“Corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment,” Professor Coates wrote. The trend, he added, is “recent but accelerating.”Hmm. I don't know. In conlaw class, I was just teaching the great 1964 landmark case — that loved-by-liberals case — New York Times v. Sullivan. But, fortunately, I've got The New York Times to set me straight. Corporations are not people.
Okay. Thanks to Adam Liptak, a man I'm noticing only because the corporate platform of The New York Times elevates him high above all the poor and puny anonymities....
And I'm fascinated by this notion that the Constitution ought to mean what would make liberals love it. Hey, Supreme Court, why don't you make the Constitution lovable again? We used to love you, First Amendment, but you changed.
Ironically, back when Liptak's liberals loved the First Amendment, a big deal was always made about how it protects the speech you hate. That was the challenge, to love the freedom itself. Seems like you changed.
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Liberty is a tool, not a goal, to much of the Left. It's like a streetcar, in fact. They use it to get to their destination, and then they step off.
Exactly...
I wonder what Lipitak would say about a bunch of American neoNazis using the First Amendment to demand a parade permit...
It's the kind of thing you'd see in a comedy movie, right?
Spot on.
the Boomer left has become its Democratic parents, bigoted, bullying and violent when it suits them.
Or perhaps they never changed at all, and only found new suitable subjects for their inner thuggishness and saw a window to get away with it.
This is just NYT smoke and mirrors about political speech under control of Private Business.Who would suspect them of favoring what they criticize?
All news organizations are and have always been Private Businesses. The real story is that Politicians in the post-democratic era are successfully privatizing public issues by excluding free press questioning by giving access only to a sycophant press.
"Corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment,”
Probably about the same time the term "hate speech" was invoked.
I don't think he's right anyway about the corporations.
It was liberals who went after Brandon Eich, the chick on the plane who made a joke, the OSU fraternity jerks, and pretty much anyone who steps off the Social Justice platform.
Liberals loved the first amendment when it was a more religious/moral conservative America they were fighting against.
Now that America is more morally liberal/less religious country, the liberals with power think the old guard *knew* they were oppressing speech for bad reasons. They see themselves as oppressing speech for good reasons.
They don't realize they are exactly the same in their motivations, to make other people act right, talk right, and have the values they want them to have.
Is there anyone more active in protests than the SEIU?
Skookum John nails it.
Just another variant of "shut up, he explained."
Far too many leftist and progressive authoritarians are allowed to position themselves as "liberals", when they most certainly are not.
I am far more liberal than many of them. And even I would not call myself a "liberal".
Scratch a progressive/liberal, find a fascist.
Just look at how tolerant they are of opposing points of view in arenas where they are the majority.
The First Amendment gives me the Right to yell "Anal Sex" in a crowded theater.
Yeah, those at the 1:05 matinee: that was me.
I am Laslo.
Liberty is a tool, not a goal, to much of the Left. It's like a streetcar, in fact. They use it to get to their destination, and then they step off.
I agree, but I'm not sure they know it.
As I tried to say above, the Social Justice people think the people who came before them
a)knew they were oppressing people for the wrong reasons and
b) didn't have any problems living the life they wanted to live
so now the SJ people are trying to make rules that give themselves the life they think the people before them had.
The life where people think like you do, where you don't have to be confronted with an opposing opinion, where the morals you want dominate society, where you can have sex whenever you want it but you always feel good about it, where nobody ever offends you, all your choices are good, the police are always deferential to you, any job you want is yours for the taking.
This is the life they imagine people had when they were busy suppressing liberals. And it's the life they are going to create by suppressing men/conservatives/reality.
What does "liberal" mean today?
I identified as a liberal until the early 80's. Thanks to Jimmy Carter, my eyes were opened. Maybe Obama will have a similar effect on a later generation.
"I don't think he's right anyway about the corporations..."
I agree. The liberal's loss of love for free speech did not occur because of corporate speech. That's a recent focus, but much more happened, notably beginning in the 1980s, that had to do with wanting to suppress hate speech. That KKK/Skokie case was a big catalyst, and there was a lot of concern about how speech rights were structured around the interests of affluent white males and were therefore a tool of oppression. That's when the tide turned for liberals.
