Ok. Other than the “Stolen Valor Act” - there are no federal laws prohibiting fraudulent speech, libelous speech or slanderous speech. At least that I know of or could find.
And I hope SCOTUS does the right thing and kills the Stolen Valor Act. Apart from the fact that it is like trying to respond to a mosquito bite with an ICBM, it would make a really bad precedent for sanctioned violation of the 1st amendment.
Nice job not quoting the part of my post that explains exactly why you’re wrong.
First Amendment expert Lawrence Tribe proposes a constitutional amendment in Slate magazine to reverse Citizens United. Yes, passing constitutional amendments is hard… but discussing them is easy! Lawrence Tribe: Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to forbid Congress or the states from imposing content-neutral limitations on private campaign contributions or independent political campaign expenditures. Nor shall this Constitution prevent Congress or the states from enacting systems of public campaign financing, including those designed to restrict the influence of private wealth by offsetting campaign spending or independent expenditures with increased public funding. Of course the amendment merely reverses the judicial activism of the thoroughly corrupt wing of the supreme court. http://hive.slate.com/hive/how-can-we-fix-constitution/article/the-once-and-for-all-solution-to-our-campaign-finance-problems
We could also try the “More speech” approach: place a 100% tax on electronic advertising, with the proceeds going to the opposing political party. So if Adelson wants to dump a boatload on Mitt Romney, half of it would go to his opponents. So essentially all attack ads come with a right to respond.
Of course unscrupulous individuals will oppose such reforms. The moral failings of those who disagree with me (for one implies the other of course) continue to amaze.
Except there is no reason to assume there is only one political opponent. I am, without qualification, against putting anything in the constitution that explicitly reinforces a two party system. I guess that makes me unscrupulous. :rolleyes:
I like MfM’s idea, with some tinkering of my own. If a PAC spends $x to attack one candidate, then it must give $x to that candidate to counter their attack. So if you feel like donating $100 million to attack Obama, you need to give Obama $100 million to respond with. And if you spend $1.98 to attack the libertarian candidate, he would get $1.98 to respond. The candidates themselves would be exempt, so Romney could run anti-Obama ads, he just has to own up to them.
Yes, some interpret it that way.
To me the 1st implies that we should have completely unrestricted freedom of speech. It is appropriate though that we should try to work out the spirit of the law and have common-sense exceptions. But I see no reason to put the line between political and non-political speech.
The way I would interpret the spirit of the law is that we all have the right to state an opinion.
Either way, I genuinely don’t see why either interpretation would entail unlimited spending / TV commercials must be allowed. There are rules within the context of an election, that help make the election fairer and more organized.
For example, I’m free to wear campaign slogans and the like, but not to a polling place. Is that a transgression of my freedoms?
One of the problems that Citizens United demonstrates is that SCOTUS doesn’t care to distinguish between political advertising and political commentary which is ostensibly not advocating for any particular candidate.
Er… it was the opponents of the Citizens United ruling who argued for banning a documentary, not the Supreme Court.
They’re the ones who said the government should have the right to regulate anything g deemed to be “electioneering communications” which included books and movies critical of political candidates.
Yes, but it was the Supreme Court that wrote the holding that created the present situation. Nobody made them extend it that far.
I want to see someone claim that Madison intended the Bill of Rights to apply to radio broadcasts.
No, Originalism is a morally bankrupt philosophy because it has a deep, abiding hypocrisy at its core: We can update the concepts here, in this interpretation, but not there in that interpretation. Or, more insidiously, we can update these concepts in this interpretation but not those concepts in the same interpretation.
As an example of the second example, try to apply Originalism to the Second Amendment, first granting that it provides an individual right. Either we apply it in terms of the weapons used, in which case a citizen has a right to keep and bear flintlocks, or we apply it in terms of the practical intent of such weapons, in which case citizens have the right to own tactical nuclear weapons because nothing else will keep a wayward government in line these days.
So we must abandon such gross necrophilia and interpret the Constitution in the way that maximizes the liberty of the majority of the people living in this country now. How does giving a few of the richest the ability to grossly influence the political process maximize the liberty of the majority?
