Posted on 12/17/2003 3:05:36 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
The real fight won't be in court. The real fight will be in the media and by word of mouth. The jury of common sense will make the ultimate decision.
Congressman BillyBob proposes to begin a small revolution. And he has invited us to join him...
If an innocent citizen is sent to jail because of criticizing the government, that demonstrates how unconstitutional, un-American, and unjust this "campaign finance reform" is. When people see just what this unconstitutional law means, they'll be demanding its repeal.
Get Lucky with John Armor
There's your campaign slogan!
I have a problem. Having thought so long and hard on the subject of the first amendment that you could smell the wood burning all the way from New York, I think that the government has a right to censor broadcasting. That is, if it has the right to create and sustain broadcasting, it has the inherent right to censor it.Broadcasting is not a mere matter of getting some electronics and putting a plug in the wall and chattering into a microphone--that is mere radio wave emission. Broadcasting is having the government censor everyone else in your neighborhood from doing likewise at your frequency. Censorship inheres in broadcasting, and there is a constitutional problem at its very core.
Since broadcasting is by now a tradition--not to say, a major industry--we have a serious problem. The Constitution was in that sense "broke" before most of us were born. And as much as I have ruminated over the issue, I have no real idea of how it might be fixed. And inasmuch as your Asheville broadcaster depends utterly on his government license, and you are merely opposing censorship which is inherent in that very license, If I were a lawyer (rather than a retired engineer) with a responsibility to faithfully advise a client as to his interests, I would say that this is a windmill-joust.
The First Amendment says we have a right to speak, and an implied right to listen if we choose to meet the criteria necessary to get within earshot. The FCC puts us within earshot, provided we so choose to buy and tune in our receiver (we do at least retain, so far, the right not to do that). But only within earshot of particular people who are FCC licensees. The rest of us have the right to listen and the duty to shut up--and have accepted that duty all our lives.
Censorship of broadcast campaign ads is simply an extension of that inherent censorship, and it even makes sense once you have made the fatal mistake of accepting FCC definition of "the public interest." The broadcasters, with the approval of the FCC, conflate "the public interest" with "what interests the public."
The public interest is universal understanding of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence--and of history generally. The public interest is clarity of thought, and action of voters to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. What interests the public, OTOH, includes depiction of attractive females, and suchlike. The problem is that "The News" is interesting like a train wreck, and does not edify.
The public is interested in what votes have been decided in eastern time zones, irrespective of the fact that that knowledge would and routinely does affect the vote in western time zones. The public interest is that each voter cast their vote for the protection of the Constitution, irrespective of that. The difference between the two was the suppressed turnout in the FL panhandle--and very nearly the overturning of the '00 election.
I think this CFR threatens FR pretty directly. The answer IMHO is to structure this site as "NEWS" and thus as immune from the limitations of other forms of speech.Then fight the issue of whether FR is "journalism" just because it says so, or whether The New York Times is journalism for any other reason than that it says so. Because that is the quagmire that the First Amendment was crafted to keep the courts out of--and what CFR, and the FCC before it, put the government in.
For decades, I urged many people to consider a test case to overturn the Red Lion decision, which held that broadcasters do not have the same freedom of the press in choosing their content that the print media do. Given the environment of the present Court, I abandon that idea for the moment.
Exclusivity of the broadcast frequency in one's area is a technological necessity. That began with the Radio Act of 1924, as I recall. That is NOT the same thing as "censorship." For instance, both the Washington Times and the Washington Post have the right to put out newspaper boxes on the streets of D.C. Neither has the right to take over the exact spot of the other one's box. Placing the box has nothing to do with the content of either newspaper.
As I've written before, now that the camel's nose is under the tent concerning content regulation of citizens speaking to and about their government in broadcast ads, the next logical target of the politicians is the Internet -- not just FreeRepublic, but the entire Internet.
That's one of the reasons I've chosen to risk fines and jail time in a frontal challenge to the CFR ad ban. I can see exactly where this is headed, and it isn't pretty.
I hope that you, and all others who read these comments and agrees with them, will click the link at the top of this thread, and do what their consciences tell them to do, to assist the effort. I can't ask for any more than that.
John / Billybob
John / Billybob
The point is that broadcasters HAVE NO DISCRETION TO REFUSE ANY AD BY ANY FEDERAL CANDIDATE (including Congress). If I present such an in-your-face ad that attacks CFR, they MUST run it. They have no choice in the matter.
I understand where you're coming from, that the powers-that-be will see to it that the ad never airs. But as long as the law says they MUST run the ad, they can have controvery on their station -- and controvery sells ink and airtime -- while their lawyers tell them that they are protected against backlash because the law says "Run it."
John / Billybob
John / Billybob
I'd like to borrow your phrase, that I am appealing to the "jury of common sense." You bet. And you're absolutely right that the real fight is not the one in court.
A clear example is Lt. Col. West in Iraq. The Army would have court-martialed the man. But the press got their teeth into the story, a few honorable Congressman got up on their hind legs (yes. Virginia, there ARE still a few honorable Congressman), and the Army backed down.
Most cases are won or lost inside the courtroom. But a few cases are, of necessity, won or lost outside the courtroom.
Thanks for your comments.
John / Billybob
The shortcoming of the argument lies in the establishment of the principle, first that there are only the Washington Times and the Washington Post, and none other--say nothing of 500 others--newspapers. And second and equally important, that journalism--a genre of publication distinguished first of all by its need to meet deadlines, and secondly by its general need to attract attention--is uniquely legitimate as nonfiction.Neither of those "principles" is a constitutional principle. Neither of them are consistent with constitutional principle. The planted axiom of such "principles" is censorship.
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