Hillary calls for First Amendment o be repealed: Dems cheer!

[TurtleDude]

LOL, trite talking point consisting of a likely made up quote is not a principled defense of oligarchy. Sorry. :roll:

what defense have you made of the lowest common denominator

 

[Mr Person]

This about the ffth time I've heard this irrelevant squawk point form liberals. Same exact wording. the dog whistle must have gone out! LOL

Says the guy who copy/pasted the National Review article to a political site while parroting it's stupid and dishonest claims, as expected/commanded....



I'm sorry some have been so coerced by right-wing memes as to actually believe that their opinion as to an Amendment's meaning is the One True Belief, and that anyone who disagrees wants to "repeal it". Very sad indeed. It's beyond stupid to claim that overturning Citizens United is repealing the Amendment.

I'm also sorry that a related right-wing meme has been employed: you seem to take the fact that a lot of people are telling you why your opinion is wrong as proof that it's correct.

 

[matchlight]

Indeed. It has. In the US, I believe it was formalized at or around the time of the robber barons period (do please correct me if I'm wrong).

Most interesting is the documentary "The Corporation" -The Film - The award-winning film that puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(film)

However, I'm not so sure that this is an honest measure of the good that corporations can bring, and occasionally do.

I wouldn't necessarily be adverse to limiting some aspects of the legal personhood status that corporations now hold, because they really aren't people.

I can't swear to it without researching the question, by I think you'll find the legal concept of corporate personhood existed in English common law and was discussed by Blackstone.

 

[JasperL]

While I agree with you, there is a principled case that it is in fact good for the country:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

Because of this, there is a strong case to be made that those that do not produce / contribute should not have a vote.

LOL, that's a repeat of a likely invented quote that's actually not based on any actual history I've ever been able to locate.

But even if you have a point - I don't think so - it's not as if the field is level even now, or ever can be. The rich will always wield power way outside their numbers and it's been that way throughout history and there is no indication it's changing now. Supposedly at this risky time in our democracy, the top 1% and the top 1/10th and 1/100th of 1% have never in history controlled so much wealth and power, and it's not just here, but throughout the world.

I have this argument all the time with the other person in this discussion, and it's just nonsense to look at one number - taxes paid - to figure out whether the system is working for the rich or the poor. The only stat that really matters is after tax income and wealth and by that measure, again, the world is aligned like never before for the oligarchs. And it's with this backdrop that they are arguing for MORE influence, as a check on the very ability of our country to survive.

That's just nonsense. If this country falls it won't be because the poor have preyed on the rich and taken all their money through progressive taxes, it will be because the economy has completely failed those not-rich. That's the actual danger as I see it and how a blowhard like Trump and a socialist like Bernie suddenly find an audience.

And how do you determine if someone is a producer or contributor? Positive tax liability - $1 is enough? What kind of taxes - just federal income taxes or does paying payroll taxes count? And does a non-working spouse get a vote? How about my retired mother in law - she's no longer producing anything, she's a leach on the system through SS and Medicare! So either we all get a vote or not, but if not, then let's just dispense with the charade and maybe hold an auction instead of elections for the House, Senate and WH. Or maybe oligarchs or their puppets fill the House (highest bidder of course) and the Fortune 100 each get a seat in the Senate!

 

[ARealConservative]

So does charisma have an impact. So does the weather. The test isn't whether time equals money (it doesn't), but whether time equals speech. It doesn't. No thanks on the dialogue.

charisma is a part of talent.

No thanks on the dialogue.

bye

 

[JasperL]

what defense have you made of the lowest common denominator

One man one vote is lowest common denominator? Who knew?

Besides, I've already explicitly outlined just some of the many ways the wealthy will always wield power far greater than their numbers, so obviously I'm not actually arguing for nor do I believe that LCD is doable or advisable. It's another of your many straw men on this thread.

 

[KLATTU]

Says the guy who copy/pasted the National Review article to a political site while parroting it's stupid and dishonest claims, as expected/commanded....



I'm sorry some have been so coerced by right-wing memes as to actually believe that their opinion as to an Amendment's meaning is the One True Belief, and that anyone who disagrees wants to "repeal it". Very sad indeed. It's beyond stupid to claim that overturning Citizens United is repealing the Amendment.

I'm also sorry that a related right-wing meme has been employed: you seem to take the fact that a lot of people are telling you why your opinion is wrong as proof that it's correct.

"And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"


Well how is she going to do it without at least partially repealing the first amendment?

 

[eohrnberger]

I can't swear to it without researching the question, by I think you'll find the legal concept of corporate personhood existed in English common law and was discussed by Blackstone.

