The US Supreme Court ruled, on Monday, May 23rd, 2005, that to compel people to support its propaganda with which they disagree does not violate the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the one about everyone having the right to freedom of speech. Yes, the court acknowledge, no one may be coerced into funding some private party’s advertisements or related speech. But when the government or some part of it decides it will proselytize for something, it can make us all fund it.
Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in the 6 to 3 decision, explained: “Compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise First Amendment concerns.” He added: “Citizens may challenge compelled support of private speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund government speech.”
Of course, since government has come to be legally authorized by courts after courts to take money from people for whatever the government’s agents want to fund, why would it not then extend this same legal authority to fund propaganda? After all, government supports National Public Radio, PBS, Voice of America and umpteen public service messages, many of them contrary to what millions of American citizens want supported. And, of course, thousands of government projects are funded with which millions of Americans disagree.
In short, this is nothing very new. But it is a case that makes it very clear and unambiguous that we aren’t free to spend our resources for our purposes and that government may rob us to fund theirs. Why? Well, the theory is, the government is us. Once the election is over, the administration and its hooligans may all spend away at their hearts’ content since this isn’t a free country but a tyranny of the majority.
In a free country, in contrast, there would be nothing aside the protection of our individual rights that government would be authorized to have us all fund. That, as the US Declaration stated with no ambiguity at all, is why governments are instituted among us: “To secure these rights (those listed in the Declaration, ones we all have and need protected).” Because that is the only true public interest, the legal authorities of a free society would be justified in spending funds on advancing it. That is what we all would be paying the government to do, freely, by being citizens of the country.
Supporting various special interest projects, such as promoting beef eating, has absolutely no relationship to such a bona fide, genuine public interest. But, because the original idea of what government is supposed to do has been totally corrupted by now, and because one of the main force of this corruption has been the US Supreme Court, it is hardly any wonder why this same court reaffirmed government’s legal authority to loot us all of our resources so as to promote yet another pet project the government’s agents have cooked up.
As reported in The New York Times, “Justice Scalia’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer,” while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg concurred separately, saying that she viewed the assessments in all the marketing cases as ‘permissible economic regulation’.” Notice how chummy all these otherwise quarrelling justice have become when it concerns government spending the resources of the citizenry on matters having absolutely nothing to do with the true public interest but with some cockamamie project of its hirelings. Of course, they themselves are part of this gang, so why would you expect it otherwise?
As an aside, this bit about how such spending amounts to “permissible economic regulation” is poppycock. The commerce clause, of Article 1, Section 8, which empowers Congress “to regulate commerce … among the several states” meant nothing like this mess of government intervention the court has been rationalizing for decades now. It meant “to regularize commerce,” which had been irregular because the different colonies didn’t share a common free market. The whole point was only to eliminate barriers to the free flow of commerce, not to empower Congress to act like some fascist or socialist economic planning agency.
Alas, if there were any integrity left to the US Supreme Court, we could perhaps hope for some liberty in our future from that corner but that hope has been squelched a long time ago.
{ 5 comments }
We, as US citizens, have the right to pay the gov’t to speak for us! When the gov’t speaks, it is as if all of us were moving our own mouths in vocal approval and consent.
I am the Government. The Government is Me. When George goes to war, I go to war. If the Ad Council thinks something is important, that should be sufficient for all of us to chime in and pay our fair share.
Dewaine, I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you. That means I disagree with the government. Since We’re the government that means I also disagree with myself. Logically this means anyone who disagrees with the government or with his fellow co-collectives is a troubled & confused extremist who for his own safety must be medicated &/or isolated. This costs the public money. Therefore We must speak with one voice, or at least nod, in agreement with the Supreme Court’s decision to subsidize consensus building. The General Welfare clause commands it!
I think the more liberal justices voted to support their broad views of interpretation through the lens of interventionist welfare state, in the same way they voted to support affirmative action.
I think the conservative justices had alterior motives and are thinking ahead to the probable “under God” type cases, homosexual rights cases, the present Ten Commandments case, or even abortion cases. If they can carve out a position that the government has the right to promote special interest views that the majority has supported through legislation, then the limits set in the Constitution can be bent (or ingnored).
I think all of the justices are willing to forget ignore the idea of limited government when it comes to topics they are sufficiently emotional about.
Keith
Hillarious, Dewaine and Xteve!
Yes, xteve, obviously: we cannot disagree with the government without simultaneously disagreeing with ourselves, each and individually. If I disagree with the government, I am in hopeless self-disagreement. Because we are the government, to disagree with the government is to disagree with one’s own mind. Unless we know our very minds and thoughts are encapsulated and embodied on Capitol Hill, we are all insane.
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