@parados,
parados wrote:
Quote:
You do not have a 1st Amendment right to have your speech to be as voluminous as another speaker's speech and this has never been a right, not even by the Framers or founding generation's understanding of free speech.
There is a Constitution that say Congress shall make no laws concerning free speech.
If radio and TV are avenues of free speech and Congress has made laws allowing only some to have access to those avenues then did Congress make laws concerning free speech?
If they didn't make such laws concerning free speech then are radio and TV not subject to "free speech"?
The answer to your first question is no. Radio waves can only tolerate so much traffic before transmission becomes difficult if not impossible. I find it rather ironic you want to be given the opportunity to use the radio waves to transmit your message but as history has demonstrated, unregulated radio waves results in very little speech or in some instances no speech. I find your position tantamount to the principle of if you cannot use the radio waves to transmit your message, then nobody should be able to do so, which is the near result of what would occur without government regulation of the radio waves.
The government regulation of the use of the radio waves was done so people can not only use them for their speech but also to ensure the speech is transmitted. This would be parallel to the following scenario, although certainly not a perfect example. In a public park there is a one day festival and over the tenure of the festival approximately 350,000 people are estimated to attend the festival. People from 20 states or more are expected to come to this festival. As a result, this would be a good opportunity for various groups to express their message and expose it a lot of people from different states.
So, Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, AARP, KKK, NAACP, NAMBLA, Federalist Society, LGBT, AFL-CIO, CLS (Christian Legal Society), American Taxpayers Association, Communist Party of America, Socialist Worker's Party, and the Libertarian Party want to enter the park and give speeches about their political agenda, political goals, beliefs, ideals, and legislative proposals. The only problem is there is only enough room for 8 of the groups. Consequently, the city/county/state/federal government must decide which of the groups may have access to the park to express their views. The city/county/state/federal government makes its determination, not on the content of the message or speech, but a first come, first serve basis, and the numbers each group plans to send to the festival. As a result, not all groups will be able to utilize the park to express their message.
The excluded groups have not had their free speech rights infringed upon. The other groups are still permitted to speak and express their views, but not in the park. The government was forced to act because the capacity of the park only permitted so many members of the groups to be present in the park. The government is acting as a result of a non-speech factor and non-speech consideration, capacity crowd in the park, and not because of or on the basis of speech. As a result of this content neutral, viewpoint neutral speech consideration, the government's action being a response to overcrowdiness, it is not an infringement on the excluded groups free speech rights.
