FINALLY! The Protest movement is targeting our corrupt/incompetent Supreme Court

I need to qualify my statement and in doing so provide a better understanding of the holding in Citizens United v. FEC.

I begin with perhaps a very important phrase from Scalia's concurrence. "The dissent says that when the Framers “constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment , it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.” Post, at 37. That is no doubt true. All the provisions of the Bill of Rights set forth the rights of individual men and women—not, for example, of trees or polar bears."

In other words, animals cannot "speak" for purposes of the 1st Amendment, and neither can trees, exactly and precisely because the 1st Amendment Free Speech Clause was not conceived to protect them, not individually or collectively. 1st Amendment free speech rights can best be understood as protecting the individual speech of a person, and collective speech of people, irrespective of the fact the collective speech is done through the medium of a non-human entity, such as a corporation, school, college, university, church, etcetera. So there is a human component to it, when considering the 1st Amendment is not applicable to polar bears and trees.

However, as it pertains to people, to human beings, the text of the 1st Amendment makes no distinction between individual speech or collective speech of people, or the speech of people through and by a corporation, or the speech of a single person. When referring to speech, we are of course talking about some human component, but the 1st Amendment Speech Clause makes no distinction between this human component expressed individually, collectively, or collectively and/or through and by a human created entity.

hence, for reasons of constitutional as well as political feasibility, this issue needs to be addressed in the language of an amendment.

How is it any less free because of it?

I need to qualify my statement and in doing so provide a better understanding of the holding in Citizens United v. FEC.

I begin with perhaps a very important phrase from Scalia's concurrence.

Quote:

How is it any less free because of it?

You got to be kidding me a few small groups being the gatekeepers for most of the sources of informations and opinions in the society.

NotreDame05 wrote:

I need to qualify my statement and in doing so provide a better understanding of the holding in Citizens United v. FEC.

I begin with perhaps a very important phrase from Scalia's concurrence.

How are you going to provide a better understanding of the holding in Citizens United by quoting from Scalia's concurrence? Scalia's concurrence represents a minority position, not the court's. The concurrence didn't get five votes -- that's why it's a concurrence.

hence, for reasons of constitutional as well as political feasibility, this issue needs to be addressed in the language of an amendment.

I don't think that the founders expected groups of people to be able to speak louder than others and to have courts declare that right to speak louder is protected by "free speech". At that point the government is intruding into the free speech issue when it gives some more speech than others. It is granting certain groups more speech than others simply because they have a greater ability to pay for that speech on mediums controlled and regulated by the government.

And the answer is direct and simple if the information you are receiving is base on what benefit small sub-groups you are not free.

I am mystified by the phrase "speak louder than others." What exactly does this phrase mean?

I have a suspicious as to what it means, and if my instinct is correct, then I can tell you the founding generation was not in agreement with your assessment above.

However, regardless of what the founding generation, or the framers of the 1st Amendment intended or desired, the plain text of the 1st Amendment does not make any distinction on the based on volume, quantity, or amount of speech.

NotreDame05 wrote:

I am mystified by the phrase "speak louder than others." What exactly does this phrase mean?

I thought I made it pretty clear. Paying for mediums that others don't have access to.

Quote:

I have a suspicious as to what it means, and if my instinct is correct, then I can tell you the founding generation was not in agreement with your assessment above.

I don't think the founders agreed that a medium auctioned off and controlled by the government to to prevent others from using it was part of the free speech process.

Quote:

However, regardless of what the founding generation, or the framers of the 1st Amendment intended or desired, the plain text of the 1st Amendment does not make any distinction on the based on volume, quantity, or amount of speech.

No, it states NO law can be made concerning it. When the government auctions off the radio waves for use it IS making laws. When they allow only those with the most money to use those waves they are clearly making laws that allow people with more money to speak more than those without money.

When the government auctions off the radio waves for use it IS making laws