GOP Needs a Philosophically Coherent Agenda

I’ve been around awhile—65 years. I’ve seen a lot of Republican electoral surges. Mostly, I’ve been disappointed. The only exception; the Reagan Republicans of the early 1980s. But even that faded. Rather than build on and correct the “Reaganomics” revolution, the GOP slipped back into me-too, country club land. The G.W. Bush era was a blatant leap to the Left.

Typically, Republican control has resulted in the consolidation of the welfare state advances scored by prior Democrat controlled legislatures. At best—with rare exceptions—Republican control only stalls the statist advance, and paves the way for another lurch to the Left.

I’m hopeful that this time will be different. One thing is certain: It won’t be, if the GOP takes the advice of former Republican New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Whitman urges, Republicans Must Put Forward Ideas After Big Wins.

Whitman correctly observes that the GOP cannot merely be anti-government or anti-Obama. It must put forward a positive policy agenda based on “our”—Republican—ideas.

But Whitman doesn’t hint at what those ideas are. More importantly, she offers no principles upon which those ideas should rest. Instead, she retreats into meaningless generalities:

I have been dismayed to watch just how polarized Washington has become in recent years - every issue that is discussed is done so from the political, rather than policy perspective.  I am not naïve to think that one midterm election's result will lead to greater political compromise – much less one midterm election that so clearly favored one party over the other.  But I remain hopeful that my party will lead well from their place of political strength – be willing to negotiate for the sake of ordinary Americans, and foster a policy discourse that shows our ideas are the right ones for the nation. The next two years can be a time of great policy achievement in the United States, and it all depends on how Republicans choose to lead.

“Political” vs. “policy perspective?” What about the philosophical perspective? Compromise? On what. To what end; “great policy achievement?” “Negotiate for the sake of ordinary Americans?” As opposed to whom; extraordinary Americans? If Republicans are to avoid “polarization”—i.e., fighting the Democrats on fundamental ideas—then what kind of leadership does that imply? What kind of ideas?

I left these comments:

It can’t be just about ideas. It must be about pro-liberty ideas. Republicans have always had some good ideas in this area; e.g. school choice in education; expanded health savings accounts and other free market reforms in healthcare; lower and flatter tax rates; deregulation. But Republicans need a focussed, philosophically coherent agenda based on a core principle. They need to sharply distinguish themselves from the Dems on terms that are clear and easy to grasp.

I suggest the Self-Reliant Society, as contrasted to the Democrats’ Dependency Society.

The Democrats common theme is: Whatever the problem (real or concocted), only government can solve it. If all Republicans are going to do is propose different ways for government to run our lives and solve our problems—like “universal health care” through “market-based” policies—then what’s the point of electing Republicans?

Everything the Democrats do or suggest moves Americans toward dependence on government. They only “compromise” if they can move the ball in their direction. Republicans should counter with a policy that whatever they do or propose must result in greater control for individuals over their own lives. Compromise, yes. But only so long as it results in more freedom for individuals to manage their affairs and solving their own problems.

The only alternative to the Democrats’ statism is individual rights and limited, rights-protecting government. Stop obsessing over “polarization.” It’s time Americans had “a choice, not and echo.” Whatever the legislative policy, tie it to the Self-Reliance principle, and then trash Democrat opponents as pro-Dependency and anti-self-determination. Let voters know explicitly the broad direction the GOP wishes to move America.

Americans still respect self-reliance. Give them a choice—a Self-Reliant Society, or a Dependency Society—and I think the GOP could score big.

Related Reading:

Why Conservatism is a Perpetual Loser

My Challenge To the GOP: A Philosophical Contract With America

Extremists vs. the Moderates: Why the Left Keeps Winning, and the Right has been Powerless to Stop It

Election 2014: Readington Voters Make My Day

The Republican electoral sweep is welcome, but sharply tempered by the fact of social conservatives’ hold on the party. Nonetheless, there are bright spots. In an Election Day editorial, the Left-leaning New Jersey Star-Ledger hyperbolically predicted a planetary meltdown if the GOP captures the Senate. The editors cited three potential committee chairmen in an effort to derail the GOP juggernaut:

• Jim Inhofe, Environment and Public Works Committee, who “doubts climate change ‘is even a problem for human existence,’ and says it was invented by ‘alarmists’ who want to make ‘energy suppression. . . .the official policy of the United States.’”

