The fundamental issue is not freedom of speech - nobody, yet, is talking about censoring Rush’s speech, only his ability to broadcast it. And most people - even conservatives on SCOTUS - don’t have a handle on the difference, calling money “speech.” But the real deal is that
- While it costs nothing to flap your gums, nobody who isn’t allowed to spend money on paper, ink, and printing presses has freedom of the press.
- Of course, broadcast/cable/satellite transmission is not a literal printing press - but the Constitution explicitly authorizes Congress to create the Patent Office " To promote the progress of science and useful arts.”
- Since broadcast/cable/satellite communication is clearly an enhanced capability of doing what the printing press does, it is unconstitutional to regulate the expenditure of money to communicate opinions - whether religious, political, or other.
- The First Amendment is not only an explicit bar to some government regulation, but is suggestive of the rights of freedom of communication in media perhaps not imagined when the First Amendment was proposed. The Ninth Amendment invalidates the idea that the First Amendment limits the rights of the people in any way whatsoever.
- But apart from the First Amendment strictures against censorship, there lies its stricture against an establishment of religion, and thus of a government-sanctioned official priesthood. In coordination with the Constitution’s strictures against titles of nobility, those strictures rule out constitutionally sanctioned special communication rights for special people. This is the actual crux of our censorship issues.
- There is not much tendency for the government to censor Establishment wire service journalism, for the simple reason that journalism and the Democratic Party are in cahoots and will scratch each others’ back on any occasion. Rather, the tendency is precisely the opposite - Democrat and Journalist promotion of censorship of the right of the people at large, apart from the journalism monopoly, to freedom to publicize their opinions without being members of the Associated Press.
BINGO!
We have too much government. The 2nd Amendment is just like the 1st and the 3rd through the [Forgotten] 10th. All meant to keep government out.
If government licenses free speech - media, news businesses, etc. - it’s already gone too far. We don’t need federal licensing and permitting in a free society. We just keep exchanging liberty for government (disguised as security)
bmk
BTTT