Posted on 03/22/2015 8:11:04 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The nine justices will hear a one particular-hour oral argument in a case that raises the situation of how states can let or reject politically divisive messages on license plates with out violating absolutely free speech rights. States can generate revenue...
The first amendment explicitly and specifically binds Congress; why should it apply in this case?
I see your point. I withdraw the statement. This is strictly a Tenth Amendment issue.
What always must be considered in cases heard by the SCOTUS is how their decision *may* be applied in very different situations. For this reason, the court subdivides its decisions into four types: whether it is a “blanket” decision, applying across the US; or a regional decision, applying only in those states of a particular federal district court; one that only affects a particular state. And finally, whether their decision applies just to this particular case.
In this particular case, consider the extremes. On one side, if states cannot exclude vanity license plates based on content, what if some loathsome group submits a generally offensive plate? On the other extreme, that states would be prohibited from issuing any themed plates.
In the latter case, right now, all of the states issue “Gold Star” vanity plates, as well as “veteran” and “purple heart” plates. Code Pink hates these and calls them extremist so they should be banned.
“When will the world stop making everything that exists...flags, crosses...divisive. “
They get power from it. If they can make you submit, they win.
License plates are government documents. Stamping any political or religious speech on government documents IS the definition of establishment. The state needs to get out of this business, pronto.
Oh, and Confederate flag supporters? I have to put up with foreigners flying flags other than the stars and stripes in their yards and on cars because Free Speech. I don’t have to put up with it on official government documents. There is ONE FLAG in this country, the stars and stripes.
You lost the right to argue otherwise when you lost the war. The terms of the Confederate states’ readmission to the Union included fealty to the stars and stripes. That hasn’t changed.
You wanna argue some more? Tell me why Mexican Americans can’t have the flag of Mexico stamped on license plates here in California. Because Free Speech, right?
This Yankee believes its their right to post any flag, so long as the US flag, is in a position of superior prominence to all others.
SCOTUS should have declined to involve itself.
Because the courts have ruled that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment means that the Bill of Rights applies to the states.
Was my answer too high a level? OK, I'll play along and let you take it step by step. The state of Texas makes the license plates.
Now my turn. Who set the requirements for creating a specialty license plates?
DoodleDawg, Texas Eagle
I saw Texas Eagle’s question “In Texas, who makes the license plates? The state or the individual? “
And immediately thought of a guy in jail sitting there making them... in which case its both the state and the individual...
You do realize that the case that you're citing, Shenck, wasall about ignoring the first amendment, don't you? Here's some text from the actual opinion:
It well may be that the prohibition of laws abridging the freedom of speech is not confined to previous restraints, although to prevent them may have been the [p52] main purpose, as intimated in Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462. We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. […] The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. […] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.The whole
fire in a crowded theater* argument is a red-herring; for the first amendment does not offer protection for speech but instead prescribes a prohibition for the government making such laws. This is to say that under the first amendment the federal government cannot make judgements of speech [or press] via the law — but this ruling clearly says that the first amendment's unconditional constraint may be ignored on the conditions of preventing
present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. — Or, most simply, they can ignore the constitution's constraints when it is convenient.
* Besides this, the proper response is to consider this false fire-shouter civilly liable; and there there is no legislation involved there. (So, as you can see, by moving the proper realm of consideration, the federal government grants itself more powers, even those expressly prohibited it.)
Ok, let us assume that the 14th Amendment is in play — how does applying text which explicitly cites a specific entity ("congress") to the states make the state's legislature and executive bound? This is to say, by what method is the amendment itself amended to say something other than what it does? — Are we to assume that this magic method of alteration-then-applying is in any way compatible with a written Constitution?
Madison v. Mayburry says this:
he powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it, or that the Legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.But your theory of Constitutional operation takes even legislative acts out of consideration and elevates the judiciary to a super-legislature, something that is apparently popular enough that the USSC's rewriting of the ACA is apparently considered legitimate.
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written Constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
Certainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.
Of course. Was talking about religion, not false fire yelling. Freedom from false religion imposed by the State.
Current dem occupiers apparently think, in any case, that free speech is what is decided to be so, by them. It is not, of course- they have no such power, unlike in Europe today.
GWB did that? Well then the hell with him. That explains a lot, since he never had the backbone to VETO a damn thing in two terms as Pres. He’s another silver spoon trust fund “conservative” A family like the Kennedys only “conservative”
CINOs. Forget JEB— toast.
ACA only to the extent that any state wants to follow it, strung up by huge money commits to people who can’t pay and for which the “subsidy” may not be applied. Thus— non participation. It’s time for state based legitimate civil disobedience. And it is coming, the more they press. We are not ruled by a judiciary like some 3rd world dictatorship.
Prisoners.
And peyton manning group is a 501C3 just like confederate groups. This is yet another example of political targeting, not unlike the IRS Lerner situation. They do not have the power to dictate what license plate will be made by a state. Period.
So kick us out.
You know we know you just make that up, right?
Ping
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