• Ted Cruz, Subcommittee on Science and Space, who “would oversee most agencies seeking federal funding for scientific research, and whose perverse incuriosity can be condensed with his theory that ‘the problem with climate change is there’s never been a day in history of the world in which the climate is not changing.’”

• Ron Johnson, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, who “has called conservation groups an ‘environmental jihad,’ he has voted three times to rescind all carbon emission regulations. . .”

Well! What better endorsement for Republicans can one want? The Left has dominated the scientific funding and debate over climate change for far too long. Maybe, with these three in charge of key committees, rational viewpoints will get a fair hearing in Washington. Maybe they’ll even call Alex Epstein in for expert testimony.

More broadly, at the very least, the Obama agenda could be stymied.

For me, the highlight of Election 2014 was the apparent victories of John Broten and Sam Tropello over incumbents Julia Allen and Frank Gatti for Readington Township Committee. Readington is my home town. As reported by Renée Kiriluk-Hill for the Hunterdon County Democrat, the challengers pulled about 5600 votes against 5000 write-in votes for Allen and Gatti. (As of this posting, the write-in votes were still being counted, so the final results are not yet official.)

As I’ve noted, the Township’s eminent domain assault on Solberg Airport, designed to head off either airport expansion or other development, was the big issue in the township. I have been actively fighting against this action; e.g. click here and here. Broten and Tropello have vowed to work to stop it. Allen and Gatti, long-time office-holders in Readington, initiated the action some seven years ago, and ran an aggressive campaign to hold their seats and continue the assault.

So, for me, It was very satisfying that an electoral majority—albeit a slim one—saw fit to stop the injustice of eminent domain in Readington.

As to the national scene, congratulations to the GOP. Whatever the reasons for their “wave”, they now have yet another chance to advance a pro-liberty agenda.

Related Reading:

My Challenge To the GOP: A Philosophical Contract With America

Eminent Domain- Always an Abuse

Congressman Lance's Honor Role of Campaign Donors

The proposed PennEast natural gas pipeline through Hunterdon County, New Jersey continues to be a hot button issue, including in regards to the upcoming election. Andrea Bonette’s Hunterdon County Democrat letter of 10/13/14 letter, Lance’s Dark Money Donors, is a case in point.

Bonette announces her opposition to the PennEast pipeline in the first paragraph:

We cannot find any benefits to the communities it would trash on its way through, carrying gas that they cannot access and which very likely is headed for China.

Leonard Lance is the incumbent Republican congressman from NJ’s 7th district, through which the pipeline will pass. Bonette says that Lance “would support “a new plan that protects property rights and preserves public and private lands [but has not] suggested stopping the whole project.” She follows that up with a list of donors from fossil fuel companies and groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, Williams cos., and Velaro. She then cites so-called “dark money”—anonymous campaign spending—in observing:

There is no way to know how much of that anonymous funding has been donated to support Lance’s re-election, but we can safely assume that the above-mentioned corporations have contributed to preserve their interest in promoting nonrenewable energy.

Bonette concludes by urging a vote for Janice Kovach, Lance’s Democrat challenger, who opposes the pipeline.

I left these comments:

Well, you convinced me to vote for Leonard Lance. That honor roll of donors representing the great companies that supply our vital energy tells me that Lance is on the right side of the energy issue.

It’s irrelevant  whether or not the gas transported through the pipeline is available to local community members. If “community benefit” rather than individual rights were the standard, then none of us would have fuel, because the fuel we use today gets to us by passing through other communities around the state and around the nation through the hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines currently in use, not to mention what passes through other communities via rail or tanker truck. It’s simply hypocritical to stand in the way of producers based on “community benefit.”

Furthermore, it is un-American. America is based on the sanctity and dignity of the individual, not the mob. The “community” is made up of sovereign individuals, and no individual or group of individuals has moral standing to claim to represent all community members. Individual rights, not the whims of community mobs, is the proper standard for evaluating this and similar projects.