Lose the 1st Amendment,
Say Hello to permanent jihad and your new Muslim overlords.
Progressives despise the First Amendment. It permits criticism. Criticism of Progressives is "hate speech."
Upon his election, Obama set out to chill the press rights of Fox News in an unprecedented and illegal attack on it as illegitimate.
He has chilled reporters with indictments and subpoenas and, likely, hacking. All in violation of the First Amendment.
True Liberals still love the First Amendment. Progressives have never loved the First Amendment.
The SJW types are merely lefty bigots.
This seems like a good place to put this
It's about foundations like the Ford Foundation pouring money into the anti- Religious Freedom movement. They aren't corporations, but they are big "faceless" groups with lots of money using that money for speech.
Yes! Exactly Althouse at 10AM
You noticed, Professor! Thank you.
@Skookum John, brilliantly stated.
Progressives loved Israel when it was run by Socialists.
Then, like Singapore, they got the economics figured out and got prosperous, even the Ethiopian immigrants. Now they are bad guys.
Almost as bad as Republicans.
IOW, when free speech helped the left - they were for it, when it didn't -they turned against it.
Sounds like the Lenin and the Bolsheviks - the greatest supporters of free speech - before November 1917.
Lena Dunham and the First Amendment.
I am Laslo.
"Affluent white males"
You mean the kind that write - and run - the New York Times?
Progressivism was always about the pursuit of control. "Intelligent" control, mind you.
Liberalism was always a con job. The imposition of "social justice" wrapped in the veneer of patriotic liberty.
For Progs the Constitution was always old and outdated. Their "living" Constitution just confirmed how dead the real thing was. A tool, nothing more -- to be used, abused, or discarded, as political need required.
I don't think such folks have changed much, rather most don't spend much time thinking about who else might be in their coalition, where many of their guiding principles come from and what consequences they might have in practice.
I tend to see this as part of human nature, really, but it clearly has consequences for all of us.
I would just prefer more brakes on zealotry, conviction, righteousness, certainty, etc that individuals place upon themselves, and/or that groups ought to have built-in as they seek to cast everything in their image.
That's a major reason for our founding documents, and the process of law itself, which will probably remain out of reach for people with so many personal and professional incentives to do and say otherwise.
Liberals used to love the 1st amendment until it turned all its constituents into classes of victims. And then turned criticism of their agenda into hate speech. Look at how the left treats opposition to gay marriage or transgenderrism.
(or abortion, or global warming, or cops aren't all racists, blah blah blah).
Since the left has always done that, maybe they never loved freedom of speech.they just didn't have the power to force people to abide by their speech codes.
They liked the first amendment when it protected communists. And they like it when it protects the business interests of trust fund fools like the Sulzbergers who live off the hard work of their dead grandparents.
These people live their freedom. They don't love freedom.
And I'd submit that this process is fatally flawed because of many of the ideas/ideologies themselves. I don't know if there was a moment when 'liberal' could have stayed 'liberal' without a major reworking of the definition of 'liberal'.
But then again, I may come off as a high-minded concern troll, much like the Westerner who says the same of Islam.
The first amendment, and the second (and probably some more, like the one that says the government can't force to let soldiers sleep in your basement) were intended to facilitate an (armed) uprising against the government of the United States; that threat would make the government reluctant to abuse power.
For this purpose, the second amendment has been almost totally gutted, and there is movement to gut the first amendment. It protects pornography, but not speech that makes the entrenched interests uncomfortable or threatened. When the entrenched interests were prosperous white men, they favored limits on the first amendment. Now that the entrenched interests are increasing social justice warriorrs, that is the group that favors limits.
Put me in charge, and I'll get rid of the first amendment so that no one can point out what a crappy job I'm doing.
I think that the problem is that the left has maybe moved from classic liberalism to progressivism. Still, a good part of the left was always about suppression of free speech - as shown by their support, internationally, of both communism and its socialist opponent, fascism, both of which required suppression of free speech to succeed.
But, yes, for a short period of time, when advocating for communism was unfashionable, and into the Vietnam era, the left could plausibly claim to be pro-free speech. But, that was for a short period of time, many years ago.
I know a lot of liberals who are old-time liberals. There are really great liberal people out there.
The Social Justice activists are something separate.
About the "Corporate" delusion.
