Is it “just” that Muslim citizens of the US have to put up with Islamophobic demagogues?
What an interesting question! Truly, an issue that deserves its own seperate thread, rather than serving as a transparent effort to evade an uncomfortable question.
No, the point is that just because something is “unjust” doesn’t mean it should be illegal.
Living in society that believes in freedom of speech means that I have to put up with bigots and you have to put up with people criticizing politicians you like.
You seem to feel that I should have to put up with bigoted demagogues but that you shouldn’t have to put up with people criticizing politicians you like.
I would hazard a guess that Warriq’s position is this: sure, there is some societal harm that may result from the unfettered influence of wealth in politics, but it’s a harm we must tolerate for the sake of maintaining free speech in society. Like speech that some say harms women (pornography, which is highly debatable and even has considerable evidence pointing to the notion that it decreases crimes against women) or which harms minorities, i.e., bigoted speech of every variety, against Jews, Muslims, blacks, gays, etc., the influence of money in elections is something we must tolerate, despite its unfortunate social consequences.
I would respond to that, not on issues of fairness, as elucidator has, which I think is probably the surest grounds to respond, but on the grounds that money in politics is not merely an “unfortunate social consequence” but a force that strikes at the very root of democracy. In a society of over 300 million people, the only way to reach people is through the mass media. Door to door just won’t get it, or get it often enough. And the only way to get your message across to the people is by PAYING the mass media to convey it. The more money you have, the more power you have to project your message. So in a society in which the wealthy have little or no restrictions on how they can use their wealth to influence elections, the message of the wealthy will inevitably get a lot more play than the message of the poor.
Now, n the normal course of things, societies may change their opinions about gays, Muslims, Jews, blacks, etc. But the wealthy are never gonna change their opinion about who should be wealthy, because in a capitalist society like ours, the advantages of wealth far outweigh every other advantage a person can have.
As a result, when wealth has unfettered power to influence elections, democracies tend to be transformed into self-perpetuating oligarchies, consisting of the wealthy few who control the media and, well, everything else. With everyone else … say, the 99% … on the outside looking in.
Which in my opinion, constitutes a FAR greater danger to free speech and more importantly, democracy itself, than any other potential danger out there.
So, I think this is definitely a fire/crowded theater kind of exception. I think we are about 20 years away from becoming a DINO … Democracy In Name Only. So … don’t agree with you, Warriq. You are focussing on a molehill and ignoring a mountain, in my opinion.
I disagree with you entirely. The reason we have to put up with the KKK is because to start imposing speech restrictions based on the CONTENT of the speech clearly violates the very heart of the 1st amendment… and it places certain citizens (non-KKK) above others (KKK) purely based on opinions they hold. On the other hand, imagine a law that completely forbid all political contributions and mass market political advertising. It is not restricting any idea or anything based on content, it is not placing any thought above any other, it is not placing any group of people above another. All it is doing is restricting MODES of communication of an idea, in an even-handed fashion. Now, such a law would likely be viewed as unconstitutional with the current precedents, and I’m far from certain I’d even support such a law unreservedly. But the point I’m trying to make is that the constitutional or practical or ethical issues facing such a law are in no way analogous to those facing a ban-the-KKK law. Furthermore, however brilliant the founding fathers were, there is no way they could have predicted commercial mass media and advertising as it currently exists.
Let’s ask you one more time: ignoring issues of constitutionality, and ignoring issues of “well, we can’t fix that without breaking something else”, do you agree that:
(a) the wealthy have VASTLY disproportional political power, and
(b) said disproportional power makes our democracy worse
?
Why does it matter? Is it a stylistic thing? You want the money to be spent elsewhere? It’s not being put into a furnace. Why would Obama care about the criminality of big banks? He’s the POTUS; before that, a candidate, before that, a senator. Do you think someone who wasn’t an earnest representative to a faction of big business could sniff a presidential nomination for either party?
I would say that you misunderstand the First Amendment.
The whole point of it was protecting political speech.
You could make a far better case that banning hate speech, pornography, violent TV or violent games wouldn’t violate the First Amendment than what you’re proposing.
Moreover, you’re working on the extremely questionable assumption that it’s easy to determine what constitutes “political contributions” and “mass market political advertising”.
For example, McCain-Feingold was used to ban a movie and had it not been struck down by a slim 5-4 majority we’d probably have seen far more movies and books banned on the grounds that a bureaucrat decided that they designed to influence an election.
Now, perhaps you feel that it wouldn’t have been outrageous to ban Fahrenheit 911, but four Justices on the Supreme Court didn’t and every opponent of the Citizens United should.
Would it result in the elimination of the Twilight series? Because that would be totally worth i-- waitaminute.
Actually, I’m gonna go ahead and respond that it’s FAR to early to characterize my position that way, based on anything I’ve said up to this point. And I’m going to once again ask you to defend your assertion that the Citizens United decision was about giving the FEC the right to ban a movie.
I’ll give you a clue here: defending an assertion does NOT consist of (metaphorically) rolling your eyes, heaving a teenager-embarrassed-by-his-parents sigh, and asking if the question was serious. If you can defend it, please do do; otherwise, just say so.
I’m sorry but the above statement makes utterly no sense.
Citizens United is a non-profit group that made a movie called Hillary:The Movie. The FEC effectively banned it and they sued.
The case was officially known as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Five of the Justices ruled in favor of Citizens United and that McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional while four argued in favor of the FEC declaring that McCain-Feingold wasn’t unconstitutional and that the FEC had the right to ban the movie.
The question before the Supreme Court during Citizens United was about the banning of a film called Hillary: The Movie.
