“Money Is Not Speech”
One of the most oft-quoted – and IMNSHO lamest – arguments in support of First Amendment “Reform” is that draconian restrictions on campaign contributions and ads are okey dokey under the First Amendment because “money is not speech.” Technically, of course, it’s not, but has anyone seriously considered the implications of the theory that money can be divorced from what it is spent on? Let’s try applying McCain-Feingold logic to other cherished constitutional rights:
- Congress can pass a law forbidding any resident of a state that voted for McCain/Palin in 2008 to spend any money on a marriage license or any aspect of a wedding. Courts have ruled that marriage is a fundamental right. May sound a bit tough on marriage, but no matter: money is not marriage!
- DC and Chicago find a clever way around the ruling in Heller and the expected ruling in McDonald. Can’t ban handguns? No problem. Just pass an ordinance forbidding any resident to spend any money on any guns, ammunition, etc. No constitutional defect there; money is not guns!
- No one likes a justice system that works for the rich but not the poor, so rather than having justice for The Rich (TM), let’s tax the hell out of everyone to pay for free legal services for all who meet specified criteria, and then make it illegal for anyone to pay an attorney on his own. No problem there; money is not due process!
- OK, so maybe this “Money is not X” theory doesn’t work well outside the confines of the First Amendment. Well, surely it applies to the rest of the First Amendment itself, right? To test that theory, let’s pass a law providing for “clean” religion. To keep religions “clean,” the government will provide public funds to every religious organization that meets certain criteria, and then forbid every citizen to donate any of his own money to any of these organizations. No problem with that proposal, right? Money is not religion!
- Last but by no means least, let’s not forget the most important constitutional right of all, the one the framers considered too important to even mention in the Constitution, the right to choose so long as that choice is to obtain an abortion. South Dakota gives up the losing battle of trying to ban it outright, and instead passes a new law making it illegal to spend any money on an abortion, or on transportation to or from another state for purposes of obtaining an abortion. Surely Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotomayor would have no problem with that law, right? Money is not abortion!
Or we can use a teensy bit of common sense and recognize, as only a bare majority of our nation’s top court did, that while money technically is only property, it is fungible property which, as a practical matter, embodies whatever it is you choose to spend it on. And when a restriction on money specifically targets money spent on the expression of political ideas, then money sure as hell is speech. Thank God that a bare minimum of Supreme Court Justices understand this.
February 13th, 2010 at 12:39 am
[...] – Xrlq makes a similar argument, with some great [...]
February 13th, 2010 at 9:30 am
[...] Or any other constitutional right. But . . . [...]
February 13th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Is not money a means of defining something? It seems intrinsically a form of description, and thus, speech. Of course, our common language has been so far debased by lawyers and bureaucrats attempting to veil meaning, that it too is now perceived not as a store of value or values, but as refuse; trash.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:59 am
the right to choose so long as that choice is to obtain an abortion
WTF? Who’s arguing that the choice to NOT have an abortion should be eliminated?
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February 13th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Everyone who got his/her/its panties in a wad over the Tebow ad, for starters. Surely you don’t expect me to believe that when NOW, NARAL, etc. bleat about the “right to choose” they are really worrying about protecting anyone’s right NOT to have an abortion!
February 13th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Of course not! But fighting to ensure abortion remains a safe, legal option is far from being the same thing as fighting to make it the ONLY option, which is the idiotic straw man you just set up.
And the primary problem with the Tebow ad wasn’t its content; it was the fact that CBS waived its policy of rejecting issue ads for an organization that believes women ought to be subservient to men and to their uteruses. Had an organization like Planned Parenthood tried to run an ad, it would have been summarily rejected, no matter what the content. Shit, they rejected this wholly inoffensive ad, but let FoF in. If “everyone is welcome in our church” is too offensive a message for CBS’ delicate sensibilities, then they shouldn’t have been running most of the commercial ads they were.
Now CBS has the right to do whatever it wants, but that doesn’t make them non-assholes for applying that double-standard. And it doesn’t make it “bleating” to point it out that they’re being assholes.
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February 13th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
“And the primary problem with the Tebow ad wasn’t its content; it was the fact that CBS waived its policy of rejecting issue ads for an organization that believes women ought to be subservient to men and to their uteruses.”
Please lay out, in detail, exactly how the ad did that.
.-= Scott Jacobs´s last blog ..It makes sense to me now =-.
February 13th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I never said they were fighting to make it the only option. I said they were fighting to make it the only “constitutionally” protected option. Cf. the NRA, which would never assert a constitutional right NOT to keep or bear arms, but that doesn’t mean they’re trying to force everyone else to own a gun.
As to the Tebow ad, surely you don’t expect me to believe that the “choice” folk would have had any problem with an ad by a woman who had had an abortion, and said she didn’t regret it, just because that ad may have advocated a choice in favor of abortion rather than a choice not to obtain one. No true pro-choicer would make a distinction either way; only pro-abortionists who bitterly cling to dishonest labels do.