I don't know if they really believe it, or if they use that argument to convince others. Probably a combination of both.
It is self-comforting to believe the people who want things different than you do, and who are willing to speak up against it, are really nameless faceless not real people. After all, what you want is good! Everyone would want it if there were nefarious forces telling them they don't.
"I think that the problem is that the left has maybe moved from classic liberalism to progressivism"
Maybe??
We are one Justice away from turning "hate speech" into the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater.
H - I think that the pendulum is moving in the opposite direction in regards to the 2nd Amdt. Part of it may be over-reaction on the part of the left in their zeal to disarm anyone who isn't politically connected or can afford private security. It has somewhat turned into a tribal sort of thing, with Red Team buying, using, and even flaunting, guns at an unprecedented rate. And, this works, at least partially, because the people suffering because they have been disarmed are more and more concentrated in the most violent parts of Blue America. And, most likely to vote for leftists. They reap what they sow.
Twenty or so years ago, the Dems could enact the Clinton era ban on scary looking firearms (aka the "assault weapon ban"). It was idiotic. It didn't make America one little bit safer, except that maybe a couple fewer progressives got vapors from seeing military looking firearms in the hands of civilians. Today, even if that sort of legislation could pass Constitutional muster (which it probably couldn't), it wouldn't come close to passing, except in rare cases of states when Democrats have significant control of state legislatures AND governorships. Today, voting for gun grabbing legislation is a good way of ending your political career throughout much of the country (currently am in Colorado, where Dems were recalled a couple years ago for their gun grabbing votes).
So, right now, I see gun rights on the ascendance. States are having an easier time loosening gun laws than tightening them, and the most likely federal legislation is reciprocity of concealed carry permits (inevitably vetoed by Obama, if i6 gets that far). The BATFE Director was recently forced out for trying to (illegally) restrict AR-15 ammunition, when his predecessor never really paid for their fiasco in Waco. Things are improving.
We are one Justice away from turning "hate speech" into the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater.
Not sure how accurate that is. Justice Breyer seemingly can be brought around in some of these cases. Not so much for the three progressive female Justices.
So please correct me if I have this process wrong:
Politicians make large-scale political involvement so complex, dangerous and expensive that people start to band together in 501c4s to protect themselves while still engaging in the political process.
The left--which largely was the one who drove this process--then complains about corporate involvement in politics, and tries to get it outlawed.
They never GAF about the first amendment, they just used it as a weapon.
They loved to exploit and bully people with their own laws and institutions and call them bigots when they responded in self-defense.
Why are you hitting yourself? Hilarious.
..recent decisions amplifying the role of money in politics.
If politicians did not allow money to influence them, the point would be moot. Just say 'No' to corporate $$$
Guess who’s Top Contributors and in 2012
Well, obviously the First has to be about speech people hate! Who is going to censor those cute cat videos or solemn admonitions to follow the accepted societal norms?
No, the speech everyone has always wanted to censor is the offensive speech, such as abolitionist pamphlets, worker organizing, anti-segregationist diatribes (justified, I'm not using that word pejoratively), equal rights for gays, women, hippies, etc.
Oh, it's such a paradox that now we want to change the rules that created the conditions we want to defend. We ignore the reality that all that hideously offensive speech won, and tie ourselves in knots over burning flags and pathetic Nazi remnants.
It's better to have that out in front of us. It reminds us of what humans can be and the need to work against our worst potential.
So if you want religious freedom and equal rights, you defend "Piss Christ", you defend David Duke's right to babble in public, and you suck up the personal angst for the public good over the long term.
In any free society you will see some ugly and worrisome stuff. In an unfree society, it's Potemkin villages all the way down and silent cancers growing quietly and perhaps lethally.
I think Ann is right. I took con law from Tribe in the 1980s and remember his discussion of KKK/Skokie. "Do we really have to pretend that what these Nazis are propagating has potential value in the marketplace of ideas." It was a scary utilitarian (rather than rights-based) view of free speech. Good discussion of this trend (including Breyer) http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/04/02/breyers-dangerous-dissent-in-mccutcheon-the-campaign-finance-case/. Of course, the streetcar is a good metaphor for the utilitarian approach.
Also the theories that corporations can be excluded from free speech protections startle me.