What’s relevant is that property rights are protected, meaning that the pipeline company must get only voluntary permission from property owners to cross their land—i.e., no eminent domain. Every assurance should be made that the most advanced state-of-the-art technologies be used so as to maximize safety and minimize pollution to the extent technologically possible. As the writer herself acknowledges, Lance has pledged to “protect property rights and preserve public and private lands.” So what’s the beef?

Opponents of the pipeline rarely advance any valid reason for opposing the pipeline. They are climate change dogmatists whose religious-like zealotry for their “renewable energy” fantasy drives them to hamper the industrial progress that our lives depend upon by stifling the reliable, affordable, clean energy provided by fossil fuels—in this case, natural gas produced by the wonderful technology called “fracking.”

As to that “dark money”: It’s irrelevant where the donations came from. “Dark money” is a term concocted by and for the dark political ideology of statism. But individuals and associations of individuals have a right to spend anonymously on issue and campaign advocacy, and the government should protect, not violate, that right. What matters is what is said, not who said it. People who are more concerned about who than what are either incapable or afraid to offer counter-arguments, or are ad hominem types who intend to use the identities of the donors to poison the public debate through personal demonization or smear tactics. Is it any wonder that some donors prefer anonymity?

Related Reading:

My Letter Rebutting Sierra Club Opposition to N.J. PennEast Gas Pipeline

Rights, Fossil Fuel Dangers, Future Generations, and the PennEast Pipeline

Principles of a Free Society—Ayn Rand Institute

Collectivized “Rights”—Ayn Rand

Election 2014: Eminent Domain and the "Limits of Rights"

In my election 2014 letter to the Hunterdon County Democrat, Is Any Taking Just?, I wrote: “The November election will pit John Broten and Sam Tropello against Julia Allen and Frank Gatti for Readington Township Committee.” Another letter by Abraham Farsiou, Rights Have Limits, took the opposite view on the same issue of Eminent Domain against Solberg Airport, endorsing Allen and Gatti.

It’s a long letter, but I addressed the fundamental issue raised by Farsiou in these comments. Quoting from Farsiou’s letter, I wrote:

“Some say the Solbergs have a right to do whatever they want with their property. However, the community in which you live sets up certain standards and there are certain zoning and other restrictions that we all have to abide by. These restrictions are put in place for the good of the community as a whole and to carry out the will of its constituents. For example, I rightly would not be able to put up a gas station in front of my house.”

Wrong. The standards that govern rights are to be found in the factual requirements of human life, not the arbitrary whims of the “community.”

A “community” is an abstraction denoting the individuals who comprise it. When someone invokes “the good of the community as a whole,” he is saying that his values and interests take precedence over the values and interests of others, and aims to impose those values on other community members by governmental force—i.e., at gunpoint.

But no individual or group such as a voting majority has any right to declare, in effect, “The community, c’est moi!, and anoint themselves the arbiters of the community good, or claim the title “the will of its constituents.” America is not based on the rule of the collective over individual subjects. That collectivist notion is as far removed from America’s ideals as one can get, and to the extent it has taken root in American culture is the extent to which America has moved away from its promise of freedom. America, in its original conception, is based on the sovereignty and sanctity of the individual, each of whom possess unalienable rights that can not be overridden by King, Cleric, dictator, “community standards,” or majority mob.

This is where rights and their limits come in. Each individual rightfully has domain over his own life, including his property. That domain takes the form of freedom of action in pursuit of the values one judges his own life and flourishing to require. Unalienable individual rights protect that freedom. Freedom of action does have limits, but those limits are not arbitrarily set by “the community.” The freedom that rights protect is based on the objective fact that to live according to his nature, men must be free from physical aggression imposed by his fellow man. The limits of freedom can be summed up in the truism: “Your rights end where my nose begins.” In other words, one’s freedom to act ends where aggressive acts of force against others begins. Likewise, others’ freedom ends where aggressive force against you begins: “One man’s rights end where the next guy’s nose begins.” In other words, the principle of unalienable rights carries the moral obligation not to initiate aggressive force against others. Rights bannish initiatory force from human relationships, thus subordinating society and government to the same moral law that individuals must abide.

