# CNN doesn't like the US 1st amendment **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 22, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392 "2014-06-22T21:59:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UncaThomas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c77e96/32.png) [@UncaThomas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaThomas)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/21 "2014-06-23T01:54:45Z")
Interesting that this is now about the thread title and not the ID/rights controversy but that’s the discussion you all have chosen to have. So…should you have to show ID to exercise a right protected by the Constitution or not? ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/22 "2014-06-23T01:56:59Z")
Look, anyone going to the comments section on CNN (or foxnews) and expecting intelligent conversation and logical debates is going to be sorely disappointed. Regardless, no one’s rights are being violated in your example. CNN is not a government agency, so 1st Amendment does not apply. So stop comparing this supposed violation of someone’s rights with how another right is exercised. Just not a valid argument. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/23 "2014-06-23T01:58:38Z")
> [@WWhiskey](#): > > left wing spew If you think CNN, a major corporate news outlet owned and run by and for billionaires, is “left wing,” then you have no idea what “left wing” means. > [@WWhiskey](#): > > exorcize your rights The power of [insert Constitution-signer’s name here] compels you! ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/24 "2014-06-23T02:01:30Z")
> [@UncaThomas](#): > > Interesting that this is now about the thread title and not the ID/rights controversy but that’s the discussion you all have chosen to have. > > So…should you have to show ID to exercise a right protected by the Constitution or not? One size does not fit all with regard to the constitution. Needing IDs to buy guns is a public safety issue. Requiring IDs to vote does nothing but disenfranchise minorities. Also, it’s trying to “fix” something that isn’t broke. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/25 "2014-06-23T02:01:52Z")
> [@Phatzo](#): > > I was reading a Benghazi opinion piece on CNN. The comments I think I’ve found your problem, right here. ---
**Author:** ![WWhiskey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@WWhiskey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WWhiskey)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/26 "2014-06-23T02:07:16Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > One size does not fit all with regard to the constitution. > > Needing IDs to buy guns is a public safety issue. > > Requiring IDs to vote does nothing but disenfranchise minorities. Also, it’s trying to “fix” something that isn’t broke. Please quote me the section that says some rights are more important than others or should not be allowed without varying levels of scrutiny? Then please follow up with the right to vote section of the bill of rights? I would argue that voting is much More dangerous to the public welfare than owning guns! ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/27 "2014-06-23T02:14:03Z")
> [@WWhiskey](#): > > And in your house you would be right to do so, it is always more peaceful and serene to surround yourself with like minded people but as a news organization it’s not exactly offering equal time to opposing viewpoints. Hmm, have you complained to Fox News about this sort of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Phatzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/da6949/32.png) [@Phatzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatzo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/28 "2014-06-23T02:21:25Z")
OK I got the title wrong as CNN are a private corporation and I’m an Aussie and we don’t really know squat about the US constitution or Bill of Rights. But don’t you agree that removing the post seems to imply that they have their own dog in this somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/29 "2014-06-23T02:24:00Z")
> [@WWhiskey](#): > > Please quote me the section that says some rights are more important than others or should not be allowed without varying levels of scrutiny? I never made the claim that some rights are more important than others. If you don’t get the safety issues involved with asking for IDs to buy guns, then I can’t help you. I’m pretty sure our founding father assumed we would have common sense some 200+ years later. > [@](#): > > I would argue that voting is much More dangerous to the public welfare than owning guns! Then you would be an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_No\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@Mr\_No\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_No_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/30 "2014-06-23T02:30:33Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > One size does not fit all with regard to the constitution. > > Needing IDs to buy guns is a public safety issue. > > Requiring IDs to vote does nothing but disenfranchise minorities. Also, it’s trying to “fix” something that isn’t broke. Wrong on first point. It is first and foremost a guaranteed civil & human right. Voting is for citizens only, in most states an ID is free, in others, a very nominal fee. How would you like to show up at the polls to vote and find out that someone has already voted for you or that 350 illegal aliens have nullified your vote in your local precinct? ---
**Author:** ![WWhiskey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@WWhiskey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WWhiskey)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/31 "2014-06-23T02:34:14Z")
So voting for an administration that brings about the affordable care act is not going to help/ harm the country more than the right to have arms? So voting in an administration that gets us into wars we cannot win is less dangerous than the ability to protect yourself with a gun? So voting for candidates that can change the financial setting in which we live, apoint unelected officials to change the very way of life we live today,bring about ruin with policies that destroy the very way of life we lead is less dangerous than the right to shoot your supper? ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/32 "2014-06-23T02:34:41Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > I never made the claim that some rights are more important than others. If you don’t get the safety issues involved with asking for IDs to buy guns, then I can’t help you. > > I’m pretty sure our founding father assumed we would have common sense some 200+ years later. > > Then you would be an idiot. But don’t you see? Reckless use of this ‘implied right’ is what has led to the “election” of a Kenyan-Muslim secretly gay usurper who will not stop until America, as we know it, has been destroyed. I’d call that pretty dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_No\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@Mr\_No\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_No_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/33 "2014-06-23T02:35:53Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > But don’t you see? Reckless use of this ‘implied right’ is what has led to the “election” of a Kenyan-Muslim secretly gay usurper who will not stop until America, as we know it, has been destroyed. I’d call that pretty dangerous. it appears that YOU are the only one to assert this point. ---