We form associations so that we can do things. What's the difference between the executives at Red Cross or a union vs a lot of private corporations? Not that much when it comes down to it. The union is agitating for the economic rights of its members just as the corporation is.
Can anyone imagine an ACLU without free speech rights? A union?
This "Citizens United must die" movement is all hypocrisy to me.
I think that if you decide groups of people don't have free speech rights, then you are empowering the rich over all the rest of us. What is the justification for George Soros having free speech rights, but some small bank or hedge fund not? Does anyone really think that a society which gives rights only to those who have already won the pinnacle will result in anything but feudalism?
I don't agree with what you say but wll defend to the death your right to say it. Unless you're talking about opposition to gay marriage. And then, shut up or we will use govt to destroy you.
Mark and others in this thread - I don't think the animus against free speech is limited to liberals or progressives. What about flag-burning?
Everyone instinctively wants to defend against some speech, often out of compassion.
I think what we have here with Lipnak & with Jeffrey Toobin, who in spite of himself, gave a rousing defense of Ted Cruz on Wednesday's Fresh Air, is that the classical Liberals are finding themselves more & more surrounded by post-Marxist lefties who are happy to openly dismiss Constitutional Rights as "bourgeois conventions", except, of course, they'll use slightly different language to get to the same end. The Classical liberals are discovering that they only place they can even get a hearing now is among the despised & troglodytic conservatives.
I firmly believe that freedom of speech, like all good things in life, should be reserved exclusively for the people who deserve it, the Good People. (By a bizarre coincidence, this includes me, my friends, my family and politicians I admire.)
And not a single Leftist in these comments will defend the First Amendment. The Will to Power Brooks no dissent.
MayBee at 10:53 wrote:
I know a lot of liberals who are old-time liberals. There are really great liberal people out there.
Yes, I agree. I think that classic liberalism is actually gaining adherence in about 70% of the American population. That's why you see such a desperately intense war being waged against on college campuses, for example.
----So if you want religious freedom and equal rights, you defend "Piss Christ", you defend David Duke's right to babble in public, and you suck up the personal angst for the public good over the long term. ---
And to use currently topical issues rather than decades old ones…
..you defend the florist in Oregon’s right not to provide flowers for a gay wedding (kindly demurring to repeated customers to whom she had provided many other services)
..you defend the dumb-ass, racist kids at Oklahoma University - who deserved social shaming and unrestricted negative peer pressure but not governmental sanction.
..you investigate and prosecute IRS agents who abuse their offices against political opponents.
.. you defend the State of Indiana for defending people like the florist above
YoungHegelian - no, the average citizen is still rather fond of classic liberalism, for many reasons.
The first is that "by their fruits ye shall know them", and the average citizen looks at the fruits of the classically liberal currents of American civic life and finds them good.
The second is that the average citizen realizes sometime between the late-twenties and the mid-thirties that they are mostly on their own, that life has its difficulties, and therefore an empathy for others is developed.
The third is that classical liberalism runs mostly along the lines of "good fences make good neighbors", and that observation bears out right through life, and the truth of it becomes more and more evident through the average life.
Finally, classical liberalism is kind of like that jump into a cold pool of water on a hot day. There's that instinctive shock an flinch, and then a feeling of comforting relief slowly seeps through the swimmer. Classical liberalism protects the individual from trying to run other persons' lives, but allows helping others where feasible, and it's an easier and more productive social attitude to sustain.
---religious freedom and equal rights, you defend "Piss Christ”
More… and as a Christian I tolerated Piss and much more but a couple of decades later I have a President !!!! who says the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet and a secretary of State who advertises an APOLOGY for our free speech right to the oppressed and hatefilled middle east.
"classical liberalism" aka “conservatism".
Unknown - I agree with your examples. But I am in my fifties, and one can see where and when and how the divergence developed. Instinctively I refer back to those examples.
In addition, if you pair "Piss Christ" with Koran burning and rude Youtube movies RE Muhammad, it makes the point most eloquently. 0
Unknown - we cross-posted, yes, that's what I am trying to get people to think about.
The abyss the NYT and various other "enlightened" elites wish to lead us into is very deep. AND IT GOES TO THE HIGHEST LEVELS IN SOCIETY.
