The Most Dangerous Amendment Proposal in America

[S'task]

So, trawling through the various blogs today I came across a link to a progressive proposal for a Constitutional Amendment called the "We the People Amendment".

The text of the proposed amendment is as follows:

Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.

Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2. [Money is Not Free Speech]

Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

Section 3.

Nothing in this amendment shall be construed to abridge freedom of the press.

Please note especially the second clause in section 1, "Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law."

This is an... quite terrifying and dangerous proposal when you actual stop and think about it. This amendment means that no organization would have a right to Due Process. Organizations could be subject to warrantless search and seizure, oh, and property seized from organizations... no just compensation would be required, the government could just take it. Also, the various special interest groups that advocate and educate people on their policy preferences... yeah, the government could literally just silence them: Unions, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, NRA, any and all of those groups could be subject to their offices raided, their records seized, and prohibited from publishing any materials, all on the whim of the government.

Now, the sheer and utter overreach of this amendment ensures that it would NEVER pass. This would strip rights from EVERY business owner from the largest corporations to the smallest individually owned LLCs, so it's really a pipe dream. But it's the kind of pipe dream that needs to be kept and eye on because it is so ridiculously dangerous.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Well, given how it’s worded, no one will be thinking of the logical consequences and just say that it’s a good thing and the will of the people

 

[ShieldWife]

Ironically, section 2 essentially removes the ability of middle or class people from influencing elections since campaign contributions are banned but multi-billion dollar media corporations can still broadcast what ever biased information they like.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Ironically, section 2 essentially removes the ability of middle or class people from influencing elections since campaign contributions are banned but multi-billion dollar media corporations can still broadcast what ever biased information they like.

Yeah, but they can still make use of this “regulation” to be immune to it, or keep attention from them and do it either to specific rival businesses or lower level competitors

 

[Cherico]

This is a horrible idea, and any one with any inkling of common sense would think this through and say no.

This means of course that our commie residents would gleefully support it with the idea that they would be the masters of the new order and could oppressed every one else at will, and never ever consider that it would ever be used against them. Because their power hungry idiots.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Because their power hungry idiots.

Specifically, they are Power Hungry USEFUL Idiots

Stalin only wishes that they were more around in his time

 

[Lanmandragon]

This is a horrible idea, and any one with any inkling of common sense would think this through and say no.

This means of course that our commie residents would gleefully support it with the idea that they would be the masters of the new order and could oppressed every one else at will, and never ever consider that it would ever be used against them. Because their power hungry idiots.

Don't think them all idiots. Many of them are smarter and more clever than we can fathom. Underestimating your enemy is a grave error.

 

[Aaron Fox]

This is never going to even pass muster, anyone in American politics will tell you that. Hell, this bill is an extreme reaction to shit like Citizens United (which is probably the worst decision the Judiciary has done right now, other than a potential 'eliminate all legitimacy' case that would cause a court-packing and thus why the Judicial branch is essentially doing the best impression of walking on egg shells right now).

The economic and political ramifications of this are so bad that you'll likely see a capital flight if implemented... let alone the literal biblical mess that our judicial system is going to be in if this passes.

The thing is, this sort of thing has constantly happened but most of them never get far enough to get out into the wild as it were.

 

[S'task]

Citizens United (which is probably the worst decision the Judiciary has done right now

No... no it's not?

Citizen's United as claimed by the left is entirely a boogyman, and the case was entirely decided the correct way from the interests of the common person despite what they claim. I'm not even kidding, the law prior to Citizen's United was very explicitly structured in such a way as to favor establishment Media in the espousing of political speech, and functionally prohibited private citizens and special interest groups, prohibiting any corporation (including non-profit groups) or labor union from making an "electioneering communication" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election, or making any expenditure advocating the election or defeat of a candidate at any time.

Now, step back from all the anti-corporate BS that most people have been indoctrinated with and ask a simple question: what is the difference between a small group of people making a documentary they want to put out... and a news organization? You need to remember that under the framing of the Constitution "Freedom of the Press" didn't mean "Freedom of Professional Journalists to report on matters"... professional journalism was not yet even a thing. Freedom of the Press refereed to the publishing of ANY books or, pertinent for this case, pamphlets espousing political positions and / or support or advocating the defeat of specific political candidates. If we accept that expansion of "Freedom of the Press" to account for ANY media (which is pretty commonly understood to), why should a advocacy group publishing documents be treated any differently than a local newspaper, which were still TOTALLY allowed to advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate at any time. Why should a documentary film advocating the election or defeat of a candidate from a small advocacy group be treated any different than a TV channel's "expose" on a politician who's running for office?

They shouldn't, the original understanding of "Freedom of the Press" and "Freedom of Speech" applied to ALL people, equally, there was no special class of people who were allowed to advocate for politicians while others were silenced.