I don't doubt it. I really wasn't sure, but I seem to recall some sort of legal decision rendered in the robber baron period that formalized and / or extended legal corporate personhood, but as I said, I could be wrong on that.

 

[Absentglare]

"And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"


Well how is she going to do it without at least partially repealing the first amendment?

The fact that you cannot answer that question speaks very poorly for your understanding of the first amendment.

 

[Mr Person]

"And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"

Well how is she going to do it without at least partially repealing the first amendment?

So we're down to "partially"?

Overturning Citizens United is not "repealing" (though the wrong word to use) an amendment. It's just overturning the portion of a decision that interprets something the constitution is silent on: whether money is related to speech or is in fact speech.

If a later Court overturned Citizens United, you wouldn't be able to correctly say that it therefore "repealed" the 1st. It's not any different if a later amendment is passed clarifying (ie, interpreting) the 1st in such a way as to overturn Citizens United.

 

[Casper]

I believe that our economy isn’t working the way it should because our democracy isn’t working the way it should. That’s why we need to appoint Supreme Court justices who will get money out of politics and expand voting rights, not restrict them. And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!

Read more at: Citizens United & Hillary Clinton -- Overturning Means Repealing First Amendment | National Review

Of course, we can call a constitutional amendment that overturns Citizens United by another name: a repeal of the First Amendment. The consequence of Citizens United, that corporations can spend without limit on independent political advocacy, flows directly from the First Amendment guarantees that free speech and association will not be abrogated by the government. A corporation is a legal entity that represents an association of people. People who associate in the form of a corporation do not lose their First Amendment right to free speech — a right which includes spending money to make a commercial, for instance, about the upcoming election. Citizens United affirms this principle in consonance with the First Amendment. A constitutional amendment that overturns Citizens United would literally be a constitutional amendment that repeals the First Amendment. Clinton’s promise to do so was an applause line.

Strange, I thought it was Trump that wanted to control what others say. So we have a tie, Both candidates hate the 1st A. Why does it come as no actual surprise.

 

[jonny5]

Then why spend money if it doesn't?

To try and influence their decision. Thats the purpose of political speech.

 

[JasperL]

I don't doubt it. I really wasn't sure, but I seem to recall some sort of legal decision rendered in the robber baron period that formalized and / or extended legal corporate personhood, but as I said, I could be wrong on that.

I think this is the case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad_Co.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 US 394 (1886) is a United States corporate law case of the United States Supreme Court on taxation of railroad properties. A headnote issued by the Court Reporter claimed to state the sense of the Court regarding the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as it applies to corporations, without the Court having actually made a decision or issued a written opinion on that issue. This was the first time that the Supreme Court was reported to hold that the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause granted constitutional protections to corporations as well as to natural persons,

This case is one reason I kind of laugh at the 'originalists' who say the 14th Amendment was only supposed to address slavery but doesn't apply, for example, to LGBT.

 

[natsb]

So we're down to "partially"?

Overturning Citizens United is not "repealing" (though the wrong word to use) an amendment. It's just overturning the portion of a decision that interprets something the constitution is silent on: whether money is related to speech or is in fact speech.

If a later Court overturned Citizens United, you wouldn't be able to correctly say that it therefore "repealed" the 1st. It's not any different if a later amendment is passed clarifying (ie, interpreting) the 1st in such a way as to overturn Citizens United.

From the ruling:

All speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech, and the First Amendment protects the resulting speech.

CU says everyone, without exception is entitled to First Amendment rights. That sounds fundamental to me. Would you propose a system where First Amendment rights were applied according to social status?

What would a repeal look like? I can't imagine a system were we were put into groups. ie group A = shut up, group B = say all you want, group c = can only talk through representative, etc.

No, the only fair way to apply the First is the way the CU establishes. That everyone is entitled to free speech regardless of there status as an individual, or in a group.

 

[eohrnberger]

I think this is the case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad_Co.

Reading the Wiki page, yeah, that sounds like it. Excellent find!

This case is one reason I kind of laugh at the 'originalists' who say the 14th Amendment was only supposed to address slavery but doesn't apply, for example, to LGBT.

Yeah, I can see your point on that one. If it includes slaves, extended to corporations, it would seem quite reasonable that it would also extend LGBTQ.

 

[ludin]

What is nonsense? I was trying to indicate I thought they should all live under the SAME RULES.

Sorry that isn't how your post read at all.

 

[JasperL]

Sorry that isn't how your post read at all.

I can see that. No problem.

 

[Mr Person]

From the ruling:

CU says everyone, without exception is entitled to First Amendment rights. That sounds fundamental to me. Would you propose a system where First Amendment rights were applied according to social status? What would a repeal look like? I can't imagine a system were we were put into groups. ie group A = shut up, group B = say all you want, group c = can only talk through representative, etc. No, the only fair way to apply the First is the way the CU establishes. That everyone is entitled to free speech regardless of there status as an individual, or in a group.

