In my "stack o' stuff", I have some items related to the Citizens United case recently decided by the Supreme Court. Fortunately for my loyal readers, I'm not going to delve into it for this post. I bring up the "stack o' stuff" only to note that I had thought to write at length regarding the decision.
The most important thing I can say today is please take the time to read the full decision before making up your mind about it. Both the majority and the dissenting minority had some interesting things to say.
One reason why I believe that Citizen's United was decided correctly is because the law in question effectively placed individual citizens in the position of having to ask permission from the government before exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. That is an unacceptable proposition from my perspective.
I ran across this edited video of Supreme Court nominee Elana Kagan arguing before the Supreme Court on behalf of the government's position in support of the campaign finance laws being challenged before the court. In her argument before the court, Ms. Kagan argued that it was acceptable for a federal law to ban books because the FEC had never before taken any regulatory action towards a book.
What Ms. Kagan fails to understand is that there is a first time for everything. She apparently does not understand that each successive instance only becomes easier and easier to justify. Nor does Ms. Kagan appreciate that the first time she is likely to notice the enforcement of a federal law banning books is when it is a government that is not of her preference [that is] banning a book [that] reflects her perspective.
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