[EL] "We the People" as "CEO"
Paul Lehto
lehto.paul at gmail.com
Fri May 11 15:33:10 PDT 2012
Given there's always a sovereign, the Founders thought it safest to scatter
this great and unavoidable power amongst the voters - the safest possible
place - rather than concentrating it in another place like an aristocracy
or a king. The Founders also narrowed the scope of sovereign power to the
act of delegating power to representatives via elections (and nowadays,
referenda decisions as well).
Within the above scope of electing representatives, the People have
sovereign power. Posters may wish to raise the boogeyman of "unlimited
power", but the point is that this basically unlimited sovereign power *always
exists*, it is only a question of* who* possesses it and how they may
exercise it. So limiting the sovereign to the election of representatives
and scattering it among the people was felt to be the safest place and
scope for sovereign power.
THus, the people in their sovereign power can elect whoever they damn well
please, and "kick the bums out" whenever they please as well. This
anonymity debate sounds in the area of whether the people have the right to
be informed of who it is that is speaking to them about their exercise of
sovereign power.
The idea of "limited government" is to ensure that government is the
Servant and not the Master of the People. IT is NOT to be understood in
such a way that the people in their sovereign capacity are rendered either
ineffectual (loss of suffrage) or ignorant and uninformed. Anonymity would
have the people be ignorant of who is speaking to them.
Government is a servant to the people by providing free, fair and orderly
elections designed to determine the intent of the people. Government also
SERVES if it neutrally provides for structures that facilitate an informed
electorate, because it is irrational for anyone to wish an uninformed
electorate.
This issue of anonymity arises within the relatively narrow scope of
neutral, structuring rules intended for the electorate to be informed to
require disclosure of who it is that is speaking or funding, so the
sovereign voters can determine if the source is trusted or not. It is a
whole different matter if the anonymity is between people not acting as
voters on the internet, for example.
Disclosure requirements should clearly be constitutional to the full extent
they are within the "government as servant" model of providing for free,
fair and orderly elections consisting of a reasonably informed electorate.
Conversely they should be struck down if they are "government as master"
type of rules. The pro-anonymity forces, by and large, would have us
believe that every seeming restriction on secrecy is a government as master
anathema, when it is actually quite necessary in many instances to know who
one is speaking to, or hearing from.
If there is a reasonable likelihood of serious violence and such, then
those concerned can go get a restraining order or file a criminal
complaint. That's good enough to defend the rest of us against all manner
of serious crimes, so it should be good enough for political fat cats as
well.
Paul Lehto, J.D.
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 5:50 PM, <JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:
> **
> Paul sees it this way:
>
> "So, unless you contest that We the People are sovereign in elections, I
> don't see any basis for insisting on *a right* to speak anonymously to
> the sovereign."
>
> I see it as the people speaking to each other about the government. The
> government does not like it so the government requires people to identify
> themselves so the government and the government's allies can punish them.
>
> While Nixon had an enemies list, at least he kept it private. Obama puts
> it on his web cite and invites his allies to work them over. Paul's
> reaction is "That's what you get for opposing the sovereign." I say that
> this discourages speech about the government that the First Amendment was
> intended to protect. Jim Bopp
>
> In a message dated 5/11/2012 5:06:25 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> lehto.paul at gmail.com writes:
>
>
> The CEO analogy is only brought out in case someone is unfamiliar with
> sovereignty and the fact that there is always a sovereign power in any
> political system. The sovereign makes the final decision from which there
> is no recourse. I am happy to abandon the CEO analogy especially in
> discussion with those familiar with political science concept of
> sovereignty.
>
> Having abandoned a helpful but admittedly imperfect CEO analogy, we're
> back to the sovereignty of We the People in elections. "We" are subjects
> of the law most of any given year, but in elections we are sovereign. See
> Montesquieu. This is the fundamental reality of any republic, the citizens
> have two hats, one sovereign (in connection with suffrages) and one as
> subject. There is always a sovereign in any political system, sometimes a
> split sovereignty, but within elections it is clear that the People have
> sovereignty and there are no other legitimate claimants.
>
> So, unless you contest that We the People are sovereign in elections, I
> don't see any basis for insisting on *a right* to speak anonymously to
> the sovereign. It's irrational for any sovereign not to care whether
> their information comes from what they perceive to be a trusted source or
> from an unreliable source.
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>wrote:
>
>> I’m puzzled by the CEO analogy. If I want to send
>> messages to a CEO, the CEO generally doesn’t have the right to use legal
>> coercion to require that I sign my name to the messages, or otherwise
>> disclose my identity. Under some circumstances, the CEO could subpoena
>> such information, but he’d have to show (at least) that my identity is
>> relevant to some legal claim he might have against someone, which would
>> rarely be the case. It is indeed the case that “the CEO of a company has
>> no right to know who is speaking to them,” if by “right” we mean the power
>> to use legal coercion to demand that the speaker’s identity be revealed.*
>> ***
>>
>> ****
>>
>> The same is true even if I were an employee sending
>> messages to the CEO. The CEO might examine the company’s own property to
>> try to identify me, but again he couldn’t use legal coercion to get such
>> information. And beyond that, I’d like to think that American citizens are
>> generally not “employees” of either the governmenr or of “We the People.”
>> ****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> Now this doesn’t resolve the question whether anonymous
>> statements – whether about elections, or about other subjects that might
>> well be highly relevant to elections – should or should not be prohibited
>> in certain contexts, whether the speech is of “fat cats” or others who
>> spend their money to express their views. I just don’t see how the CEO
>> analogy is at all helpful here.****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> Eugene****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Paul Lehto
>> *Sent:* Friday, May 11, 2012 12:58 PM
>> *To:* Steve Hoersting
>> *Cc:* law-election at uci.edu
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Informational benefit outweighed by cost?****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> Arguing that the disclosure of speaker identities is "too high a cost on
>> speech rights" is just like arguing that the CEO of a company has no right
>> to know who is speaking to them because such knowledge might pose "too high
>> a cost on speech rights for too little" information.
>>
>> "We the People" are the "CEO" of this country, specifically in connection
>> with elections and voting. It's absurd to think that a sovereign king, CEO
>> or electorate has no right to know who it is that is speaking to them. All
>> sovereigns do (or else they are not really sovereigns). No one can claim a
>> right to use the sovereign's own courts to compel some right to anonymously
>> talk into the ear of the sovereign. (If they succeed, then the People are
>> not really sovereign in connection with elections).
>>
>> The so-called right of anonymity is not so absurd, and becomes far more
>> arguable, outside the context of elections where sovereignty isn't in
>> play. The right of anonymity in elections is a *de facto coup d'etat*attempt against democracy because it defeats obvious rights of
>> sovereignty.
>>
>> With anonymity, political-funding fat cats get to talk, but nobody can
>> "talk back" to them, because We don't know who they are. One can infer the
>> existence of strings, but isn't allowed to see the puppeteer. No CEO or
>> king would stand for that, so why should We the People have to put up with
>> it?
>>
>> Paul Lehto, J.D.****
>>
>> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Steve Hoersting <hoersting at gmail.com>
>> wrote:****
>>
>> Kim Strassel has another piece in today's *WSJ* intimating that
>> the compelled disclosure of independent, non-corrupting speech poses too
>> high a cost on speech rights for too little benefit in voter information --
>> especially absent a meaningful exemption available not just to Vandersloot,
>> for whom it is too late, but to other would-be funders noticing this
>> treatment, and eager to seek an exemption as John Doe or Jane Doe.
>> ****
>>
>>
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577396412560038208.html
>> ****
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stephen M. Hoersting****
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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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>
>
>
> --
> 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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--
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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