Corporations are limited to 0 dollars - unlike you. Corporations are prohibited from direct contributions to federal campaigns. You aren’t.
I think you may have misunderstood what Citizens United is about.
I get the impression that you’re referring to donations to political candidates since private individuals are limited to $5000 donations.
Citizens United didn’t have anything to do with direct donations to political candidates in fact the judges made it clear that the decision DID not affect limits on the amount of donations to individual candidates.
What the decision did affect was the ability of people to agitate in favor or against political candidates for office.
Specifically what it dealt with was the FEC’s decision to effectively ban a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton.
Thankfully the Justices decided that the government shouldn’t be able to ban books or movies and struck down McCain-Feingold dealing a great blow for free speech.
Obviously, just as many have disagreed with SCOTUS rulings regarding flag-burning, hate speech, porn and other decisions many didn’t like the ruling.
I dunno, did you read what I said? The parenthetical was referring to my previous post. So do you think that limiting a person’s ability to spend money on electioneering is the same thing as repealing the first amendment or were you being a bit hysterical there?
Depends on how you look at it. Speech from juridical entities are not entitled to the same sort of protection as speech coming from an individual. And up until Citizen United, there was a line of cases that agreed that congress could limit speech based on the non-human nature of the speaker, the Supreme Court reversed itself for no good reason other than having changed its mind.
I’m not making a point about corporate personhood, I’m making a point that up until very recently the court distinguished between rights afforded to individuals and rights afforded to corporations. Citizens United has removed that distinction between corporations and individuals.
Of course there is a right to free speech, all the case law points to the right as an individual right, IOW if congress passed a law saying that you and only you cannot voice dissent against the government, then your right to free speech has been infringed. And that right up until very recently did not apply equally to individuals and corporations, still doesn’t.
You seem to think that some sort of dual standard was being applied to Citizens United that was not applied to Michael Moore. The law would not have prevented Citizens United from showing its film if it had released it outside the 60 day window like Michael Moore did. The problem was that Citizens United wanted to show the film inside the 60 day window.
Stephen Colbert on the other hand is arguably the Press.
Yes because passing laws that are designed to prevent from money from unduly affecting elections is police state communism.
That would be $5000 more than they can donate today. The problem is a bit more subtle than that. Citizens United really had to do with a restriction on corporations from spending money on electioneering withing some number of day of an election. An individual on the other hand did not face a similar restriction.
You do realize that the FEC didn’t BAN the movie, they didn’t allow it to be played withing the restricted time period to prevent corporate electioneering. They could have played the movie all they wanted before and after the window.
Show me the language in the decision that stated this because I certainly don’t remember it.
So then you’re saying that if Congress passed a law forbidding EVERYONE from dissenting then they wouldn’t have violated anyone’s free speech?:dubious:
You just destroyed your argument. Michael Moore’s film was repeatedly shown within the 60 day window of multiple primaries including the general election.
By the standards you’ve set it should have been banned.
So then when you argued earlier that no one should have more right to free speech you weren’t telling the truth then?
I ask because this statement seems to indicate that Stephen Colbert has rights that ordinary individuals don’t have.
Moreover, the point is irrelevant because his show is produced by a corporation and according to the general consensus of this thread corporations don’t have rights to free speech.
All that should matter is that he’s(and the corporation he works for) is spending money to influence an election.
All, exactly how and why is “Comedy Central” “the press” but not “Citizens United”?
For that matter, why is Stephen Colbert the Press but not Michael Moore?
By your standards all a corporation has to do is declare itself part of the press and the laws you’re supporting are useless.
You need to reread what I said. I didn’t say that it BANNED the movie, I said that it “EFFECTIVELY” banned the movie.
Now, I’m sorry that you’ve chosen to throw your lot in with the book-burners of the world, and as a great man said, there are many ways to burn a book, but thankfully the Supreme Court disagrees with you.
That said, I will give you credit for making it clear you felt that Michael Moore’s movie should also have been banned.
The first amendment disagrees. It says “speech”. It doesn’t say “speech from anyone except juridical entities”.