Indeed, in a civil, moral, free society, the “community” is bound by the same limits as its individual members. Just as no number of individuals can privately gather into a mob, march on a neighbor, and run him off his property, so neither can that same mob camouflaged as “the community” hide behind legalities do it, using government as the hired gun. Clearly, seizing others’ land through eminent domain in the name of the community, community “character”, will of the voters, or any such collectivist rationalization is an un-American, rights-violating act of aggression, and the action against Solberg fits that description “to a T.”

It follows that the right to  “do whatever they want with their property” includes only peaceable, non-aggressive uses that does not violate others’ rights. One may not, for example, set up a shooting range without an appropriate buffer to protect one’s neighbors. Bullets flying into one’s neighbors’ property is aggressive force that intrudes on the neighbors’ use of his property. Aside from such uses, every individual has the right to use his land as he judges best. If the Solbergs apply for airport expansion, it is their right. If surrounding community members can prove that such expansion violates their rights—i.e., in some way physically interferes with the use of their property—they can come forward in the approval process.

Airport expansion is not the fundamental issue. Individual rights is the issue, and the only rational, fair basis for resolving the airport controversy. Zoning powers, like eminent domain, has evolved way beyond government’s legitimate function. Rather than objectively resolve land use conflicts according to rights-based standards, zoning has become a tool for politically powerful voting blocs to dictate land usage according to arbitrary community standards. But zoning is an issue for another day. For now, the first thing Readington voters should do is stop bloodying the nose of our neighbor, and vote to end the aggression against the Solbergs by voting for Broten and Tropello for RTC.

Related:

See my comments to Farsiou’s previous letter, Solbergs and Special Interests.

As to the Solberg’s alleged “lack of good faith negotiating with our township officials,” I exploded that fallacy in my comments to The threat of a jetport worst thing for Readington.

Related Reading:

The Rise of Collectivism and the Fall of the Constitution

Collectivized “Rights”—Ayn Rand

"Is Any Taking Just?": My Election 2014 Letter

My election-related letter, Is Any Taking Just?, was published in the Hunterdon County Democrat. Here is the letter in full, as printed:

To the editor:

The November election will pit John Broten and Sam Tropello against Julia Allen and Frank Gatti for Readington Township Committee. For me, the overarching issue is the township’s eminent domain action against Solberg Airport.

Broten and Tropello have indicated that they are against this action. Whatever their reasons, I believe they are on the right side of this issue. Here are my reasons:

The Constitution's Fifth Amendment “takings” clause — “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” — is understood to grant government the power of eminent domain. But that unfortunate fact contradicts every fundamental premise of America, and begs the question: Is any taking truly just?

Is it just to seize property against the will of an owner who has violated no one's rights, especially when the taking doesn’t serve — and, in fact, contradicts — government’s proper purpose to protect individual rights, including property rights? Is it just for government to dictate compensation terms not voluntarily agreed to by the seller? Is it just to force dissenting citizens to fund, through their taxes, eminent domain actions against their moral convictions?

My answer to these questions is: No. That our government has the power of eminent domain doesn’’t mitigate its immorality especially since, over time, eminent domain has morphed into a tool of predatory special interests, as is the case in Readington.

I'm voting for Broten and Tropello with the expectation that they will work to end the eminent domain action against Solberg Airport. If they win, and end the Solberg action, I will have helped score a victory for justice in Readington. If they lose, and the action proceeds, I will be able to look myself in the mirror, knowing I did what I could for justice.

MICHAEL A. LAFERRARA

Readington Township

Related Reading:

Eminent Domain- Always an Abuse

The Eminent Domain Assault by Readington Against Solberg Land is Democracy in Action—and Un-American

Deeper Than Kelo: The Roots of the Property Rights Crisis—Eric Daniels, TOS

Law Mandating "Equal Pay for Equal Work" is Logically, Economically, and Morally Wrong

In a June Town Hall Meeting, President Obama fielded this question concerning “equal pay for equal work”:

Hi, my name is Erin.  I just left a corporation in Minnesota, a Fortune 500 corporation, where I had my four-year degree, my male counterpart did not, and he was making $3 more an hour than I was.  My question for you is what are we going to do about it so as I grow up and other women grow up we are not experiencing the wage gap anymore?  

