Shut Up, They Explained (Congress, the president, and the courts team up to gag freedom of speech)

The American Prowler ^ | 12/12/2003 | Paul J. Cella III

[nickcarraway]

An interesting and horrifying thing happened this Wednesday. The United States Supreme Court modified key portions of the First Amendment to the Constitution, and few citizens took notice. Admittedly, those portions include such minor and ambiguous clauses as "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" and "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." According to the Court, Congress may indeed abridge these freedoms, even in the context that the authors of the Constitution specifically had in mind when the Amendment was passed: namely, politics. Campaign funding is just too messy; its appearances too sordid.

Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his dissent, with simple but devastating irony, that important aspects of free speech are "cast aside in the purported service of preventing 'corruption,' or the mere 'appearance of corruption.'" This leaves the marketplace of ideas fully open only to "defamers, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, (1964); nude dancers, Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., (1991); pornographers, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, (2002); flag burners, United States v. Eichman, (1990); and cross burners, Virginia v. Black, (2003)."

Lest readers think this yet another polemic against the lawless Court, I will acknowledge that both Congress and the President abetted the passage of the bill in question, which goes by the dreary euphemism "campaign finance reform." In short, officers of all three branches of our Federal Republic violated oaths taken before God to uphold our Constitution, or at least acted with inexcusable irresponsibility against the spirit of those oaths. These officers will suffer no penalty for this action: those vulnerable to it will not be impeached; those subject to it will not be cast out of office in the next election (at least not for this reason). Nothing much will happen.

Justice Thomas goes on, adopting now the prophetic posture:

It is not difficult to see where this leads. Every law has limits, and there will always be behavior not covered by the law but at its edges; behavior easily characterized as 'circumventing' the law's prohibition. Hence, speech regulation will again expand to cover new forms of 'circumvention,' only to spur supposed circumvention of the new regulations, and so forth.

It is an unhappy thing to reflect on how indifferent Americans are to the creeping despotism that confronts them. Some may admonish me that I am too intemperate about these Byzantine accretions against our liberties. But I am with Chesterton, who advised, "The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt." This because, "It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt." He continued, "Sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air."

And call me crazy but I maintain that legislation so brazenly in violation of the clear intent of the Constitution is grounds for the impeachment of a judge or executive, and the censure and democratic removal of a legislator. Were this a healthy republic of men jealous of their liberty, these would be our tools to rebuke that creeping despotism which is peculiar to democracies, and which the great French diagnostician of politics Alexis de Tocqueville described with astonishing prescience:

It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

The justification for this law's passage by the Legislature, and acceptance by Executive and Judiciary is so thin, and the outcry against it so muted and mild, that one is inclined to conclude that Tocqueville's nightmare is becoming our reality.

Paul J. Cella III lives in Atlanta. He runs the website Cella's Review.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[Fledermaus]

Oh come on, don't worry! Bush was correct to sign the CFR because we all were told there was NO WAY the Supreme Court would............

Oops, nevermind!

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

This is really frightening. Where's the public outcry?

[ETERNAL WARMING]

The Media are giving it a pass. The outcry is there...we've been calling the WhiteHouse to "thank" President Bush for the betrayal. Join us:

Comments: 202-456-1111 and 202-456-1414 Switchboard

[At _War_With_Liberals]

"Every network on Wednesday highlighted the angry reaction of nations excluded from receiving U.S.-paid contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, but CBS went the furthest in treating the decision to limit the contracts to the 63 nations in the anti-Hussein coalition as some kind of scandalous punishment when it could also be seen as a reward to those who helped or as an incentive to others to join up. Dan Rather managed to work “Halliburton” and “war-profiteering” into his introduction of his lead story. CNBC’s Brian Williams noted how critics warned that Bush’s “with us or against us” rhetoric had too much “swagger,” but now, he worried, “it is much more real.”

Howard Dean appeared on all three broadcast network morning shows on Wednesday morning and, other than CBS’s Harry Smith pointing out to him that unlike him “most Americans supported” the war against Iraq, none really challenged him on anything and largely stuck to the horse race. Smith also delivered a sarcastic question about Bush policy: “Today we learned the Pentagon has barred Russia, France and Germany from bidding on reconstruction projects there. Is that how we get them to send more troops?” And NBC’s Katie Couric very strangely contended that Al Gore “is considered sort of a hardcore centrist.”

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20031211.asp


...While the networks and the leftist media will run propaganda like this right up until the moment the polls close.

This plays right into the hands of totalitarian minded Dem socialists.

[Political Junkie Too]

The public has become desensitized to the corruption from all three branches of our government.

-PJ

[familyop]

Ah, that's the McCain-Feingold bill, now law. It's to prevent the likes of Soros and labor unions from buying our presidents into office with tens of millions of propaganda dollars. So where's the part of the exact text in the law that bans free expression? I'd like to see that, if it exists.

[goldstategop]

Freedom is lost on the comfortable and those say "it can't happen here." Now the SCOTUS has given the government the license to create an American Gulag and the nice part about it, is its constitutional.

[familyop]

It's easy to tell when the General Election campaigning has begun. Dem cucurachas come runnin' outa the woodwork to tell us conservatives to stay away from the polls.

[nickcarraway]

Well check it out. For one thing there is a 60 day window before an election where there are restrictions on who can crititicize a candidate. Sounds like a congress is making a law abridging free expression to me.

[nickcarraway]

It's to prevent the likes of Soros and labor unions from buying our presidents into office with tens of millions of propaganda dollars.

You need to do more research! Labor unions are exempt from this law. So this law only increases their power.

Secondly George Soros supported this law and put his money behind getting a campaign finance law. He has already pledged to spend tens of millions defeating President Bush. He said that he would spend all 15 billion dollars of his fortune to get Bush out of office. Guess what, this law helps him! Who gets the shaft? Voters like you and I, and oh yeah, the Constitution.

[nickcarraway]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This is called the First Ammendment. McCain-Feingold=abridging freedom of speech and the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Now, I can burn the flag, I can distribute pornography, I can burn crosses, but my ability to criticize elected officials is restricted.

[clee1]

To: President George W. Bush
From: clee1
Subject: Write a General Comment on Legal/Judicial (Campaign Finance Reform)

Dear President Bush:

I am writing to express my displeasure at your support and signature of the CFR act, and on your continued big-government spending programs.

I voted for you and gave a campaign contribution in the 2000 election; I even picketed CNN when Al Gore tried to steal the election with his tactics in Florida.

Mr. President, I appreciate your stand on National Security and the War on Terror, and your ignoring the U.N. and the appeasement crowd in Europe. What I don't appreciate is your continued policies supporting the restriction of my 1st Amendment rights, and your willingness to give in to the Democrats and the AARP with your exorbitant deficit spending.

Mr. President, it is past time for the Federal Government to tighten it's belt, and to quit infringing on the liberties guaranteed in the Constitution.

I will not be giving money to your campaign this year, and may consider writing in "Mickey Mouse" on 2004's ballot.

Sincerely,

[Imal]

An eloquent response to grim tidings. I wish it weren't true.

[NormsRevenge]

BaaaaDOINK!