[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/20/11

[Joe La Rue]

Paul wrote,

"It is undoubtedly true that sovereign monarchs can control how long a
given speaker speaks, and whether or not one person can drown out all the
others by purchasing all the available (media) time.

"So, how is it that the sovereign We the People, who stepped into the shoes
of the monarchs around 1776,  are powerless to put any restriction at all
on who can speak and for how long, when other sovereigns surely can?"

-and-

" *Is not everything subordinate to We the People, if this is a democratic
republic? * Then why can't there be any control of speech by the supreme
entity, We the People?"

But didn't We the People answer that question when we adopted the First
Amendment? And commands that "Congress shall make *no *law abridging the
freedom of speech ...." We the People decided that it was too dangerous to
allow any sovereign, including Ourself, to decide who gets to speak, or
what speech gets to be heard. So We the People prohibited Ourself, acting
as Government, to control speech in the way Paul seems to want. If the
Founders had intended for the speech of nonmedia corporations to be
suppressed, the First Amendment would read, "Congress shall make no law
abridging the freedom of speech of natural persons, unless they choose to
associate together and incorporate their association." That is not,
however, what the Amendment commands.

Joe
___________________
Joseph E. La Rue, Esq.

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On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:45 PM, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 8:43 PM, Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>wrote:
>
>>  [...] I see no basis for using this odd supposed analogy to private
>> association rights as a justification for suppressing the speech of
>> nonmedia business corporations and unions.
>>
>
> Say no more, if you truly find it "odd" to imagine We the People as *really
> existing* as a form of super-association (But how else, then, would you
> describe the sovereign source of all the power delegated from time to time
> via elections to our elected representatives?)
>
> It is undoubtedly true that sovereign monarchs can control how long a
> given speaker speaks, and whether or not one person can drown out all the
> others by purchasing all the available (media) time.
>
> So, how is it that the sovereign We the People, who stepped into the shoes
> of the monarchs around 1776,  are powerless to put any restriction at all
> on who can speak and for how long, when other sovereigns surely can?   This
> makes sense only if elections are purely theatrical distractions, but it
> seems they are far more serious than that.
>
> Buying media time in elections is the substantial equivalent of addressing
> the kings and queens of this country.  No natural person should be unheard
> - they are all part of the governed whose consent is necessary.  But it
> does not follow that natural persons, already heard as they are in their
> natural capacity, can freely put on corporate masks in combination with
> others and then claim the additional right to speak in unlimited,
> unregulable fashion to We the People precisely when we are acting in our
> sovereign capacity in connection with elections.
>
> Sure, government must be the servant of the People, not its master,
> telling them what to say or think.  * But it is a very poor servant
> indeed who allows chaos to reign as the controlling principle*, or who
> doesn't act to insure that the People can hear from various perspectives so
> they can be fully informed.
>
> Any decent corporate advisor would give the corporation's CEO a balanced
> presentation of information.   Why, then, are We the People powerless to
> have any balance in the presentation whatsoever?  The goal of not having
> the government become the Master animates the First Amendment, but *the
> government is also a very poor servant* if it is powerless to create or
> preserve the basic prerequisites, even in minimal form, for an orderly
> debate and presentation of ideas to the People.  First Amendment doctrines
> have been -- out an appropriate fear of not having government be the *Master
> *-- distorted so that government can not be the *Servant* of the People
> either.
>
> You have said that entities can control the speech of their subordinate
> entities.  *Is not everything subordinate to We the People, if this is a
> democratic republic? * Then why can't there be any control of speech by
> the supreme entity, We the People?
>
> Yet, you say that in elections, when we are acting as co-equal sovereigns
> in voting, We are powerless to impose any restrictions on who may speak, no
> matter how reasonable or limited.  Such a  principle, applied to any other
> organization, would result in chaos and destruction. (imagine everyone
> having a right to address a corporate CEO or board for as long as their
> money allows, regardless of whether they are a shareholder or not. Worse
> than a circus, because even a circus has some order to it.)
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
> P.O. Box 1
> Ishpeming, MI  49849
> lehto.paul at gmail.com
> 906-204-4026 (cell)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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