1. This has nothing to do with the point that an amendment limiting or overturning "Citizens United" cannot logically be called "repealing the first amendment".

2. If you're going to engage in legal reasoning, you do not pluck one single sentence from a 183 page decision, ignore the rest, and just start opining about what it must mean. Legal reasoning is very complex and takes quite a bit of time, if one is worried about getting it right.



Your point doesn't make much sense to me, as a response to what I said or on its own. The core problem with Citizens United is that it treated the spending of money as functionally equivalent with speech, a treatment it largely based on an assumption that such spending of money does not create corruption or the appearance of corruption in politics.

But then, we weren't even really debating the validity or not of Citizens United. We were debating whether overturning that core ruling with an amendment would be "repealing the First Amendment". It wouldn't. That's just the same sort of hysterical hyperbole people regularly use when they want to make it look like their argument is stronger than it is.

 

[KLATTU]

So we're down to "partially"?

Overturning Citizens United is not "repealing" (though the wrong word to use) an amendment. It's just overturning the portion of a decision that interprets something the constitution is silent on: whether money is related to speech or is in fact speech.
ed.

that's not what she said though.
She said she was going to overturn it via a constitutional amendement.
"And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"

I guess i will be something like" Despite what the First amendment says , the government may restrict speech of corporations who call me a liar, even though I am one" LAFFRIOT!

 

[Mr Person]

She said she was going to overturn it via a constitutional amendement.
"And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"

Citizens United addresses one portion of the vast body of First Amendment interpretative caselaw.

""And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"" simply does not mean "we'll repeal the first amendment". It's false hyperbole to claim otherwise. It's just not anywhere close to true.

 

[blaxshep]

Citizens United addresses one portion of the vast body of First Amendment interpretative caselaw.

""And we’ll pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United!"" simply does not mean "we'll repeal the first amendment". It's false hyperbole to claim otherwise. It's just not anywhere close to true.

Not to mention CU cant be repealed it would be overturned.

 

[jonny5]

Not to mention CU cant be repealed it would be overturned.

Whats funny is this is a democrat actually suggesting we do something legally for once. BUT, i suspect if shes elected shell just try it via executive order first.

 

[natsb]

1. This has nothing to do with the point that an amendment limiting or overturning "Citizens United" cannot logically be called "repealing the first amendment".

Okay, clearly we have different interpretations of logic. To say the First Amendment will remain intact, but... There will be restrictions on who may speak during political seasons, what they can say, and how they can sat it. So, on one hand to say it isn't repealed, but on the other hand, say we are not allowed to use it, creates a logical dissonance; doesn't it?

2. If you're going to engage in legal reasoning, you do not pluck one single sentence from a 183 page decision, ignore the rest, and just start opining about what it must mean. Legal reasoning is very complex and takes quite a bit of time, if one is worried about getting it right.

Actually I have read the entire thing several times. This is why your statement puzzles me. Surely, having read the ruling, you know that the line I referenced makes a statement of fact, then is followed by several pages to support that statement. Are you suggesting I should quote that sentence along with the 18 pages that support it? I would hope somebody who shares my desire to get things right would also understand how rulings are crafted.

Your point doesn't make much sense to me, as a response to what I said or on its own. The core problem with Citizens United is that it treated the spending of money as functionally equivalent with speech, a treatment it largely based on an assumption that such spending of money does not create corruption or the appearance of corruption in politics.

Not really. CU establishes that other rulings have equated speech with money and that CU has no intention of overturning those rulings as they are not part of the complaint.

Sorry, but here comes the next not really... CU does not assume "that such spending of money does not create corruption or the appearance of corruption in politics". The CU ruling makes it very clear that the Buckley court already decided whether or not contributions lead to corruption, therefore, the CU ruling had no need to readdress the issue. CU does not overturn any limits set for direct contributions.

The Buckley Court explained that the potential for quid pro quo corruption distinguished direct contributions to candidates from independent expenditures. The Court emphasized that “the independent expenditure ceiling . . . fails to serve any substantial governmental interest in stemming the reality or appearance of corruption in the electoral process,” id., at 47–48, because “[t]he absence of prearrangement and coordination . . . alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate,” id., at 47. Buckley invalidated §608(e)’s restrictions on independent expenditures, with only one Justice dissenting. See Federal Election Comm’n v. National Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S. 480, 491, n. 3 (1985) (NCPAC).

