So, what part of the Second Amendment are you interpreting away?
Also, what part of the Constitution gives us the ability to have an Air Force? Black and white, chapter and verse, if you please.
Article I, Section 8.
Is this where you argue that the Air Force is not an army?
Is the argument that it became a constitutional breach the moment the same entity changed its organizational structure? I agree that’s an interesting argument, and that I can’t find a completely satisfying textualist argument for the Air Force. I believe it required an amendment granting additional powers to Congress. Not everyone agrees:
Hell, I think I could be convinced. It’s an interesting debate (to me). But my bias tends toward the notion that if there’s not a firm textualist basis for the power, Congress doesn’t have it, no matter how much “common sense” suggests it should be so.
That commentary makes a pretty big assumption. Why are planes that fly through the air not more constitutionally problematic than bullets? No framing-era definition of “army” or “navy” included aircraft, but every army had bullets.
It then makes a totally circular argument by asserting that aircraft could be necessary and proper to carry out other Article I powers; the only relevant Article I power is that to provide for an army and navy.
Stratocaster: My point is, it’s still interpretation. They’re still interpreting away something in the original text by imputing the idea of support for an Air Force onto it. The difference between our positions is a matter of degree, not of kind as they insist.
But my point is, that shouldn’t have been done it in that instance either. If we wanted Congress to be able to create and pay for an Air Force (and I do), we should have amended the Constitution. If the framers wanted the power to be broader they could have assigned the power to “raise and support military forces necessary to provide for the common defense.” But they didn’t, they specifically called out an army and then a navy. That level of precision is necessarily limiting, ISTM.
So my point is that there’s no strenuous interpretation required. There is no constitutional basis for forming an air force, ISTM, so it should not have been permitted. That fact that it was, however much I like the idea (and I do!), should not be license for future legislatures (or courts) to endorse such an approach. IOW, this is not a textualist gotcha, not for me at least.
And to close up the loop, IMO First Amendment protections ought to be similarly handled. We don’t get to install law that we wish the text permitted. All written words require some level of interpretation, yes. But I oppose the type of interpretation that infers from “free speech shall not be abridged” that “we can abridge free speech.” Or that in eminent domain issues “for public use” can be interpreted to mean “not for public use.” That is a difference in kind, for me. That is no longer interpretation, that is ignoring the simple words.
I think I agree. In particular, it stretches the “necessary and proper” clause to an illogical degree, in much the way the commerce clause is often misused.
Straightforward solution: ad taxes get allocated proportionally to the share of the vote won during the past n elections. n=1,2,3,4 or whatever. This doesn’t necessarily prop the 2 party system. In fact, it would do the opposite by increasing the incentive to vote for spoiler candidates.
You could also allocate funds according to who is being attacked. That would involve some judgment calls on the part of the regulators, which raises some reasonable concerns.
…and the regulator would presumably have to make some calls here as well… ETA:
Yes for the ACLU running an ad. No for John Stewart offering political commentary which he isn’t paying for.
Comedy Central certainly is paying for it and they are a corporation.
Why wouldn’t you sanction them for spending money to try an influence an election if you believe that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to spend money to do so?
Your position seems extremely hypocritical.
Please explain why you think it’s ok for some corporations to spend money to influence elections but not others.
Thanks.
It isn’t hard. Comedy Central is selling a product -Jon Stewart- to advertisers. That’s completely different from taking out an advertisement. Substantively, one is subject to market forces, while the other is essentially a form of consumption (if the buyer is an individual) or investment (if the buyer is a corporation).
Since we’re here to fight ignorance, I hope you don’t mind if I offer an argument you might have sympathy with: Consider this hypothetical. Rupert Murdoch owns the New York Post and decides to use his newspaper to campaign for the election of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to the U.S. Senate. He has the First Amendment right to do so, which no one can dispute, and which federal election laws recognize. Suppose Mayor Giuliani’s opponent Hillary Clinton wants to respond to the New York Post’selectioneering. If she owned a newspaper, she could do so. If a friend and supporter owned a newspaper, he or she could do so. Suppose, however, that she has a very wealthy individual supporter who doesn’t own a newspaper, but who is willing to give her the money to run a full-page ad on behalf of her candidacy. If he does so, he violates the law, because current campaign finance laws place strict limits on the size of contributions, and the cost of even a single full-page ad exceeds those limits. The result? One candidate gets an entire newspaper’s support every day, while the other is denied even one page once during the campaign. How can it be that if you buy a newspaper, you get to provide unlimited support for the candidate of your choice but if you buy a billboard to do the same thing, you commit a crime? Testimony of Executive Director Ira Glasser on Campaign Finance Reform Legislation Before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration | American Civil Liberties Union
My answer is twofold: a) I’m suspicious of hypotheticals: if this were a real problem, we would see it more. As it is, New York has a variety of newspapers with differing points of view, and one newspaper towns tend to have less ideological offerings.
