Note corssposting and follow-ups.

Mark & Juanita wrote:
On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 18:02:15 -0500, gregg
wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:

In article , gregg
wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:


And if the Court rules that Congress has no power to do that?
What
then?

Article III, Section 2. Clause 2. Last phrase. This gives the
Congress
the
power to preclude the SC from addrssing an issue.

The First Amendment specifically prohibits Congress from
enacting laws
that abridge freedom of speech or of the press. They did just
that last
year. The Court ruled that they didn't.

You keep repeating that.

You keep failing to understand it.

Wrong. I keep refusing to:

1) accept your opinion as fact

Where is the opinion? The facts a
1. The first amendment states very clearly, "Congress shall make no
law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the
right
of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government
for a
redress of grievances.
2. Congress passed a law, McCaine/Feingold, that prohibits the airing
of
political ads x number of days prior to an election unless those ads
are
placed by the candidates themselves or are news or opinions
expressed by
journalists who are members of the press.
3. What (2) says is that you, as a citizen, or group of citizens
banding
together, cannot buy airtime to air a commercial that would allow you
to
express a political opinion regarding those running for office a
certain
number of days before an election.
4. What (3) says is that your freedom of speech has been abridged
because
5. The candidates for election are able to buy airtime
6. The press is allowed to either report news or express opinions
before
the election
7. you, part of "the People" are *not* allowed to even buy airtime to
express your opinion


Correct.


2) get into a debate about that particular law.


Which is especially frightening. One does not have to be a
constitutionsal scholar to understand what this law does or how it
abridges
the constitution. A person with even a modicum of history realizes
that
the very ads that McCain-Feingold prohibit are at the heart of the
kinds of
speech the founding fathers were trying to protect.

Correct.


The first amendment
wasn't written so that somebody in the 21'st century could download
pictures of naked women without fear of the law all in the name of
"free
speech", or so that some deranged artist could urinate in a jar and
desecrate a religious symbol in the name of "free speech"

Arguable, but not really at issue here.

The first
amendment was written to assure that the government did not become so
powerful that it could suppress the opinions of its citizens and
prevent
them from expressing those opinions at any time, but especially
during
elections. That particular law not only spits in the face of the
first
amendment, it tears at the heart of why the constitution was
originally
formulated.


Correct.


You state it as FACT and use it as a premise to show that the SC
has done
something wrong.

It IS a fact that the McCain-Feingold law prohibits certain types
of
political advertising within certain time frames preceding
elections.

But is is NOT a fact that it's unconstitutional. It's merely your
opinion.
I daresay your uneducated (from the standpoint of being a
Constitutional
scholar) opinion.


When one believes that a constitutional scholar is required to
interpret
that which is expressed in plain English, the uneducated opinion is
not
coming from the person interpreting the plain English phrase.

Agreed. McCain Feingold prohibits persons from publishing their
opinions about politics. That is as plain a violation of the First
Amendment as one can imagine.


Take a look at the Supreme Court decision, read the opinions, both
supporting, but especially the dissenting opinions. It's pretty
obvious
who the real constitutional scholars are (hint -- it wasn't the
supporting
justices -- *they* were expressing opinion, not fact). Scalia's
dissent is
particularly well expressed.

Online, perhpas?



I'm sure I don't have to tell you that all sorts of speech is
limited by
law.


Yeah, yeah, the "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" chestnut. By
allowing McCaine Feingold to pass that test, there is *no* law
suppressing
free speech that could possibly be found to be in violation of the
first
amendment.


Pretty much true as well. One wonders if gregg considers the
dissenters on the USSC to be ignorant of Constitutional Law.

--

FF