With the nation facing economic uncertainty and a pile of other problems, Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico has introduced a constitutional amendment to regulate campaign contributions. Every liberal should be forced to read James Madison’s Federalist 10 until they get it. Well, maybe should they should start with the Constitution first.
The amendment would effectively reverse two landmark Supreme Court decisions — the 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which said spending money in elections is a form of speech, and the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled it unconstitutional to regulate the money spent to influence elections by corporations and unions.
Let’s just chuckle at the fact the Democrat controlled Senate has time to think about this and can’t even bring Obama’s reelection campaign jobs bill up for debate. I touched on this yesterday, but does anyone on the left think through this stuff? Obama received more money from banks and Wall Street in 2008, but apparently his constituents are occupying Wall Street?
It seems the left isn’t concerned with evil corporations when they’re funding Democrats. Or maybe they’re just too willfully ignorant to notice the hypocrisy.
Ronald Reagan famously said about progressives, a.k.a., liberals: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.” The most infamous recent example of this willful ignorance is the Left’s reaction to Arizona’s immigration law.
Apparently, no one in the Obama administration has bothered to read Arizona’s law, but they are so heavily invested in their ideology that what they want to believe about the law makes it magically turn into what they believe it is: a racist, fascist excuse for Arizona’s Gestapo-like police to harass and detain anyone with dark skin or an accent.
I know exactly how William Shatner felt in the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". Does anyone else notice that the Obama administration is lying about Arizona's immigration law? Stewardess! There's a creature on the wing!
Every time I hear someone in the Obama administration denounce Arizona’s law – from Obama himself down to people whose job it is to actually know the law, like Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano – I feel like I’m living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. I’m almost as shocked and perplexed as William Shatner was when he saw a creature on the wing of the airplane he was flying on. Is this really happening and does anyone else notice it?
This is just the tip of the wing, however, as the belief in an alternative universe translates to every conceivable issue. Cyclical, historical climate change turns into Armageddon. Babies are no longer babies, but clumps of unorganized tissue that reveal themselves as babies only after they leave the womb. The only way to make airplanes safe from terrorists is not to look for terrorists. And so on and so forth.
My favorite is how progressives turn the First Amendment into something completely different than what it actually says. They believe it calls for the “separation of church and state,” though it says no such thing. It actually reads, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” That’s funny, the words “separation,” “church,” or “state” refuse to appear in the First Amendment. Maybe they’re hiding elsewhere in the Constitution? Or maybe not.
Despite the conspicuous absence of these words from the Constitution, progressives are constantly shouting down any religious references in the public square based on the Constitution’s supposed prohibition of religious speech through the “separation” clause. No such clause exists and the Amendment clearly states that Congress “shall make no law,” which means, for any progressives reading this, that Congress “shall make no law.” Do I need to repeat the phrase again so it’s clear? Apparently I do, but even if I do repeat it, progressives will still read, “separation of church and state.” It’s exasperating to say the least.
In the same way, progressives read the First Amendment’s free speech clauses as applying only to individuals and the causes they believe in. In other words, if you’re an organization representing the interests of a group of people, you’re not entitled to the same speech rights as an individual. Moreover, if you’re a group progressives distrust and malign, say an evil corporation or a conservative non-profit, you have even fewer rights to free speech, if any.
Progressives fervently believe that the First Amendment applies only to individuals when it’s in their best interests to believe this (see Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission), though the text itself says, rather clearly: “…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.” The key phrase here is “of the people”. Note that it does not read, “of the person,” nor does it say, “of the people we agree with who aren’t racist Nazi homophobes like we say they are because they don’t believe in the same foolish notions of creating an earthly Utopia like we do.”
I’m sad that I even have to waste time on this topic. A few weeks ago the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act that violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. While the story has been the outrage from the left and independents about the ruling (thanks in part to the horrible coverage in the press) the real story should be there are four justices on the Supreme Court who don’t understand Freedom of Speech. The ruling by the Supreme Court didn’t go far enough in protecting Free Speech as far as I’m concerned. Rodney Smith has an op-ed in the Washington Times that agrees with my position.
In Federalist 10, James Madison states that special interest groups will always exist and that we need to get use to them. He argues that “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire. Human life is sustained by air. So is fire.” The elimination of air to eliminate the threat of fire would also mean the end of human life. Likewise, freedom is essential to both special interests and to vigorous political debate. Withdraw freedom from special interest and you destroy political life itself. This is exactly what campaign finance reform has done.
If tomorrow I decide to make a movie about a political candidate and it’s funded by a major film studio what business does the Federal Government have in telling me it’s not allowed? It may be unseemly to some that a corporation funds my movie but unseemly doesn’t rise to the point of restricting the First Amendment. The most frustrating part of this issue is there isn’t anyone adequately explaining why this decision was a victory for the First Amendment. It’s certainly not President Obama, who shamefully attacked the Supreme Court during the State of the Union. Obviously, the President either doesn’t understand or would rather score cheap populist points than tell the truth.
Why are corporations such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and FOX News exempt from campaign finance laws? The editorial content of these news outlets is very political and is absolutely not objective. The reason these corporations are exempt is the same reason why campaign finance reform is unconstitutional. That’s what is so shocking to me about this issue. The four liberal members of the Supreme Court are okay with some corporations and some citizens being denied the Bill of Rights.
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