b) That said, Britain has some of the problems expressed by the ACLU. My take though is that their political process is corrupted far less than the US. Their mainstream media considers a broader range of ideologies for example. Still, a serious compare and contrast of US vs UK would be illuminating.
So then you supported the Supreme Court saying that the FEC couldn’t sanction the non-profit corporation, Citizens United since they weren’t “taking out an advertisement” but were “selling a product” specifically the documentary, Hillary: The Movie.
Similarly, you’re disgusted that McCain-Feingold gave the FEC broad discretion to sanction not just ads but whatever they deemed to be “electioneering communications”, specifically attempts to influence an election.
Certainly, John Stewart, like Michael Moore, and the non-profit corporation Citizens United were trying to influence elections and they were using corporate money to do so.
Anyway, I’m glad to see that you actually supported the SCOTUS decision and thought it was a great “fuck you” to the book burners trying to shut down political expression.
That follows not. You asked for a distinction. I gave you one. Now you’re moving on to other arguments.
Citizens United was sued not for making a documentary -nobody has problems with that- but for using it as a transparent front for running political ads against Hillary Clinton. Again it’s not hard: paying for an advertisement is fundamentally different than selling a product.
Again, the distinction is between an advertisement and a journal, magazine, movie or whatever.
Look I’m sure they’re arguments to be made here. But let’s keep in mind this bright-line distinction.
So, it’s perfectly OK in your world for the New Koch Times or Koch News to “offer a product” that also advocates for political causes? Sort of like what the New York Times and FoxNews does now. Ditto for The Soros Times and Soros News.
That’s not an answer. The first amendment is a law, so it is obviously referring to the legal concept of a person. The thirteenth amendment is also a law, so it is also referring to the legal concept of a person. The constitution makes no such distinction.
The guy was quoting basic logic at you. If A is B, and B is C, then A is C. A=corporations, B=persons, and C=illegal to own.
Except that a corporation isn’t a person. It has certain legal aspects of personhood, but not all. The premise if flawed. A≠ B. You might be able to get away with saying A ⊆ B, so go ahead and see where logic takes you from there.
I’m a girl, FWIW.
And yeah, if we’re going to assert that corporations are people, and deserving of the rights granted to people by the Constitution, then stock ownership should be unconstitutional. To say otherwise is, IMO, to imply that there are circumstances where it’s legal for one person to own another, and to trade persons as commodities. Do we really want to set that precedent?
Point me to where it says that the thirteenth amendment only applies to “natural persons.” The amendment makes no attempt to define slavery, let alone who can be subject to it.
This is the dumbest argument against corporate “personhood” (or whatever gotcha it’s trying to trot out) I have yet come across. The people who make up corporations have the rights enumerated in the Constitution, just like any other association of people. Let me go on the record as saying I am dead against those people being sold into slavery.
You have a flawed concept of what “corporate personhood” implies. Here’s a hint: the fact that the word “person” is in it doesn’t magically make this legal entity a human being.
And by those standards, Michael Moore was using his “product” Fahrenheit 911 as “a transparent front for running political ads against” George Bush.
I’ll assume then that you feel that the FEC should have sanctioned the corporation that produced that movie.
Similarly, the corporation producing The Daily Show, pretty blatantly has, by your standards, used their product as a political ad.
This statement shows rather extreme ignorance about McCain-Feingold. According to McCain-Feingold there was no difference between “an advertisement” and “a journal, magazine, movie or whatever” if the “journal, magazine, movie or whatever” was used, according to FEC regulators to try and influence an election. According to McCain-Feingold, in order to be sanctioned the “electioneering communications” didn’t even have to explicitly call on people to vote for or against a candidate.
Can you point out exactly which words in:
Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech
refer to the legal concept of a person.
I can’t parse this post at all. You know the first and thirteenth amendments are parts of the Constitution, right?