Speaking of dishonest, to call that rejected ad “wholly inoffensive” is to strain credulity. Of course it’s inoffensive to you because you happen to agree with its self-righteous message, but do you honestly believe members of other churches would not be offended by its obvious slam against them? By contrast, the only remotely serious (and I’m straining the meaning of the word “serious”) objection to the Tebow ad is the fact that you don’t like the organization behind it.
I would complain that your link to that asshole-ad was 30 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back, but reading this comment made it all worthwhile:
Yup, he nailed it there. When See-B.S. floated those forged memos to try to help Kerry win an election, that was just a head fake to make us think they were left wing rather than the truly evil, money-grubbing right-wingers that they are. And of course they planned years in advance to “aloow” Janet Jackson’s booby on the boob tube.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
THIS was denied and Janet’s titty was aloowed?
I think Republicans’ election prospects are looking up already if I’m reading the commenter correctly, i.e.,
Pro-booby = right wing
In the immortal words of the Bloodhound Gang – “Hooray for Boobies”.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Xrlq:
So let me get this straight: You think that the same people who argue that women have a constitutionally-protected right for pregnant women to choose abortion would also argue that there’s NO similar constitutionally-protected right for pregnant women to have children if they want to? If that’s not what you’re arguing, then I’m still missing your point. And if it IS what you’re arguing, then you’re even farther off the reservation than I thought.
Scott Jacobs:
The commercial explicitly promotes Focus on the Family, and organization that openly holds those views (though I suspect they wouldn’t put them in exactly those words).
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..Weather Is Not Climate, Humor Edition =-.
February 13th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
I have yet to hear most pro-abortionists argue the issue of a “constitutional” right not have an abortion either way, so I’m reluctant to speculate as to whether they think such a “constitutional” right exists or not. I will say, however, that I have heard more than a few “pro-choicers” make crystal clear that they favor the choice to abort over the choice not to abort under certain circumstances. Case in point: the nuts who got their panties in a wad over the Tebow ad before it aired, when everyone knew it was not going to deprive anyone of any choice, but most believed (wrongly, we now know) that it would commit the cardinal sin of attempting to influence certain women’s choices in that department.
I don’t believe for a minute that NARAL would have raised a similar objection (or any objection at all) over an ad encouraging pregnant women to abort rather than carry the child to term. And if you do believe that, you’re the one who’s way off the reservation, not me. And don’t even get me started on the Guttmacher Institute, which has openly cooperated with the Chinese government’s policy of routinely forcing women to “choose” between submitting to an abortion voluntarily or involuntarily. So spare me the manufactured outrage over my refusal to take their phony “choice” rhetoric at face value. As sure as “freedom” is just another word for nothing left to lose, “choice” is just another word for “we liberals haven’t figured out yet when this should be made mandatory and when we should ban it like everything else.”
As to my other point about your real beef being with the fact that a group you don’t like was allowed to advertise at all, let’s just say that upon reading your comment to Scott I rest my case.
February 14th, 2010 at 1:21 am
“The commercial explicitly promotes Focus on the Family”
And aside from the name of the organization, in what way did that commercial attempt to convince people that women should not be given a choice?
In what way did it say that women shouldn’t be allowed to have abortions?
.-= Scott Jacobs´s last blog ..It makes sense to me now =-.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Scott Jacobs:
When did I argue that the commercial attempted to convince people of anything? All I’ve said is that the commercial endorses an organization which holds those views. If the Klan ran an ad that said nothing at all about white supremacy, simply telling a heartwarming story and showing “go to http://www.klan.org” at the end, would CBS have run it? Would you be demanding that people criticizing CBS’ decision to run the ad first show where the ad explicitly promotes white supremacy?
Xrlq:
I have yet to hear most pro-abortionists argue the issue of a “constitutional” right not have an abortion either way, so I’m reluctant to speculate as to whether they think such a “constitutional” right exists or not.
That’s funny, because I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you just did, when you said they were fighting to make it the “only constitutionally-protected option.” [Emphasis mine.]
I will say, however, that I have heard more than a few “pro-choicers” make crystal clear that they favor the choice to abort over the choice not to abort under certain circumstances.
Depending on the circumstances, you can include me in that number. So what? It’s a huge leap to get from there to making people have abortions against their will.
So spare me the manufactured outrage over my refusal to take their phony “choice” rhetoric at face value.
Your believe that pregnant women should be forced to have their babies whether they want to or not is well-established. I see no need for you to reiterate it here, or hide it behind faux-contempt for the use of the word “choice” in that context.
As to my other point about your real beef being with the fact that a group you don’t like was allowed to advertise at all, let’s just say that upon reading your comment to Scott I rest my case.
If any relatively mainstream advocacy group had been allowed to advertise, I would have no objection. But in rejecting almost all comers except for one, an ethical line was crossed, in my estimation (and in the estimation of quite a few others).