Five justices voted that the First Amendment prohibited this and four voted that the banning of Hillary: The Movie was constitutional.
So yes, Citizens United was about giving the FEC the right to ban a movie and trying to deny this is utterly moronic.
It’s not my fault that you’re extremely ignorant about an extremely well-known case so there’s no reason to throw a hissy-fit.
Anyway asking me to defend that is like asking me to defend the assertion that it was the Japanese not the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor.
You’re asking me to defend facts that no one disputes.
Its the exaggerated terminology that gives you away. For instance, “ban”. The law under question had to do with when the movie was broadcast, within a definite time proximity to election day. You could reasonably say it was postponed, you could reasonably say it was postponed for bad reasons, but banned it was not.
Most likely, you could find a viewing on the internet in five minutes, if you wanted.
Ooops, wrong. Ten seconds.
So then you think that it wouldn’t have been a violation of the First Amendment to ban advertisements on TV for* Fahrenheit 911* during the 2004 campaign season or to ban the airing of Fahrenheit 911 during the 2004 campaign season and you’d object ot the idea that this constituted the “banning” of Fahrenheit 911 and argue that it had merely been “postponed”?
Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. When you ban the airing of a movie during an election or ban the distribution of a book during an election you are “banning” that movie or book, even if only temporarily.
Anyway, as Justice Kennedy said, "“If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
If you don’t like that then push for an amendment to give Congress the ability to punish people for engaging in political speech.
There’s a reason that the ACLU celebrated the decision and that Floyd Abrams, hardly a right-wing firebrand was the lawyer for the plaintiffs.
It was a decision that should be celebrated just as cases preventing the KKK from being prosecuted should be celebrated.
Oh. So when you see the word BANNED after someone’s name, you figure they’ll be back in a couple of days?
The word means what it means, to make it mean something else, it requires a modifier. It would be clumsy to say “temporarily banned” but it would be functional. But without the modifier “temporarily”, then “banned” means banned, it strongly implies a permanent state. It requires “temporarily” in order to mean something other than simply “banned”.
Besides which, its pointless exaggeration, it accomplishes nothing but to alert your reader that you are willing to play fast and loose. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that, except if you pretend otherwise.
Imagine taking current American society to a bit of an extreme… there are two political parties, and one of them tries exclusively to help poor people, and one of them exclusively tries to help rich people and big corporations. (In other words, take a paranoid liberal view of how things are, and exaggerate them until it’s really true.) Now add to that mix a filmmaker as effective as Michael Moore, but one with no actual convictions of his own, who just works for the highest bidders. So every time there’s an election, the rich-person-party pays this guy to make a documentary mocking the poor-person-party candidate. But no one in the poor-person-party has the resources to pay for such a movie.
I believe that in that sort of admittedly extreme hypothetical the fact that one party has such greater resources for mass communication would be actively detrimental to democracy itself.
That said, I don’t think the US is anywhere near that bad, and I readily admit that any kind of law that tried to restrict people’s abilities to make films expressing political beliefs is incredibly dangerous… because how is making a film any different than writing an essay? But as far as I can tell you don’t even seem to acknowledge the possibility of such a situation even being a problem at all.
I’m not saying I have any answers… but I’m saying I do think there’s a problem, and one that’s just getting worse.
And what Ms. Maddow and the esteemed Mr Colbert have been trying to highlight is that now there is extra layer of padding, anonymity. Before, she thought it noteworthy that only a few very rich men contibuted to Mr Roves Fund for Darkness, but you knew who they were, at least. Now, rich guys can hand over a ton of money without even fingerprints. You’ll see an ad suggesting that Obama rises at night to feed on the blood of the living, and all you’ll know was that it was paid for by Americans for Crunchy Goodness.
“Dishonest” is a little strong, don’t you think?
Yes, I think. You?
Yes. We agree !!!
I notice you love to answer a question with another question, or an unrelated statement. Someone more devious than I might take that as a sign that you refuse to straightforwardly answer simple questions because you know the answer isn’t favorable to your argument
Is Ibn your real name? Are you from the Middle East? Are you afraid that those representatives of your home region have co-opted the language of political speech to make criminal all opposition, and that the same will happen here? This isn’t directly in response to your post, of course, I’m just trying to reassure you that such things will not happen here, and that laws may change but culture takes more than a few votes here and there. Had the SC upheld CU’s restriction, it would have a large impact in the short run but little in the long run
As far as your statement goes, no, they are not the same and I disagree that they are more representative. Given the profit motive of a corporation in comparison to an organization dedicated to pushing a political agenda, then there are and should be vastly different ways of treating their speech.
But you probably know that already. Still, it would be nice for you to actually answer eluc’s question instead of dodging it with another. You’ve made your point by answering his question with another question more than once. No need to pretend we don’t know what your argument will be, just tell us what you believe
Yog,
Considering the fact that all the groups sanctioned by McCain-Feingold and virtually all the groups who’ve used money for political ads have been “organizations pursuing a political agenda” your post makes little sense.
Moreover, I find the constant demand that I answer the questions to be a fairly disturbing example of white skin privilege.
When white progressives defend the right of the KKK to call for the killing f black people they’re generally not asked to prove that they’re sensitive to concerns of minority victims of hate crimes.
I don’t see why I should be faced with comparable questions for believing in the First Amendment and the principal of free speech.
As Anthony Kennedy said, the very heart of the First Amendment is that people can’t be punished for political speech.
People offended by flag-burning and who think it should be illegal are pushing for a constitutional amendment.
If you do want the government to be able to sanction people for political speech then you ought to push for an amendment also.
Finally, I’d recommend you look up what actually constitutes a corporation because it’s not clear you understand what constitutes one.