The First Amendment

ARTICLE I.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise 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.

On January 23, 2010, I heard our current president comment in a weekly radio address on a recent Supreme Court decision striking down limitations on political speech by certain organizations, particularly near election times. He indicated that he thought that the decision took our society back one hundred years as far as the efforts to prevent individual speech from being suppressed. He therefore directed his administration to find ways around the decision to restore the status quo. He also indicated that he was doing that to ensure that the common people would always be heard without fear that an independent organization, such as a corporation, would be able to, by monetary or other means, drown them out.

Further, a prominent New York senator was apparently outraged enough to dedicate much chagrin to the issue, thereby granting himself another coveted soundbite intended for nothing more than pandering. He too offered any convenient time and other people's resources to sort a way around the "decision"

One thing seems to have been overlooked by these two men and others of their ilk. As much as the spin that the're trying to get maximum mileage out of may possibly benefit their agendas, the premise that that spin is based on, judicial activism, is not in this circumstance even remotely the case. The restoration of the Constitution is.

Now, first, I don't know about you, but, the idea that we have these two men in positions in which they have sworn to uphold the Constitution, and, by the way, not just untill they don't like it any more, is as stunningly incomprehensible to me as driving a Toyota Prius to the farthest visible galaxy. I simply cannot get my head around it. It truly defies any attempt to quantify it.

For years, special interests have been using the First Amendment as a bed pan for any such excrement as it could catch, for example, offensive art exhibits, filthy comedy on cable television, or, disgusting rap music lyrics. But, when the Great Equalizer is applied to political commentary from what is nothing more than another group of common citizens organized in another special interest organization - a corporation, shrieks of dispair emulate from those who for years had a monoply on such speech themselves because it shatters their perceived superiority and bestows upon them an enforced equality that they usually demand from others, but, refuse to yeild. It takes an ax to their most cherished and effective tool - class warfare.

How are political speech and class warfare both at play on this particular field? Well, for many, it's fairly obvious, but, for the benefit of others, it requires a little analysis, and so shall I indulge that requirement.

It had many, many years ago occurred to those special interests that included the various family branches of Marxism, that they could gain ground in their nefarious persuits by causing chaos by turning people against their countrymen on the grounds of a basic human character flaw - jealousy. (True to the principles of Marxists, they stole the idea from others, it's a very old ploy.) They did this by convincing groups of people, who previously understood that in this country, the only limit to achievement is one's own drive to succeed and excel, that others who practiced that doctrine, and did succeed and excel, were unfairly taking some advantage from those who choose not to put the same effort into their own situations (thereby transferring the forfeited advantage of the underachievers to the special interests). Now, logically, that's patently untrue. But, it's easy to appeal to base instincts, and, once the seed is planted, to grow and extrapolate it to encompass organizations of successfull people, like corporations. And, since these organizations could be, by chance and success, large enough to include people from other locales that aren't known to a particular targeted group, it's easy to demonize them as "nameless and faceless", creating a perception of some dark evil force. Further, this has been going on for so long that it's taken for granted to the point that it doesn't occour to people to give it a thought otherwise. This turns corporations from the prime examples of achievement into the perfect fall guys. All that remained was to pull the mean, evil, successfull corporations' teeth.


So, the next thing to do was to successively over about 75 or so years convince Congress that these mean, evil, successfull groups of hard-working citizens were opressing other groups by rightfully under the First Amendment voicing their opinions about elections. After all, weren't they all priveledged "upper class" (who EARNED it) people who weren't interested in the plight of those others of "lower class" who weren't wiling to work for the same advantage? How dare they be allowed to use their hard earned resources to affect a government that was originally concieved specifically to encourage and protect their industriousness over the lacking ability of the "do-lessers", who wouldn't put forth the effort to so participate in industry or governance? Why, that simply was not fair! Or........was it? Anyway, years of progressive gradualism practiced by the special interests culminated in the "McCain-Feingold" legislation, which, along with previous measures, restricted private citizen groups organized as business concerns, both for profit, and, non-profit, from supporting causes or candidates on a ballot, to the fullest extent so far. With their arch-enemy/host now rendered helpless, special interests like unions were free to confiscate their member's money and throw it at elections with wild abandon. All in the name of giving one "class" a better voice. (And that, by the way, is why the President gave half of General Motors and Chrysler to the unions. Oh, and, to Hell with the stockholders [grandparents and other pensioners] who had their hard earned money from being successful wrapped up in those enterprises.) While it was done in that name, it was decidedly not for that reason.


I want to make it clear that I do not intend to defend everything corporations do, good, bad, or, indifferent, but it must be realized that class warfare in this country is nothing more than a charlaitan's tool to gain illegitimate advantage over other citizens, including those organized as corporations. And, make no mistake, liberal special interests are about nothing else. The glaring irony is that while class warfare claims to oppose inequalities, it only seeks to create them. The First Amendment, however, DOES NOT RECOGNIZE inequality; it prevents it. Now, what would that lead one to logically deduce about the agenda of those who seek to legislatively limit the intent and effectiveness of the First Amendment?


The founding fathers realized that the Constitution would obviously be periodically attacked from without the country by foreign interests. And, they were prescient enough to realize that it would also be attacked from within. That is why they constructed the Constitution in such a manner as to contain the first ten Amendments. It was intended to underscore the freedoms determined to be of of primary importance. The First Amendment by it's very name and place would arguably be considered of foremost importance. What about that ranking could possibly be unclear to people sworn to protect it? Nothing. They simply lied to get the job.....to you.


Thinking about November?