But then, we weren't even really debating the validity or not of Citizens United. We were debating whether overturning that core ruling with an amendment would be "repealing the First Amendment". It wouldn't. That's just the same sort of hysterical hyperbole people regularly use when they want to make it look like their argument is stronger than it is.

I cannot agree. Saying that the First is left in place, but citizens are not allowed to use it, has the same effect has a repeal.

Let me try this analogy. If the government showed up at your home and forced you and your family to the sidewalk, then moved another family into your home, would you stand on the sidewalk thinking: "Well, at least they didn't take my home away from me, I still own it." By the same logic, one cannot take away the use of our First Amendment rights, then proclaim: "But you still get to keep them."

 

[Jack Hays]

". . . Opposition to Citizens United is frequently distilled into the slogan that “corporations are not people,” to which Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) adds this example of progressive insight: “People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They cry. They dance. They live. They love. And they die.” And a few teach at Harvard Law School, as Warren was able to do only because Harvard did not die: It is descended from the first corporation chartered in Colonial America.
Surely she learned in law school something she can relearn by reading “Are Corporations People?” in National Affairs by Carson Holloway of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The concept of corporate personhood, he says, is not an invention of today’s conservatives. It derives from English common law and is “deeply rooted in our legal and constitutional tradition.”
William Blackstone, the English jurist who richly influenced the United States’ Founders, said that corporations are “artificial persons” created to encourage socially useful cooperation among individuals and are accorded certain rights so that they can hold property and have lives, identities and missions that span multiple generations. Early in U.S. history, many for-profit corporations were less important than the nonprofit educational and religious corporations that still produce the nation’s robust civil society of freely cooperating citizens.
If corporations had no rights of personhood, they would have no constitutional protections against, for example, the arbitrary search and seizure by government of their property without just compensation. And there would be no principled reason for denying the right of free speech (the First Amendment does not use the word “person” in guaranteeing it) to for-profit (e.g., the New York Times) or nonprofit (e.g., the NAACP) corporations.
In his attack on the Bill of Rights, Sanders voted to exempt for-profit media corporations from government regulation of corporate speech. Why? Because such corporations, alone among for-profit and nonprofit corporations, are uniquely altruistic and disinterested? Please. . . ."

Progressives' anti-free speech itch - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../387c1522-d0e8-11e5-b2bc-98...The Washington Post


Feb 12, 2016 - By George F. Will Opinion writer ... Opposition to Citizens United is frequently distilled into the slogan that “corporations are not people,” to ...

 

[JasperL]

Okay, clearly we have different interpretations of logic. To say the First Amendment will remain intact, but... There will be restrictions on who may speak during political seasons, what they can say, and how they can sat it. So, on one hand to say it isn't repealed, but on the other hand, say we are not allowed to use it, creates a logical dissonance; doesn't it?

But there are already limits on your speech, and yet the 1st Amendment is still operative, just as there are limits to the 2nd Amendment, etc. And limits on spending don't mean you cannot speak, or limit what you can say, just that there are limits on the amount you can spend broadcasting the message.

Sorry, but here comes the next not really... CU does not assume "that such spending of money does not create corruption or the appearance of corruption in politics". The CU ruling makes it very clear that the Buckley court already decided whether or not contributions lead to corruption, therefore, the CU ruling had no need to readdress the issue. CU does not overturn any limits set for direct contributions.

That's disingenuous at best. The court spent a great deal of time discussing the Buckley decision and at one point declared that the "anticorruption interest is not sufficient." p41. So they discussed Buckley, point by point, and agreed with each point. So they did address the issue and very explicitly noted their agreement with the conclusion that if I give $10,000 to the official campaign it's potentially corrupting but if I give $500,000 or $10 million or $100 million to Hillary's dedicated but supposedly "independent" SuperPac, it's somehow not, and doesn't even give rise to the appearance of corruption.

I cannot agree. Saying that the First is left in place, but citizens are not allowed to use it, has the same effect has a repeal.

Let me try this analogy. If the government showed up at your home and forced you and your family to the sidewalk, then moved another family into your home, would you stand on the sidewalk thinking: "Well, at least they didn't take my home away from me, I still own it." By the same logic, one cannot take away the use of our First Amendment rights, then proclaim: "But you still get to keep them."

A better analogy is you have a right to keep and bear arms, but if you want to fly, you'll have to leave your Glock at home, or at least check it with your bags below the plane. That's not a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, and as many times as you claim otherwise, limiting speech directly intended to influence elections is not a ban on free speech, it's a limit, and the only question (in a big picture way) is whether that limit serves a legitimate purpose, preventing political corruption or the appearance of corruption.

You can still speak about the election, but your spending may be limited. That does not mean you've lost all your rights with regard to speech - it's an absurd assertion.