… and if congress passed a law saying that corporations cannot voice dissent against the government, then that speech is being abridged. Which the first amendment prohibits.
I find it hard to believe that a person can get away with speech that can be proven to lead to people being killed. Maybe you are right but I hope not and if so that is wrong and the law should be changed. The government has, or ought to have, a duty to attempt to prevent murders.
Nonsense. There is nothing preventing the law from recognizing that some forms of agitation are acceptable and some are not. The government has, or ought to have, a duty to prevent bribing politicians and buying elections.
My point was not that books should be considered commercial speech (which I believe has less constitutional protection than political speech) but rather that people are generally trying to make money from them. As opposed to books that cost a lot of money designed to influence an election.
I wouldn’t advocate burning any books. “Regulating” in this case would mean, at most, limiting publication right before an election. And again, only if it can be proven that books actually do unduly influence elections. I’m pretty dubious. People have to go out and get a book to read it. It’s not in your face like attack ads.
I’m also dubious about the electoral effect of movies. They don’t require as much of an investment of time and attention as books but still, they aren’t in your face either. And again, prohibiting something for a couple of months right before an election is not the same as banning it. Neither of these films would have been banned by McCain-Feingold.
Yes, and so do Colbert and Stewart. But since they’re NOT regulated, they’re mocking as loudly as they can with the money in the SuperPAC.
My argument is that, in any given context, there is some number that is too much. What that number is I don’t pretend to know.
Do you think Free Speech Zones and other rules about the manner and timing of speech are permissible under the constitution? If so, how do you answer the prima facie objection that they constitute abrogations of freedom of speech?
You believe that the government should regulate The Colbert Report and the Daily Show?:eek:
Please explain.
No, I wouldn’t be okay with a rule like that, would you? Do you think I’ve said something implying I should be? I haven’t.
Do you think free speech zones and other government mandated rules about manner and timing of speech are constitutionally permissible? If so, how do you answer the prima facie objection that these rules constitute abrogations of freedom of speech?
The guy who advocates for a rule you don’t like is the one who gets to be called an “authoritarian.” The guy who advocates for a rule you like, however, is “preserving freedom.” Don’t get caught by the rhetoric. Let’s figure out the truth, not what names we can slather over each other.
Ok, but then are you saying that I can spend as much money as was made making, promoting and distributing Fahrenheit 911 on behalf of or against a candidate I don’t like or do you think Michael Moore spent too much money and should have been sanctioned.
Answer that and I’ll happily answer your question regarding the “free speech zones”.
Yes, this is exactly Colbert’s point. He is saying “I should not be permitted to do what I am doing. Why are you letting me do this? This is absurd!”
The sanctions shouldn’t depend just on the particular message, but on the message given its context.
If Rush Limbaugh says on the radio that all niggers should be murdered, then he should be sanctioned for that. If he says it to his wife at home, he shouldn’t be sanctioned for that.
I already told you, I don’t have a number in mind. I don’t know what it would be in any particular situation. I don’t know how much Moore spent. I don’t know if it was too much. This is a red herring. My argument is just that, given a particular situation, there is a number of dollars which, if spent in a particular way, buys “freedom of speech” for one person at the expense of others’ freedom.
That is the correct answer to your question.
Are you interested in figuring out (or communicating) the truth of things, or are you interested in squirting statuses at people and hoping they stick?
I didn’t ask you if you’d be ok. I asked you if this rule would violate the 1st amendment, in your opinion. You know, since you claimed that if you just limit the method of dissemination of speech, that’s fine.
The “free speech zone”, ostensibly, is not about limiting the speech, but about not endangering lives. Just like the “fire in movie theater” restriction is. As long as it’s about that, it is justified. Because there is a conflict between two rights, and one (right to life) trumps the other. If there is no danger to life, and it is used to restrict speech without the correct justification, yes, the “free speech zones” are unconstitutional.
The only reason the first amendment violation can be justified is if it conflicts with another right. Since what you’re advocating has no such justification that I can see, yes, that’s authoritarianism.