Add to that a surveillance regime that tyrants of the past could only have considered in wishful dreams, and you have the recipe for nightmares.
People who won't defend the First Amendment may be well-intentioned, but in reality they are just handing us a revolver and making us play Russian Roulette. They deserve no respect and no power.
Althouse: "That KKK/Skokie case was a big catalyst, and there was a lot of concern about how speech rights were structured around the interests of affluent white males and were therefore a tool of oppression. That's when the tide turned for liberals."
This strikes me as spot on. I first started hearing the Marcusian chant of "no free speech for fascists" across the leftist spectrum in the 70's and it took full root on the liberal and leftist fronts in the '80's.
Really it was just a way for the lefties to signal that they were finally in sufficient places of power within academia, gov't, media etc to simply silence their political opponents thru the "shut up" "argument" while simultaneously maintaining the full scale war on western culture everywhere ("hey hey ho ho western civ has got to go!!").
We see clearly to where this has, inevitably, brought us.
-- they are just handing us a revolver and making us play Russian Roulette
Very well said.
People have long been uncomfortable with the concept of elections and access to officials being purchased with dollars. The idea that a $ is a word is hard to grasp.
Then there is the old chesnut about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. One problem is that everyone in in the First World looks relatively comfortable these days.
I'm with you, Maxed Out Mama.
--the old chesnut about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable
And how is our dear main stream media aligning itself with free speech?
They have their trade organizations and lobbyists but they sit silent while Hillary dictates what descriptives may be applied to her.
afflicting the comfortable - snort.
American conservatism is classical liberalism tempered by Judeo-Christian philosophy. Its unique disposition can be understood through reading the national charter, "The Declaration of Independence", and corporate bylaws, The Constitution.
Incidentally, classical liberalism, unlike generational liberalism or progressivism, is conservative or principled, and therefore constrained or predictable.
Its true. Currently, social media is full of liberals who think its just dandy to force artists (bakers, florists, photographers) to promote issues that violate their moral conscience.
I've had to give basic lectures on freedom of speech. And I'm astonished at how dense these liberals are.
Well speaking of pols and $$$$
Upset By Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Banks Debate Halting Some Campaign Donations
"People have long been uncomfortable with the concept of elections and access to officials being purchased with dollars."
As a rule, the proposed cures are worse than the disease.
Liberals loved the First Amendment when "The Man" sought to repress "The Cool Kids." Now "The Cool Kids" seek to repress everyone else.
Simply a tool for the leftists....similar to using minorities, merely for votes. "The end, justifies the means."
"CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE"
Printed by printing presses owned and operated by the The New York Times, owned by The New York Times Company, a publicly traded CORPORATION.
Leftists don't grasp how many newspapers, television stations, and radio stations that would be shut down if the only ones that maintained 1st amendment rights were those owned by an individual citizen.
"there was a lot of concern about how speech rights were structured around the interests of affluent white males and were therefore a tool of oppression. That's when the tide turned for liberals."
On a day to day basis, free speech is will be most effectively by the powerful for the simple reason that they have power. In the muddled thinking of current liberalism this becomes a reason to limit the speech rights of the powerful (except themselves.) Problem is, the limitations ultimately have wider effect, restricting the speech rights of the insurgent as well. The result is to increase the relative power of the entrenched.
The current morass of funding and speech restrictions relating to elections is a prime example. Only the well funded and well connected can navigate the rules effectively, and only they can mount an effective defense if the government prosecutor decides to enforce the law against them. The rest of us are ]left vulnerable to financial disaster and even prison if we run afoul of the rules.
The Dersh was in our town recently for a debate (against a conservative local law professor) about free speech. Both men found themselves in agreement on almost everything ... so it was more of a discussion than a debate.
The moderator kept trying to get Mr. Dershowitz to agree that "hate speech" deserved no First Amendment protection. But that dog refused to hunt.
Hopefully Google's new "truth-o-meter" won't render all of this moot.
http://nypost.com/2015/03/28/google-controls-what-we-buy-the-news-we-read-and-obamas-policies/
"--religious freedom and equal rights, you defend "Piss Christ”
Except the objections to "Piss Christ" were never about anyone's right to create and display it, they were about the use of taxpayer funds to support its creation.
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