Finally, I fail to see how the UCC ad is an “obvious slam” against churches that condemn, say, gays, but the FotF ad is not a similar slam against women with difficult pregnancies who don’t “choose life.”
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February 15th, 2010 at 11:35 am
As an aside, I think your allegations against the Guttmacher Institute could use some substantiation. Some quick Googling turned up exactly zero evidence of AGI cooperating with China in the way you allege.
Also, regarding the right to choose “so long as that choice is to have an abortion,” the AGI explicitly lists the rights of women to “achieve healthy pregnancies and births” among those it seeks to protect.
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..Weather Is Not Climate, Humor Edition =-.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Oh goody, first allowing an organization TGirsch doesn’t like to advertise is advocacy, now it’s like taking ads from the Klan. Why not bring up Hitler instead?
I meant, of course, that it’s the only option they’re fighting to constitutionalize. Pro-abortion groups have spent a great deal of political capital pushing the “constitutional” right to abortion, and zero political capital in favor of an (equally specious IMO) “constitutional” right not to have one. I have not heard a prominent pro-abortion activist so much as assert that there IS a constitutional right not to abort, have you? [No, a "constitutional" right to "choose" doesn't count; we all know what "choose" means in this context.]
And an even bigger leap from me noting that pro-abortion groups don’t push for a “constitutional” right to abortion, to you concluding that I think they make people have abortions against their will. I don’t support a constitutional right to Tiddlywinks, but it doesn’t follow that I want to take everyone’s Tiddlywinks away.
If by “well-established” you mean “I, TGirsch, hereby make such crap up,” then I suppose so. But perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, as you’ve already demonstrated an inability to distinguish not supporting a constitutional right to X, on the one hand, from wanting to force not-X down everyone’s throats, on the other.
Indeed.
Oh wait, there’s more!
Then you must have failed to watch the ads at all. The UCC ad talks about how other churches supposedly exclude gays and they don’t. The Tebow ad didn’t mention abortion at all. My guess is that if the UCC ad had been as truly inoffensive as you claimed, i.e., just advertised itself as a church that welcomes everyone like Jesus did, with no digs against anyone else, you’d find the ad objectionable after all, as promoting religion in what was supposed to be an advocacy-free zone (unless, of course, you’re advocating something TGirsch likes).
February 15th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I never said that FotF was like the Klan, or that taking ads from organizations I don’t like was LIKE taking ads from the Klan. I was using an extreme example to illustrate the point. But what could you ever possibly know about doing that, hmmm?
I meant, of course, that it’s the only option they’re fighting to constitutionalize.
Could that have to do with the fact that it’s the only option that’s under constant legislative threat? Nah, surely these same folks would sit on their hands if the legislature decided to pass a law banning live births….
me noting that pro-abortion groups don’t push for a “constitutional” right to abortion
Care to try that again? Seems to me, that they ARE pushing for such a right, which has been your problem with them all along. ;)
If by “well-established” you mean “I, TGirsch, hereby make such crap up,” then I suppose so.
When it comes to making stuff up, you started it, with your risible “right to choose so long as that choice is to have an abortion” nonsense. Pregnant women have a choice between going through with the pregnancy and not going through with the pregnancy (i.e., aborting). If you take away the “abortion” choice, tell me, Mr. Wizard, what choice is left?
you’ve already demonstrated an inability to distinguish not supporting a constitutional right to X, on the one hand, from wanting to force not-X down everyone’s throats
If you have any aversion at all to attempts to legislatively “force “not-X” down everyone’s throats,” I’ve never seen any evidence of it. If your sole objection to the pro-choice movement is their insistence that the right must be constitutionally protected, you sure do get awfully worked up about it, and heap shit-tons of scorn upon them in ways you never seem to do for their opposition. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….
[Me] Finally, I fail
[You] Indeed.
OK, I admit, that’s funny. :)
On the UCC vs. FotF thing, the bottom line is that See-BS should either allow issue ads during the Super Bowl, or not allow them. As far as I’m concerned, anybody willing to blow $100,000 per second on a Super Bowl ad should be free to do so, so long as the ad doesn’t run afoul of normal FCC restrictions. But once you start imposing restrictions on that, I expect you to do so even-handedly. Obviously, that’s far too much to expect of See-BS.
On the ad itself, it turns out to be much ado about nothing, because it was largely ineffective, and would have been even less effective if not for the controversy surrounding it. So in that sense, pro-choice groups did FotF a big favor by calling so much attention to the ad.
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..Global Warming Smackdown =-.
February 16th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
I have a strong recollection (but cannot find it in web archives of the local press) that in a recent annexation fight near me the hand-painted signs on scavenged cardboard held up by brushwood sticks were determined to have $ value equivalent to printed signs. Since neighbors had worked together to paint them during a sign-painting-party they were therefore an unregistered political advocacy group in violation of campaign finance laws.
So while money may not be speech, in my town speech is apparently money in the eyes of the town legal department.