Socialist Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi: Remake the First Amendment

Decreed and proudly Socialist US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-DS -Vt) is in complete agreement with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

From CNSNews.com:

(CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed a movement announced by other congressional Democrats on Wednesday to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged in by corporations as opposed to individuals.

The Leftists are clearly insane on this matter. Continuing, from CNSNews:

In 2009, when the Supreme Court first heard oral arguments in the Citizens United case, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart told the court that the administration believed the Constitution allowed the government to ban a corporation from using its general treasury funds to publish a book if the book advocated voting for something.

"Take my hypothetical," Chief Justice John Roberts said to Stewart as he asked him about what kind of books the Obama administration believed it could constitutionally ban, "... This [book] is a discussion of the American political system, and at the end it says: Vote for X."

"Yes," said Deputy Solicitor General Stewart, "our position would be that the corporation would be required to use PAC funds rather than general treasury funds."

Roberts followed up: "And if they didn't, you could ban it?"

"If they didn't, we could prohibit the publication of the book using corporate treasury funds," Stewart answered.

Read that again, if you will. Then take a moment or two to realize the monumental and unprecedented slashing of your freedom of speech that would occur should the Leftists actually acquire this goal.

And Chief Justice Roberts properly wrote in his concurring opinion in re Citizen United v. FEC:

The government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech," wrote Roberts. "It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concerns."

This proposal or amendment wants to do away with the freedom of speech for, essentially, every venue except the individual citizen. That is to say, corporations would lose their freedom of political speech.

At first blush, those evil corporations deserve to be censored, do they not?

Except that corporations own book publishing companies. Corporations own newpapers. Corporations own television and cable news outlets. Corporations own internet sites operated in an adjunct fashion to their companies. Corporations own most every communications venue except individual blogs. Like mine. Like yours. Blogs like mine and yours depend on a massive number of CORPORATE news sources in order to sift and aggregate what we believe is actually happening in our nation and the world.

Because -- I *sigh* at having to state the obvious -- if Corporations didn't own the host of media venues then the Government WOULD. There is no "third alternative."

The NationalReviewOnline weighs correctly in:

The phrase “stunning development” is used far too often in our politics, but here is an item that can be described in no other way: Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats, frustrated by the fact that the Bill of Rights interferes with their desire to muzzle their political opponents, have proposed to repeal the First Amendment.

That is precisely what the so-called People’s Rights Amendment would do. If this amendment were to be enacted, the cardinal rights protected by the First Amendment — free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances — would be redefined and reduced to the point of unrecognizability. The amendment would hold that the rights protected by the Constitution are enjoyed only by individuals acting individually; individuals acting in collaboration with others would be stripped of those rights.

In conclusion:

Nancy Pelosi proposes to amend the Constitution the way the iceberg amended the Titanic. The First Amendment has served us well. Nancy Pelosi has not, but she has led her Democrats to a disturbing place in their quest to secure power, even at the cost of cashing in the Bill of Rights.

• Conservatives wish to expand personal rights and diminish government power.
• Leftists wish to diminish your personal rights and expand government power.

Simple as that.

BZ

P.S.

And MINORITY House of Representatives Leader Nancy Pelosi said, in re Americans not paying income taxes: “I wish they would earn more so they can pay more."

So "they can PAY MORE."

Because, after all, government spends what it currently receives SO EFFICIENTLY.

This is simply insanity built upon insanity and buttressed by insanity. How I and other clear-thinking individuals envision Ms Pelosi:

Applauding for the elimination of your rights as lawful, sovereign, natural-born Americans.