Congrats, Occupiers -- You ARE the 1%!

[Piggy]

It's legal personhood, not actual personhood. Try to understand the difference.

Why don't you try to understand the difference?

If none of that applies to corporations -- passports, marriage, driver licenses, a right to vote, etc. -- then neither does the 1st amendment guarantee of free speech.

Yes, corporations are legal entities and are treated as such, but it makes just as much sense to say they have a right to free speech as it does to say they have a right to bear arms.

 

[Piggy]

If the worst excesses of the idiotic war on drugs are your inspiration you're probably not thinking this through.

Perhaps, if your thinking is in line with these excesses, it's you who needs to think things through a bit more.

 

[GreyArea]

Cap campaign donations to $100 per person per candidate per election cycle. Cap party donations to $100 per person per year. Also cap party donations to candidates.

WildCat, this is an interesting idea, and I've considered something similar. But does this mean that you don't think that limits on campaign contributions curtail free speech?

 

[Piggy]

Piggy is equivocating with the way he's using "1%" in the OP/thread title. The OWS protesters are certainly not the "1%" in the same way they are using the term.

My (obvious and clearly stated) point is that the Occupiers are a small minority commandeering public resources for their exclusive use... in other words, doing precisely what they're protesting against. (But even worse, since they haven't even pretended to earn the resources they're taking from others.)

They have indeed set themselves up as another "1%" -- a tiny fraction of the population refusing to give everyone else access.

I haven't been coy about this. I've explained exactly what I meant by the "1%" in the header.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yup, but there was never a doubt that newspapers have first amendment rights.

You're wrong. When asked (I forget by which judge) if McCain-Feingold could be used against newspapers, the government said it wouldn't be. They were unable to explain why it couldn't be. And even if there was a statute within the law to exempt newspapers, that wouldn't make it constitutional, because "the press" doesn't mean credentialed journalists, it means anyone who wants to publish anything. The idea that newspapers have any more rights than anyone else, or that anyone else has LESS rights than newspapers, has no foundation in the constitution. Furthermore, it's a bloody stupid and dangerous notion.

 

[Ziggurat]

"The Press" is its own category independent of this discussion, and has been since the founding.

No, it is not. "The press" is basically anything that publishes material. That could be my home printer, that could be the kid down the street with his box of crayons. But it most definitely does NOT mean just newspapers. I don't know why you're eager to surrender your first amendment rights by creating a separate class of citizens who have rights that you do not, but that's quite foolish, and it's not at all what the founders intended.

 

[BenBurch]

The Press is separate as an institution. This is elementary constitutional law.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why don't you try to understand the difference?

If none of that applies to corporations -- passports, marriage, driver licenses, a right to vote, etc. -- then neither does the 1st amendment guarantee of free speech.

Again, the first amendment doesn't actually grant you, as an individual, the freedom to speak or publish. The first amendment prevents Congress from taking away that right. But it prevents Congress from taking that right away from anyone or anything. It doesn't even mention people, persons, individuals, humans, or ANYTHING which might identify the speaker or publisher in regards to speech or the press. So it's a fundamental mistake to think that the first amendment grants a right to people. It does not. It restricts the power of Congress. And it does so completely, not simply in regards to people.

 

[WildCat]

Yup, but there was never a doubt that newspapers have first amendment rights.

Corporate newspapers don't if you take away 1st Amendment rights for corporations. This was acknowledged by Congress, who exempted news media from the law struck down in the Citizens United ruling.

Once again, "freedom of the press" does not refer to journalism, but the use of printing presses as a means of communication.

 

[WildCat]

"The Press" is its own category independent of this discussion, and has been since the founding.

"the press" ≠ journalism

 

[WildCat]

Why don't you try to understand the difference?

If none of that applies to corporations -- passports, marriage, driver licenses, a right to vote, etc. -- then neither does the 1st amendment guarantee of free speech.

Yes, corporations are legal entities and are treated as such, but it makes just as much sense to say they have a right to free speech as it does to say they have a right to bear arms.

You don't get it. How will you take a picture of a corporation for a passport? How does a corporation go through customs? How does a corporation bear arms? Marry? Etc etc.

But a corporation can make contracts, issue paychecks, write a manual, etc etc.

 

[WildCat]

WildCat, this is an interesting idea, and I've considered something similar. But does this mean that you don't think that limits on campaign contributions curtail free speech?

No, because caps have already been upheld by the SCOTUS since the legislature has the right to run elections as it sees fit.

 

[WildCat]

The Press is separate as an institution. This is elementary constitutional law.

No, it's a common misunderstanding of Consitutional law.

 

[Ziggurat]

The Press is separate as an institution. This is elementary constitutional law.

Then what defines the press? And who is empowered to make decisions about that definition?

 

[BenBurch]

Then what defines the press? And who is empowered to make decisions about that definition?

Ultimately, the Supreme Court.

 

[Ziggurat]

No, it's a common misunderstanding of Consitutional law.

The irony here is that if his reading was correct, then whatever cases established such a reading would be far more threatening to our liberties than Citizens United could ever be. Citizens United merely protects rights of corporations that have long been protected for all individuals, but Ben is arguing that some corporations have rights that individuals do not have.

 

[Ziggurat]

Ultimately, the Supreme Court.

You only answered one of my two questions, and not sufficiently either, since cases must be decided before they can be appealed to the Supreme Court.

 

[WildCat]

Ultimately, the Supreme Court.

So anyone without the resources to take a case to the SC can be silenced under your proposed rewrite of the 1st Amendment. And the governmnet gets to decide who is a journalist and who isn't, and thus entitled to publish.

I can't believe you don't see how dangerous that would be.

The wikipedia definition: "Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials."

This is not about journalism and never was, though journalists also enjoy the right. Except if the 1st Amendment is rewritten to exempt corporations, of course. Then any journalist who works for corporate news media will be SOL.

 

[WildCat]

The irony here is that if his reading was correct, then whatever cases established such a reading would be far more threatening to our liberties than Citizens United could ever be. Citizens United merely protects rights of corporations that have long been protected for all individuals, but Ben is arguing that some corporations have rights that individuals do not have.

Good point, and I suppose it also means that corporations have no freedom of speech and freedom of religion, these are only for individuals. The government could, for example, require any corporation bidding on a government contract to donate money to the Church of $cientology. After all, they have no 1st Amendment rights.

It's absurd and dangerous, but Ben and those who think like him are so anxious for short-term political gain they are willing to sacrifice long-term freedoms.

There are remedies to undue corporate influence in politics that don't trample on the Constitution, and that's where efforts should be made. Not in rewriting the 1st Amendment or interpreting it out of existence.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Why would they? How'd that work out for Target when they tried?

Poorly, but ever since Citizens United, they don't have to disclose such information.