

Quote:

When the Supreme Court first heard the case in March, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart, representing the FEC, was pulled into a discussion of an issue that took him down a slippery slope: If the movie were a book, would the government ban publishing the book if it mentioned a candidate for office within the election time frame?

Stewart said that it could.
"That's pretty incredible," Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said.
Then came questions about electronic devices such as the Kindle.
"If it has one name, one use of the candidate's name, it would be covered, correct?" Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked.
"That's correct," Stewart replied.

Source
I don't see it as though they had any choice whatsoever. Book burning isn't cool. And selective political book burning is dangerous as hell. I’ll be somewhat shocked if you continue to disagree.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

The problem is, the NRA isn't a person and shouldn't have the same rights a person does.

I don't see how this distinction makes a difference. Even if the NRA isn't a person, the people running it and contributing to it are. And they do have the right to speak their mind, and buy TV commercials to broadcast it.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn, responding to OmSigDAVID wrote:

I reject your false equivalence between actual persons and corporate persons.

By what legal argument is the equivalence false?

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@OCCOM BILL,

Quote:

You are babbling nonsense here. Or attempting to erect a strawman. Neither is interesting. If Congress thought they could give themselves such power over the Supreme Court, they would. Watch and see them NOT do so, because they are not collectively ignorant enough to think they could.

Nonsense? Is it nonsense when Supreme Court justices make a similar argument about corporations having the rights of citizens. Stevens specifically raises the issue of voting by corporations.

Quote:

This is simplistic nonsense. We have a living constitution and the ultimate arbitrator of disputes is the Supreme Court. Congress cannot place any limit on the subjects they review. Hence; if locked in battle, the Supreme Court is, well, Supreme.

Yes, but the Supreme court can't declare parts of the constitution uconstitutional. An amendment of the constitution can't be "unconstiutionally" vague. It can be vague but there is nothing unconstitutional about it.

Quote:

There wasn't anything vague about that amendment when it was written, nor for nearly a century after that. Consider this: In theory, an amendment could be passed instituting anti-miscegenation laws across the country

Once an amendment is ratified it is part of the constitution and the USSC is bound by it.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

If the corporation is a person then they are also covered by the equal rights clause. That would mean a corporation can't be denied voting rights.

How so? The US Constitution, and the Supreme Court's constitutional caselaw, have always handled voting rights separately from the privileges and immunities, the due process of the law, and the equal protection of the law that the Constitution guaranteed in its 14th Amendment (1866). See the Fifteenth Amendment (recognizing the right of non-whites to vote in 1869), the Nineteenth Amendment (recognizing the right of women to vote in 1919), and the 24th Amendment (recognizing the right of people who haven't paid poll taxes to vote in 1962.)

Hence, your attempted reductio ad absurdum fails: Your first legal premise, that 14th amendment rights necessarily imply voting rights, is already absurd. Therefore, the absurdity of your reduction tells us nothing about the alleged absurdity of your second legal premise -- that corporations are persons.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Quote:
You are babbling nonsense here. Or attempting to erect a strawman. Neither is interesting. If Congress thought they could give themselves such power over the Supreme Court, they would. Watch and see them NOT do so, because they are not collectively ignorant enough to think they could.

Nonsense? Is it nonsense when Supreme Court justices make a similar argument about corporations having the rights of citizens. Stevens specifically raises the issue of voting by corporations.

Yes. It is far worse as I expect him to be a lot more credible.

Am I the only one more than a little disturbed that the 5 Justices who were arguably the least likely to broadly interpret the facts in defense of the First Amendment did so, while the 4 members who were arguably the most likely to do so didn't? (This one seems likely more about whose ox gets gored, or which party gains advantage than actually doing their friggin jobs.) Since I happen to believe very strongly in Freedom of Speech, I have no need to question the motivation of the conservative 5 (this time, but burn a flag and watch for the shape-shift, on both sides of the ball), but this really should have been a unanimous decision.

This really isn't that complicated:

Smarter guys than us wrote:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And how silly to think this can be controlled anyway? Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch don't engage in MASSIVE campaign spending via their news networks? Does anyone actually believe this?

There was a difference between "Farenheit 911" and "Hillary, the movie"? Nonsense. The fact that one was permissible and the other was not is more than sufficient to prove the government cannot be trusted to evenly restrict speech. And there is absolutely no honest way to misinterpret "NO LAW."

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Irishk wrote:

Hmmmm, I wonder if that was mentioned in any of the dissenter's opinions. Take heart, though..........I'm betting Stevens and Ginsburg may be retiring in the near future.

Stevens and Ginsburg were in the dissent; why would I take heart that they are retiring?

Cycloptichorn

Because 5 conservative judges went to bat for the First Amendment, and will likely tailor future opinions to not look like total hypocrites. Meanwhile, no new liberal judge will feel at all hindered about going to bat in defense of the First Amendment or have any concerns over his/her looking like a hypocrite the way these guys might.
(How’s that for a silver lining? Wink

)

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@OCCOM BILL,

We agree, Bill,
except that I was confident of how the judges' votes woud be distributed:
liberals woud indeed vote against liberty, as thay DID (100% to a man!)
and the conservatives woud and DID defend the plain text of the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights is an instrument of Liberty.
The conservatives conserved it; thay did not vary from it.
To deviate from it (as the liberal dissenters did) woud be LIBERAL.

U expressed the facts with precise accuracy.

David

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I fail to understand the reason
that anyone cares whether General Motors were to get ONE vote
in a campaign for mayor, county sheriff or President.

Of course, this decision has nothing to do with that.

David

0 Replies

FREEDOM IS RESTORED: 1st AMENDMENT WINS!

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