I’d like you to expand on this. First of all, freedom of speech is not “bought”. If it was bought, it wouldn’t be freedom. It would be a service.
You can say whatever you want. You cannot get other people to disseminate your speech for free, usually. And those people have no obligation to disseminate your speech, and if they refuse to do it, that is not abridging your speech. So - can you explain exactly how one person’s freedom of speech can come at the expense of others’ freedom? Describe a hypothetical situation, election-related if possible.
A poor summary of my post.
I said it is not unconstitutional to limit the method of dissemination. I did not say that all limits to methods of dissemination are “fine”. Nor did I even say that all limits to methods of dissemination are constitutional. What I said was, in summary, that just because a limit is made to methods of dissemination, this doesn’t by itself make for unconstitutionality.
My evidence tha tit’s not unconstutional to limit the method of dissemination? The widespread legal and (for the most part) popular acceptance of regulations concerning when and how people may exercise their right to free speech.
My point in saying it’s not unconstitutional? I am arguing that limits on campaign contributions and campaign ads etc are of a piece with limits to manner and place of speech. The rationale for limits to manner and place applies equally well to limits to funds spent on ads etc.
I don’t know what the limits should be, just as I don’t know where all the “free speech zones” should be. I’m simply pointing out that if you’re okay with free speech zones and things like that, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be okay with monetary boundaries as well, in principle.
That’s incorrect. That’s one concern, but far from the only one. A big concern is making sure that this group’s act of speech doesn’t interfere with this other groups ability to enact speech. Public order is a necessary condition for the exercise of free speech. Speech acts unconducive to public order interfere with freedom of speech. Hence limits to manner and place.
Speech acts unconducive to broad public access to the means of communication also interfere with freedom of speech. Hence these acts also need to have limits imposed on them.
Authorianism is hte view that the people with formal authority ought to be obeyed regardless of the correctness of their views. This has zero to do with anything being said in this thread. Everyone here is arguing about waht the correct view is, not about who should be obeyed.
The SCOTUS disagrees with you, I think. I seem to recall (but I might be remembering something wrong here?) that there was a recent decision in which they explicitly said, in these actual words, that money is speech.
I can’t understand the meaning of that phrase other than as a way of affirming that the freedom to speak can be bought.
But I cannot be heard by whoever may want to hear me if you shouting over me. Corporate-supported (and I here mean “corporate” in a broad sense–unions would be included for example) speech is the equivalent of shouting in the metaphor I just gestured at.
This is not to say that everyone should be able to be heard by everyone they want to hear them. But it is to say that the speech of each person should be reasonably available. The presence of corporate-sponsored speech makes most people’s speech not reasonably available.
(Note: I made several changes to the last couple of paragraphs of the above.)
Huh?
When has either Colbert or Stewart ever suggested that the government should regulate the Colbert Report or the Daily Show?
Please provide the links.
Huh?
You’ve never heard of Brandenburg V. Ohio?
People are very much allowed to say that without getting sanctioned.
Like I said, many white liberals who pushed for that decision protecting the KKK’s right to call for genocide against black people suddenly think that the First Amendment while requiring minorities to put up with such crap are perfectly fine with the government fining people for saying mean things about Hillary Clinton.
In fact, countless prominent commentators have spewed forth hate speech against minorities without any call whatsoever amongst the liberal whites who piss in their pants at that thought of people being allowed to show documentaries criticizing Hillary Clinton are perfectly fine with nothing happening to other commentators calling for genocide or near genocide against minorities.
To give one obvious example to show how ludicrous your Rush Limbaugh example was. Ann Coulter repeatedly stated regarding Muslims “We should bomb their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
I have yet to hear a single prominent White American liberal argue that she should have been fined or prosecuted for saying this, which she’s done in print publications, on the web, and on TV.
If you think I’m wrong then name a single well-known white liberal American political figure who’s called for her being sanctioned by the government for saying such things.
Sorry, but like I said, white liberals have massive blind spot where hate speech and Citizens United are concerned.