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"a congress and president bent of destroying corporations and good paying jobs"
you're full of . Get a job with Fox.
When you have a congress and president bent of destroying corporations and good paying jobs, maybe it's time to give them a voice again.
"a congress and president bent of destroying corporations and good paying jobs"
you're full of . Get a job with Fox.
Well, it's better than being full of dumb like you are.
WC's such a dumb dittohead.
Soldiers? Government employees? Nobody under any cir stances?
There is a political trend here. What's changed in the last six years is mostly the political composition of the supreme court.
Stevens's argument that some of the questions were not properly before it, that much of the reasoning relied upon in the majority was overbroad and inconsistent not only with originalism but also judicial restraint, has legs. The majority went far beyond the complaint before it, to find remedies not even asked for.
Last edited by Winehole23; 02-04-2010 at 01:08 AM. Reason: Stevens
Conservatives hate activist judges.... oh wait..
"majority went far beyond the complaint before it"
Where's the right-wing hate and noise against an "activist" judiciary when we really need it?
they only hate activism they don't agree with, for sure.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 01-25-2010 at 11:41 AM.
So in other words, they behave exactly like left-wingers do.
I think the point CG, is that the left wing intends for the court to 'rectify' social injustices, ala 'activism'. The right has railed against that since at least the time of the Warren Court. This court has been a majority Republican-appointed court for 20 years or so, and not just Republican but decidedly right-wing for at least the last decade. It has been just as 'activist' in pursuit of of the right's agenda as prior courts were in pursuit of the left's agendas.
So the point of the posters you quote is that the right is no better than the left in its judicial acitivism. Your note that they all behave the same way is accurate as far as it goes, but does not note the irony that the right is now behaving in the same way that they bitterly complained about for about 40 years.
If maintaining the cons utional is activism, then I say "bring it on."
translation: if the court pursues a conservative direction then I'm for it!
And after 40 years of supporting judicial activism now the left suddenly has a problem with it. It's just the opposite side of the exact same coin.
This is overturning judicial activism. Reversing limits put on free speech decades earlier.
fair enough.
That definition of judicial activism is bizarre. Can you point out a single decision of the Court that hasn't cons uted "judicial activism"?
Also, can you explain how this decision fits the "right's agenda" more than the "left's agenda"? As far as I know, this decision has broad support from most activists from both sides.
Judicial activism is fine when it's advancing and protecting the rights of citizens, NOT when it's screwing citizens while protecting and expanding the power of corps and ins utions.
Judicial activism is needed because the Congress and the Exec aren't adult/serious/responsible enough to write clear laws and take on the country's REAL problems.
I don't. I think people expecting corporations and unions to start spending more money in the electoral process are in to a huge disappointment.
Yeah, and Homer Plessy could always use the "colored" car. It was hardly banning access to public transportation.First, the majority flung about dark warnings of "censorship" and "banned" speech as if upholding the existing rules would leave corporations and labor unions with no voice in the political process. Untrue.
Under federal election law before the Supreme Court demolished it, corporations and labor unions were free to say whatever they wanted about political candidates whenever they wanted to say it. They simply were not permitted to use unlimited general treasury funds to do so. Instead, they were required to use money raised by their political action committees from employees and members. This is hardly banning speech.
"When Government seeks to use its full power . . . to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”
Can someone explain this to me? Where in the majority is stated that corporations have the same cons utional rights of natural persons or something remotely close to that? Stevens mentions this issue on his dissent, but then he just goes through some pla udes and never explains why is the issue relevant to the case. I find this obsession with the "personhood of corporations" quite silly. There's a long precedent of the First Amendment applying to other speakers than individuals, as well as an even longer and consensual one of corporations being "legal persons" with cons utional rights.*Second, in the face of logic and history, the majority acted as if there could be no cons utional distinction between a corporation and a human being. Untrue. The Supreme Court has long held that corporations are considered "persons" under the Cons ution and are therefore en led to its protections. For more than a century, Congress has barred corporations from making direct contributions to political candidates, with no suggestion that it must treat corporate persons the same as real ones; that prohibition stands, at least for now. The "conceit" of corporate personhood, as Stevens called it, does not mandate absolute equivalence. That corporations enjoy free-speech protections does not mean they enjoy every protection afforded an actual person. Is a corporation en led to vote? To run for office?
