Friday, May 2, 2014

Appalling

The totalitarian temptation has now become the totalitarian addiction for leading Democrats as Chuck Schumer, Mark Udall and others seek to amend the constitution to radically restrict free speech rights.
Displeased with recent legal victories in which free speech has prevailed over limitations on political speech imposed by Congress, Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), Mark Udall (D., Colo.), and other Senate Democrats have introduced a constitutional amendment that would not only set aside the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence and invest Congress with virtually unlimited power to regulate the political activism of private citizens, alone or in groups, but would also give the federal government and the states the power to shut down newspapers, television stations, and radio networks that displease them. This is an all-out assault on the First Amendment and an act of vandalism against the Constitution.
I don’t think this is going anywhere, but the mere fact that it is even being floated as a symbolic gesture is ominous. And the thing to remember is that the Democrats, unlike many Republicans, are absolutely relentless in pressing their ideological goals. This kind of thing isn’t going away until people like Schumer and Udall are made to go away, which means that the proportion of idiots in the voting pool is going to somehow have to be diluted. I have no idea how that can be accomplished, unless a significant number of them begin learning some lessons in the school of hard knocks. I am not at all sanguine about the prospects of this happening.

15 comments:

Mojo said...

Pure oratorical bullshit. It doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell.

Paco said...

I believe you're right. But the hubris, the overreaching arrogance...just utterly repugnant.

Robert of Ottawa said...

I agree with Mojo at present. But two things:

1) It is clearly possible in the US to advocate termination of the first amendment. Or, at least, the constriction of that amendment to a small physical area (BLM?)

2. This is just the thin end of the wedge; they will continue hammering the wedge.

Minicapt said...

Add an amendment to the Senator qualification requiring five years as an legally employed taxpayer before entering the Senate: Chuckie was first elected to office during his last semester of law school.

Cheers

Paco said...

Captain: Motion carried!

JeffS said...

Robert, you are correct.

Minicapt, I would add: A term limit of 10 years in the Senate, 15 years in Congress total.

Minicapt said...

Jeff
No term limits; if the voters vote for Dingy Harry let them suffer. Term limits interfere with exercising responsibility. I would suggest removing a Congressman's immunity from arrest, freedom to slander within the Congressional Chambers, or to write into legislation exceptions for members of the Capitol Hill cattle herd.

Cheers

JeffS said...

I can live with that, Minicapt. Just one addition: Pay raises require approval by 3/4 of state legislatures.

RebeccaH said...

Just the fact that they even thought of amending the Constitution this way is scary enough.

Steve Skubinna said...

Granted this is stupid and doomed to fail (I fervently hope) but the mere fact that they even brought it up appalls me. Nobody on either staff said "This is blatantly unConstitutional and if you bring it up I am resigning?"

Pure Neitzscheian will to power.

Minicapt said...

Jeff
Congressional pay should be a state responsibility, ... reduces deficit spending.

Cheers

Michael Lonie said...

Ah, Mr. Skubina, if it passes as a constitutional amendment, it won't be unconstitutional, now will it?

In any case. our Regressives are perfectly capable of interpreting a law, including Constituional provisions, in exactly the opposite way the language reads. Witness the fate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, whose prohibition against discrimination by race, creed, or color has long been translated as requiring such discrimination in favor of groups the Regressives think of as their clients. If I recall correctly, a California initiative that quoted the exact words of the 1964 Act was deemed by the courts to violate the Constituion because it outlawed racial discrimination, period.

We see with the Obamacare mandate of birth control services and abortions that the free exercise clause is a dead letter as far as the Regressives are concnerned, why should the rest of the First Amendment be any more sacred to them? They certainly have little or no respect for any other Constitutional provisions, including the Fourteenth Amendment (given their penchant for racially discrininatory policies and fascistic power grabbing).

Anonymous said...

Deborah....It would be nice if Schumer, Udall and all who suport this were removed from office.Then they'd have more time to learn about why the Founders did what they did.

I don't trust that it can fail.There has been so much over reach of late that nothing is certain.

Ron said...

Looks like it's Tom Udall of NM and not Mark Udall of CO. Still, birds of a feather.

Paco said...

Too damn many Udalls however you look at it.