**Author:** ![WWhiskey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@WWhiskey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WWhiskey)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/34 "2014-06-23T02:38:42Z")
And a little over the top, I didn’t know it was a secret! ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/35 "2014-06-23T02:38:44Z")
> [@Mr\_No\_Name](#): > > Wrong on first point. It is first and foremost a guaranteed civil & human right. > > Voting is for citizens only, in most states an ID is free, in others, a very nominal fee. How would you like to show up at the polls to vote and find out that someone has already voted for you or that 350 illegal aliens have nullified your vote in your local precinct? Oh FFS! I could ask you for a site for this delusional post (2nd paragraph) but I wont. This gun debate has been done a billion times on this board. I’m not going to get sucked into it. My apologies for indulging you guys in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_No\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@Mr\_No\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_No_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/36 "2014-06-23T02:46:11Z")
Written in 1787, ratified in 1791… Try it for your answer. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/37 "2014-06-23T02:52:19Z")
Shit, people, why don’t we start with the fundamental fact that the original CNN poster is **wrong**. The 14th Amendment > [@](#): > > Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. **But when the right to vote** at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. The 15th Amendment > [@](#): > > \*\*The right of citizens of the United States to vote \*\*shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The 19th Amendment > [@](#): > > \*\*The right of citizens of the United States to vote \*\*shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The 24th Amendment > [@](#): > > \*\*The right of citizens of the United States to vote \*\*in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. The 26th Amendment > [@](#): > > **The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote,** shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age. (Emphasis added in all cases) Now what do everyone of these quotes have in common. They all discuss ‘the right to vote’ and how it can’t be denied for a listed reason. You can say what you want, but to me they sound a lot more definitive than something that’s introduced with “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_No\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@Mr\_No\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_No_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/38 "2014-06-23T03:00:58Z")
Yes, it says a citizen has a right to vote and earlier that 'the right of the people to keep (which means I own it) and bear (means I have it with me) shall not be infringed. Legal noncitizen aliens are even allowed to own firearms. ---
**Author:** ![UncaThomas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c77e96/32.png) [@UncaThomas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaThomas)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/39 "2014-06-23T03:22:43Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Shit, people, why don’t we start with the fundamental fact that the original CNN poster is **wrong**. Well, if so, he would have plenty of company, including people that feel voting rights are being suppressed. > [@](#): > > [The U.S. Needs a Constitutional Right to Vote - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-us-needs-a-constitutional-right-to-vote/281033/) > > Many, if not most, Americans are unaware that the Constitution contains no explicit right to vote. To be sure, such a right is implicit in the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-Sixth amendments that deal with voting discrimination based on race, gender, and age. But the lack of an explicit right opens the door to the courts’ ratifying the sweeping kinds of voter-restrictions and voter-suppression tactics that are becoming depressingly common. > > An explicit constitutional right to vote would give traction to individual Americans who are facing these tactics, and to legal cases challenging restrictive laws. The courts have up to now said that the concern about voter fraud—largely manufactured and exaggerated—provides an opening for severe restrictions on voting by many groups of Americans. That balance would have to shift in the face of an explicit right to vote. Finally, a major national debate on this issue would alert and educate voters to the twin realities: There is no right to vote in the Constitution, and many political actors are trying to take away what should be that right from many millions of Americans. > > Reps. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Keith Ellison, D-Minn., have introduced in Congress a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to vote. It has garnered little attention and no momentum. Now is the time to change that dynamic before more states decide to be Putinesque with our democracy. There are several others that affirm the implicit vs explicit nature of the right to vote. Here are just a few. > **[The Missing Right: A Constitutional Right to Vote](https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/28/the-missing-right-a-constitutional-right-to-vote/)** > > In order to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, until recently you had to answer this question: What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens? The correct answer, according to the United States government, was, The... [http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1952&context=sol\_research](http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1952&context=sol_research) \ > **[U.S. Constitution is not explicit on the right to vote, Wisconsin Rep. Mark...](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/may/30/mark-pocan/us-constitution-not-explicit-right-vote-wisconsin-/)** > > There was news out of the U.S. Capitol on May 13, 2013 that U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, proposed to amend the Const ---
**Author:** ![WWhiskey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@WWhiskey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WWhiskey)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392/40 "2014-06-23T03:31:12Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Shit, people, why don’t we start with the fundamental fact that the original CNN poster is **wrong**. > > The 14th Amendment > The 15th Amendment > The 19th Amendment > The 24th Amendment > The 26th Amendment > (Emphasis added in all cases) > > Now what do everyone of these quotes have in common. They all discuss ‘the right to vote’ and how it can’t be denied for a listed reason. You can say what you want, but to me they sound a lot more definitive than something that’s introduced with “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” The tenth amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. What amendment gave the people the right to vote? Posting reasons why you can’t restrict the right to vote is not the same thing! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-doesnt-like-the-us-1st-amendment/691392.md?page=3)