In any case, I'd like to know which part of the opinion hints there's no cons utional distinction between a person and a corporation. Heck, Scalia actually makes the distinction in his concurrence.
* Here's the precedent by Kennedy:The Court has recognized that First Amendment protec-tion extends to corporations. Bellotti, supra, at 778, n. 14 (citing Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85 (1977); Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U. S. 448 (1976); Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922 (1975); Southeast-ern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546 (1975); Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975); Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974); New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713 (1971) (per curiam); Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374 (1967); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254; Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents of Univ. of N. Y., 360 U. S. 684 (1959); Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495 (1952)); see, e.g., Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 26; Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U. S. 727 (1996); Turner, 512
U. S. 622; Simon & Schuster, 502 U. S. 105; Sable Com-munications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115 (1989); Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524 (1989); Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767 (1986); Land-mark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S. 829 (1978); Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50 (1976); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974); Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Assn., Inc. v. Bresler, 398 U. S. 6 (1970).
This protection has been extended by explicit holdings tothe context of political speech. See, e.g., Button, 371 U. S., at 428–429; Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 244 (1936). Under the rationale of these precedents,political speech does not lose First Amendment protection“simply because its source is a corporation.” Bellotti, supra, at 784; see Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n of Cal., 475 U. S. 1, 8 (1986) (plurality opinion)(“The iden y of the speaker is not decisive in determining whether speech is protected. Corporations and other associations, like individuals, contribute to the ‘discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas’ that the First Amendment seeks to foster” (quoting Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 783)). The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not “natural persons.” Id., at 776; see id., at 780, n. 16. Cf. id., at 828 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
Even the government agreed that the Austin was muddled in its reasoning. If Austin wasn't an outlier, I'd like to know why not. The author doesn't mention another single case in support of Austin? Weird.Third, misreading its precedents and cherry-picking quotations, the majority acted as if the chief case it overturned was an outlier. In that 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a six-member majority came to the unsurprising conclusion that a state law prohibiting corporations from making unlimited independent expenditures from their general funds was cons utional.
The court dismissed this ruling as "a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles." Again, untrue.
In a 1982 case, the court -- in a unanimous opinion by then-Justice William Rehnquist -- noted that Congress, in writing campaign finance law, was en led to "considerable deference" in taking into account "the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations and labor organizations" and had made "a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those en ies to the electoral process." Four years later, even as it carved out an exception for nonprofit corporations, the court reaffirmed "the need to restrict the influence of political war chests funneled through the corporate form."
The Citizens United majority relied heavily on a 1978 case overturning a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending their own money to defeat certain referendums. But that decision specifically noted that "a corporation's right to speak on issues of general public interest implies no comparable right in the quite different context of participation in a political campaign for election to public office."
Uh? Why not? Even the government admitted this would be a possibility. The faith of the author in the reasonableness of the Congress is amusing. "Oh, they'll ban do entaries but that's all right, they'd never ban satirical fictional work".Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie "could have done more than discourage its distribution -- they could have banned the film." Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.
Like what?
I will answer this when I have a chance.
No, when it enforces the cons ution. However, conservatives do believe in the cons ution, when liberals want to destroy it, so maybe you are right?
right. you think the founders had the internet in mind when drafting the cons ution. so if the internet was never mentioned in cons ution you would never be able to pass a law dealing with it. Got it.
translation: if the conservative direction is maintaining the cons ution, then I'm for it.
So non American's bent on destroying America should have more cons utionally protected rights than a corporation, which employs americans?
if we pick up a non american who happens to be innocent then what?
Picked up for what? Do we know they are innocent? How do we know they are innocent?
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