Bolding mine.
Bolding and deitalicising mine.
So you believe that we should not have a Bill of Rights.
I’d have no problem with it under certain conditions. For instance, if the bill of rights were adopted by a supermajority and required the same to amend, or if it were adopted nationally despite regional opposition.
Um, we already have a bill of rights. Do you support it or not?
So you also don’t like our amendment process?
Correct. I believe it is undemocratic.
Given the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the rights granted by the first amendment, I can’t say I do in its entirety.
Democracy, as in everything gets decided by slim majorities, isn’t really a moral form of government. The point of the Bill of Rights and limited government is precisely so slim majorities can’t use temporary windows of power to trample on the minority.
Thanks for going on record.
I don’t see how you can support ANY rights, given that you think the will of the majority should be supreme in all cases.
It’s impossible to support every amendment to the Constitution, as the 18th blatantly contradicts the 21st. I don’t support the interpretation of the equal protection clause applying to corporations, that doesn’t entail that I support slavery.
I believe democracy is the best antidote to totalitarianism.
I was talking about the Bill of Rights, but whatever.
It seems to me that you should oppose any and all limits on government power since you keep complaining about the Bill of Rights limiting the choices of the poeple.
Perhaps, but democracy can BE totalitarianism too.
You don’t have to support every part of the Constitution, but you do have to support the correct means for changing it. And recognize that no one has yet come up with any language to overturn Citizens United that doesn’t eliminate free speech protections entirely.
True, I checked back. I don’t believe the second amendment does more good for America than harm either. Other provisions I have no problem with. The third amendment seems pretty reasonable.
I think the Senate Resolution I posted does so. It explicitly mentions freedom of the press. Journalists will be able to take any stand they want.
Freedom of the press is freedom of the printing press and other venues of communication. if the amendment only means freedom of the press to apply to journalists, it needs to state that explicitly.
And although most proposed amendments have press exceptions, I think that senate resolution lacked exceptions. It’s a blank check for Congress to regulate all electioneering communications, regardless of the source. Which is fair. If we’re going to do violence to the 1st amendment let’s at least spare the 14th.
You don’t seem to like the First Amendment that much.
Why are journalists special?
You think ads are evil, but Fox News is fine? What if all the advertisers just buy themselves networks like Murdoch did and spew whatever they want all day for free? How is that different? Why do you think people with printing presses, or the modern equivalent, should have more rights to speak their minds than those without them?
That would be a useful attack point against such an amendment: it enshrines special rights for mainstream media journalists that no one else will have.
That would set equal protection back as well as freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Just how much violence are we willing to do to the Bill of Rights?
Instead of giant corporations (and regular people pooling their money) to buy a little time in the media, the giant corporations with enough money to buy broadcast licenses and run huge broadcast networks will have all that time to themselves. Talk about crowding out speech.
What I don’t get is why they are even bothering with an amendment. Supposedly elections aren’t fair due to advertising by wealthy interests. How would they expect to get an amendment passed when the wealthy would just spend millions to defeat it?
Because the alternative is taking guns and shooting people. If your ballot does not work, it’s bullet time. That’s why democracy, awful as it is with all those idiots voting, is the best system we have. All the others go to bullets sooner or later. The prospect of getting a Constitutional Amendment passed is daunting for EXACTLY the reason you state, but it’s better than shooting people and being shot at by people.
Bad logic.
Here’s the thing. Let’s say you guys are right and all this money in politics is convincing people to vote in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. They’ve still decided to support these politicians! To the voter, democracy is working just fine!
Why would voters grab guns and shoot the very people they decided to elect?
The 14th amendment was written to emancipate slaves. I think the judicial precedence of applying the rights enshrined in it to corporations has done far more damage to it.
The 14th amendment applies equal protection. A press exception that is interpreted to apply only to the mainstream media is not only violating equal protection against corporations, but individuals engaged in journalism as well. Individuals engaging in journalism already have problems with judges considering them to not have press rights because they are ignorant. We don’t need an amendment codifying the special privileges the mainstream media thinks it is entitled to.