Thus why Citizen's United was not only good case law, it was the absolute RIGHT decision. All it did was tear down a special privileged granted to media moguls and keeping American citizens from having an equal voice to them. Which is why the left was so outraged by it, suddenly their carefully curated and controlled media no longer had exclusive right to advocate around elections.

 

[Edgeplay_cgo]

This is basically a bill to destroy American business in favor of Big Labor and The Propaganda Industry.

 

[Captain X]

Dude, I never thought using eminent domain to seize a property only to sell it to a private interest would pass Constitutional muster, but it did. Never say never.

That said, there actually are aspects of this I like. I really do feel that representatives and senators should be listening to and working for the interests of their constituents without having to effectively be bribed to do so. At the very least, I feel that more transparency for where the bribes are coming from would be a good thing.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I do like how, in the midst of all thier fawning over the common people and concern for the unchecked power of corporations, they just couldn't help but set the media up on a pedestal above us common plebs anyway.

And I disagree with @S'task about section one being worse. It's certainly awful, but the idea of going out and saying "no, this isn't free speech and no one can say otherwise" is arguably worse.


Though the worse part is the list of co-sponsors:
Cosponsors - H.J.Res.48 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only.

FFS, why do these people hate Citizens United so much?

 

[Floridaman]

I do like how, in the midst of all thier fawning over the common people and concern for the unchecked power of corporations, they just couldn't help but set the media up on a pedestal above us common plebs anyway.

And I disagree with @S'task about section one being worse. It's certainly awful, but the idea of going out and saying "no, this isn't free speech and no one can say otherwise" is arguably worse.


Though the worse part is the list of co-sponsors:
Cosponsors - H.J.Res.48 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only.

FFS, why do these people hate Citizens United so much?

Because historically the republicans were the ones who got donations from business, while the left had control of unions, the media and academia all of which spewed complete propaganda for the left for decades prior to citizens united. In other words they hope it would completely disenfanchise their opponents

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Because historically the republicans were the ones who got donations from business, while the left had control of unions, the media and academia all of which spewed complete propaganda for the left for decades prior to citizens united. In other words they hope it would completely disenfanchise their opponents

And now businesses are invested in the Left....people still can’t get over the contradiction of businesses supporting the guys whom they know would limit them and simply say its just a conspiracy theory or something the like

 

[Aaron Fox]

And now businesses are invested in the Left....people still can’t get over the contradiction of businesses supporting the guys whom they know would limit them and simply say its just a conspiracy theory or something the like

Because those that do are hinging their bets... but that concept escapes people.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Because those that do are hinging their bets... but that concept escapes people.

Hinging their bets? You mean somehow thinking that regulation & higher taxation can be turned to their advantage by putting other businesses at a disadvantage?

 

[Floridaman]

Hinging their bets? You mean somehow thinking that regulation & higher taxation can be turned to their advantage by putting other businesses at a disadvantage?

Not really, they know that republicans aren’t likely to attack them so they back the democrats in order to prevent them from attacking big business, turning politics into a win-win situation for them.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Not really, they know that republicans aren’t likely to attack them so they back the democrats in order to prevent them from attacking big business, turning politics into a win-win situation for them.

Guess that makes sense.....though as mentioned months ago, with companies like Amazon, they’re not likely to BendTheKnee if you screw them over

 

[The Original Sixth]

So, trawling through the various blogs today I came across a link to a progressive proposal for a Constitutional Amendment called the "We the People Amendment".

The text of the proposed amendment is as follows:


Please note especially the second clause in section 1, "Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law."

This is an... quite terrifying and dangerous proposal when you actual stop and think about it. This amendment means that no organization would have a right to Due Process. Organizations could be subject to warrantless search and seizure, oh, and property seized from organizations... no just compensation would be required, the government could just take it. Also, the various special interest groups that advocate and educate people on their policy preferences... yeah, the government could literally just silence them: Unions, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, NRA, any and all of those groups could be subject to their offices raided, their records seized, and prohibited from publishing any materials, all on the whim of the government.

Now, the sheer and utter overreach of this amendment ensures that it would NEVER pass. This would strip rights from EVERY business owner from the largest corporations to the smallest individually owned LLCs, so it's really a pipe dream. But it's the kind of pipe dream that needs to be kept and eye on because it is so ridiculously dangerous.

Any politician who seriously propose such a law should be drawn and quartered. Or keel hauled. This is basically treason of the People for a political elite class.

 

[Deleted member]

I think the media exemption shows the real intention of the authors rather plainly. I also think banning the speech of any organisation is a wicked thing because even if you accept that corporations weren't part of Jefferson's Republic of Virtue, civic organisations certainly were.