“Equal pay for equal work”: In the abstract, who would be against that?

The first problem is with the term “equal work”—it doesn’t exist. People doing the same job have widely varying degrees of productiveness. Some are more efficient. Some work faster, but make more mistakes that have to be corrected later. Some are slower and more deliberate, and thus make fewer mistakes. Ambition levels vary, as do leadership qualities and ability to adapt to changing conditions. Some are better “team players”. Experience varies greatly. Women on average may simply be less aggressive about going after raises. The list of variables is large. Equal work is a myth, just as equality in anything but the legal/political sense is a myth.

I spent my career in a New Jersey plumbers union. The pay scale is set by contract, and is equal for all members at all job levels; each year of apprenticeship (5), journeyman, foreman, general foreman, etc, has a set pay scale. Yet the quality of the worker varies greatly within each category. I’ve worked with individuals making the same pay scale but doing half the work as I, and others who are simply better. Having a degree of some sort—an apprenticeship graduation degree or four-year college degree—is no guarantee of productiveness.

Obama gave a long, rambling answer. As expected, he came out for government-mandated equal pay, making it easier for women to sue for back pay based on “discrimination,” banning companies from forbidding employees from sharing salary information, etc.—government mandate after government mandate.

Out will be judging people on individual merits; raises for better performance; unequal pay for unequal work, including for superior performing women. In will be paranoia; obsession over the next guy’s—or gal’s—pay level; or worse, the resentful slouch looking to hold back his productive betters. In will be the reign of mediocrity; out will be the reign of merit-based judgement. And in will be the all-pervasive fear of predatory lawsuits. Welcome to the drone company.

This is not to deny that some women are victims of unfair discrimination. There’s no doubt that this can be true. (Although Obama’s pay disparity claim—that women make only 77% of men—is a wild exaggeration. As the Left-leaning, normally pro-Obama New Jersey Star-Ledger noted in an editorial, the Obama-backed “Paycheck Fairness Act was a cynical ploy, because it relies on these bogus statistics. The disparity is more on the order of 91-95%, not far off of the statistical “margin of error.”)

But to the extent that pay injustice exists, that is no justification for dealing with the issue by force; i.e., by law. The issue of pay is strictly a contractual matter between employer and employee. The government should be protecting employer-employee rights to voluntarily contract, not dictating contractual terms based on statistics (which rank just above “damned lies” as a tool of deception), or anything else. Human beings are not drones. Any actual pay injustice that does exist in the workplace is a matter to be dealt with through education, rational persuasion, social activism, and economic competition, not governmental—i.e., armed—force. Free speech and reason, together, is a powerful force.

And Obama implied as much. He remarked that men should be equally concerned about gender pay inequities:

So this is something that I care a lot about not just because of my past, but also because of my future.  I’ve got two daughters.  The idea that they would not be paid the same or not have the same opportunities as somebody’s sons is infuriating.  And even if you’re not a dad, those of you who have partners, spouses -- men -- this is not a women’s issue.  Because if they’re not getting paid, that means they’re not bringing home as much money, which means your family budget is tighter.  (Applause.)  So this is a family issue and not a gender issue.

Yes, men should—and do—care about this issue. The president went on:

And there are some wonderful companies who are doing this.  And as I said before, it turns out that when companies adopt family-friendly policies their productivity goes up, they have lower turnover -- which makes sense.  Look, if you have a family emergency, and you go to your boss and you say, can I have a week off, I've got to take care of a sick child or a dad -- or can I leave early this afternoon because my kid is in a school play and I really think this is important, and they say, of course, nothing is more important than family -- how hard are you going to work for that person when you get back on the job?  You're going to feel invested in them.  You're going to say to yourself, man, these folks care about me, which means I care about you.  And if I have to take some extra time on a weekend, or I've got to do some work late at night when I'm not under an emergency situation, I'm going to do that.

