Posted on 12/26/2003 4:16:50 AM PST by rhema
The First Amendment died earlier this month.
And if the First Amendment is dead, can we honestly claim to be a democratic republic any more?
This is not hyperbole. Imagine you’re at a meeting of civically minded folks and it’s nearly Election Day. Your Congressman is just about to vote on an issue of great concern to your group. You suggest that it’s time to pass around a hat, collect some money, and buy an add alerting your neighbors – urging them to call the Congressman. You collect the money, and the next morning you go to buy your ad.
You think you’re being a good American – getting involved in the democratic process. After all, the First Amendment said you have the freedom to associate – which you did, with other civically-minded people. That same amendment also said you have a right to petition for redress of grievances, and that you have free speech and press rights – so you can make a commercial that might reflect poorly on your Congressman.
After all, this is America.
But if you haven’t filed for your “license,” you’d be wrong. You need to become familiar with a complex web of laws, or you need to hire the consultants, lawyers, and accountants who already are familiar with those decrees – before you GO to your local station, even before you collect the proverbial $200. Because if you don’t, then you’ll go directly to jail.
Who came up with such an idea? Why, incumbent politicians of course. It bothers them to be criticized. They’ll grudgingly put up with it from their opponents because challengers usually can’t raise sufficient money to publicly and effectively broadcast similar criticism, and they haven’t (yet) found a “Supreme Court-sanctioned” method for suppressing their opponents.
But if you and your neighbors discuss an incumbent’s record in a paid commercial, those are now called “sham issue ads.” According to the majority of the Supreme Court, you need government approval to criticize a politician.
However, Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy were a bit old-fashioned. They said this new law, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), better known as McCain-Feingold, violated free speech and free press rights.
Just in case you think I’m full of hyperbole, or something worse – that I’ve overstated the damage done to the First Amendment or that the members of Congress who supported this bill had good intentions – consider these quotes that Justice Scalia cut and pasted into his judicial opinion:
“This bill is about slowing the ad war… making sure the flow of negative ads by outside interest groups does not continue to permeate the airwaves” - Senator Maria Cantwell, D-WA
“These so-called issues ads... directly attack candidates without any accountability. It is brutal… We have an opportunity in the McCain-Feingold bill to stop that…” - Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA
“I think these issue advocacy ads are a nightmare. I think all of us should hate them… [By passing the legislation], we could get some of this poison politics off television.” - The late Senator Paul Wellstone, D-MN
Justice Thomas closed his opinion by predicting that the institutional press had seen their rights downgraded to a privilege, granted by the good graces of Congress. He wrote,
Media corporations are influential…What is to stop a future Congress from determining that the press is “too influential,” and that the “appearance of corruption” is significant when media organizations endorse candidates or run “slanted” or “biased” news stories…? …what is to stop a future Congress from concluding that the availability of unregulated media corporations creates a loophole that allows for easy circumvention of the limitations of the current campaign finance laws?
Indeed, I believe that longstanding and heretofore unchallenged opinions such as Miami Herald v. Tornillo, are in peril… Now, supporters… need only argue that the press capacity to manipulate popular opinion, gives rise to an “appearance of corruption”… After drumming up some evidence, laws regulating media outlets in their issuance of editorials would be upheld under the [Majority’s] reasoning.
“…Although today’s opinion does not expressly strip the press of First Amendment protection, there is no principle of law or logic that would prevent the application of the Court’s reasoning in that setting. The press now operates at the whim of Congress.”
Days before McCain-Feingold was to be debated in the US Senate, columnist George Will called an old colleague, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation. He got right to the point, “I hope you and yours are doing everything you can to defeat McCain-Feingold in the House.” Weyrich said his troops were gearing up as they spoke. To which Will replied, “I assumed that was the case, but I wanted to be sure. This is the end of the world, you know.”
It may not be the Apocalypse, but the enactment of McCain-Feingold signals the death of an already bruised and battered 1st Amendment. And the destruction of the First Amendment means an apocalypse for democracy.
American Democracy, R.I.P.
Jim Babka is President of the American Liberty Foundation and RealCampaignReform.org, Inc.
It doesn't work that way.
The federal government finances its activities by borrowing; its spending is not limited to the funds that it takes in. It habitually "lives beyond its means." In practical terms it has furnished itself with the ability to create money out of thin air. Tax revenues are used to service the ever-increasing debt load created by borrowing.
This is another example of the governing class accumulating power at the expense of the rest of us.
Always has, always will.
What do you make of the fact that his support is weighted more toward the female end of the voter spectrum (not unlike Slick Willie Clinton)?
Good rant; interesting commentary, BTW.
The Free Republic Washington Times ad was printed in February, before the Senate vote, so it would not have been affected by the new law.
However, it certainly appears that the new law would have made it illegal to run it in the months before the House vote, which took place just after the election.
Perhaps a case like that (with facts- which were totally absent in the special 'advisory' way the court heard this) will arise and persuade the court, or congress, to further restrict the law.
The differences are absolutely huge as the Iraq War and Bush tax cuts have shown.
Funny, you say that and then you post a statement that is absolutely idiotic right after it. I guess if you are just some constantly negative, unhappy, isolated misanthrope like yourself (and many others at FR), then no, there isn't much difference in the two parties. But you will always be unhappy and thinking we are all doomed. So keep voting for Pat Buchanan (or whoever) and keep losing elections. Have fun in your bunker.
The differences are huge on some things (like the ones you mentioned) and minimal to negligible on others. Still, the WOT and tax cuts are extremely important issues, and reason alone to vote for Bush. I'm an advocate of attempting to make the GOP less nanny-statish from the inside rather than "teaching them a lesson" (which never works anyway) from the outside (by voting for another party/candidate).
understand that
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