Why have the Constitution at all? Just have a document that says “The goal is to maximize the liberty of the majority of the people living in this country now”. Constitution shmonstitution.
I’d rather it say “Be excellent to each other”; that way, we can abolish all other religions as well.
I’d argue that having more specific forms of words is important because it’s frequently necessary, in a court of law, to have a specific conceptual framework to work within. It’s one thing, when the going gets tough and someone wants to start down a dangerous path, to bang on about how this might be the first of many bad steps; it’s quite another to have something specific to cite that really gets peoples’ attentions.
Ultimately it’s all down to the individuals involved and we can be damn sure Madison is no longer among them. (Originalism straight from the Originals didn’t stop the Alien and Sedition Acts, either.) However, having guidance more solid than a wave of the hand is helpful to making decisions predictable, which is a good thing in law. (If nothing else, decisions that are predictably bad are an indication that the guidelines need to be amended.)
The American people should be exposed to more opinions. They do not need more exposure to the Republican opinion that the rich should be richer and more powerful.
The First Amendment has been terribly abused. It should be re written in order to protect open political debate, and religious freedom, and nothing else. Money is not speech. It is power.
We need to get the money out of politics.
While I agree with the spirit of the OP, and feel the Constitution desperately needs some amending, it is a virtual impossibility at this point, and talk of such is just so much masturbating. The toothpaste is out of the tube. How exactly is an amendment ever going to get anywhere in today’s political reality? That was rhetorical of course; it is quite obvious that it never will. Having allowed corporate/unlimited spending to rule the day, that same spending will shut down any attempts at undoing the advantage it has. As counterarguments there are: “But Whitman and Fiorina lost!” and “But 70% of people feel CU was a bad decision!” But neither of those relate to the hurdles of passing an actual Amendment.
The only real possibility is going to be the admittedly not-as-constitutional option to win the White House over and over, stack the Supreme Court, and ‘re-interpret’ “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”. I think that solution stinks, but considering the option is letting things go to shit out of respect for the holy purity of the founding fathers’ short-sightedness… fuck it, I can hold my nose.
And honestly, even that ‘solution’ seems almost as impossible as an Amendment. Democrats holding the White House and getting those SC Judges confirmed is still sure to be a higher hurdle in the current political reality than it has ever been in the past.
just as a fun exercise re: an Amendment…
2/3 of both houses? Ha! When was the last time they all agreed on anything with those numbers? Seriously, if anyone knows, I’d love to hear. I can’t get it out of Google.
Or the other option… Exactly which 34 states’ legislatures are going to propose the idea?
And which 38 states’ legislatures* are going to ratify? Hint: Obama won 28 states in 2008, before CU.
*or better yet, which 38 states’ ratifying conventions? What a circus that would be!
There are still federal laws against fighting words. Not to mention that the issue here isn’t a free speech issue (and I’m not equivocating there), it’s an issue of whether Congress can restrict the time, place and manner of speech - which they explicitly have done in the past.
Are we being asked to accept that holding a sign near a convoy stretching for miles is infringing on others rights to hold signs, but that purchasing hours of advertising time in order to expose one’s viewpoint to millions of Americans is not diluting the effect of other forms of speech?
Not when, if it is inconvenient, you just interpret it away.
Either 1971, for the voting age being 18 across the country, or 1992, prohibiting Congress from raising their own salaries. The reason I say “either” is that the latter amendment was proposed 203 years before it was ratified, so it may not demonstrate the simultaneous agreement of 3/4s of the states you were looking for.
The 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution passed by more than 2/3 of both houses; 297-133-3 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate. I was faintly shocked to see that it passed by a greater majority in both houses than the resolution authorizing the 1991 Gulf War.
So then, to be clear, you’re saying that whenever the ACLU puts out an ad criticizing a political candidate, they should be required to give the candidate money to fight back.
Similarly, presumably whenever John Stewart ridicules a politician running for office, Comedy Central should give him or her money to run a counter-attack.
If you disagree, please explain your reasoning.
Thanks