So this makes good business sense.  But the problem is, is that we haven't done enough to encourage these new models.  And this is part of the reason why we did this Family Summit -- we wanted to lift this stuff up, show companies that are doing the right thing, encourage others to adopt the same practices, and maybe get some legislation that incentivizes better policies.

Family summits? Fine. “Lift this stuff up” (activism)? Wonderful. Freedom to persuade and agitate is powerful. And it gets results, over time. But legislation? Obama concluded: “In the meantime, though, if you're doing the same job you should make the same pay -- period; full stop. That should be a basic rule.  That shouldn’t be subject to confusion.”

What there shouldn’t be any confusion about is that government imposing “good business sense” by legislative force is immoral, impractical, and inimical to liberty and the proper purpose of government; which is to protect, rather than violate, individual rights. Obama conflates the benign and potent power of reason and freedom with the coercive and corrosive power of the gun. It is against someone who demands of politicians, “what are we [the government] going to do about it?” that we should scream, “FULL STOP.”

Related Reading:

What does it Mean to Say: "We'll Have to Agree to Disagree?"

"Regulating" Business - the Good and the Bad

How to Overcome Bigotry in a Free Society

Stamato vs. Zemack on Science, Political "Courage,” and Special Interests

As I noted yesterday, I lauded Rutgers University’s Linda Stamato for her willingness to intellectually engage readers in the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s comments section. Her willingness extends beyond her own article, too. The Star-Ledger Editorial Board’s Building a movement on climate, which was the subject of my 9/21/14 post, also featured comments by Stamato.

In her comments, Stamato directly replied to mine, which were posted under my screen name “Zemack”. Stamato said, in part:

Science told us that smoking was causing cancer and we were--finally--smart enough to promote good health practices including ridding the air we breathe of second hand smoke and curbing advertising including appeals to young people to reduce smoking.  Science tells us a lot and we ignore what it says at our peril.  "Never mind the climate science," Zemack?  Wrong.  Mind it and figure out the best strategies for minimizing climate change . . .

Science doesn't have to tell us what to do about what it tells us; we're supposed to be smart enough to develop the policies and plans that reflect our ingenuity and draws on our political will and courage to do what science has revealed. All too often, it's the special interests, those that profit by continuing practices that science uncovers are harmful, that push back and mislead the public.  

I replied:

I reject the comparison to smoking. Smoking is demonstrably harmful. Fossil fuels are demonstrably and overwhelmingly beneficial, on balance.

The issue is not just practical. It is moral. Special interests? They’re everywhere. We live in a mixed economy. You have a special interest; to use government force to impose your taxes, controls, and subsidies. The IPCC is a special interest. Being funded by politicians, it is the very definition of politicization. It must produce conclusions that satisfy the politicians, who seek ever more power and control. What should not be allowed is for special interests to use government as the hired gun to impose their values on everyone else by force of law, in the name of some collective “we”.

Droughts, rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods, blizzards, heat and cold waves, wildfires; all of these have always been with us. The difference is, we now have the technological capacity to adapt to and protect ourselves from nature’s harmful forces, and plentiful cheap energy is needed to drive that capacity. Reducing that capacity through government policies is the real long-term danger.

I would also dispute that using government force to impose “solutions” to climate change requires “political courage.” Initiating force is not courageous. It is the mark of a cowardly thug. The government’s only proper job is to protect individual rights, which includes objective laws against actual pollution. CO2 is not pollution. It is a gas essential to life on earth. Courage is on the side of those of us who battle against the climate change statists aggressors despite the degrading smears, demonization, and minimization of the statists, most of whom don’t themselves have the courage to engage opposing ideas in open intellectual debate.

Also, my opening reply about smoking should not be interpreted to imply support for government policies that “promote good health practices including ridding the air we breathe of second hand smoke and curbing advertising including appeals to young people to reduce smoking.” Many of those “public health” policies, such as imposing legal bans on smoking inside private establishments, are rights-violating and wrong. I wanted to stay on-topic, and getting into the propriety of government policies on smoking would have detracted from the main subject.

Related Reading:

Big Government vs. Big Business; or, Political Power vs. Economic Power

“Peoples Climate March” is No Friend of Humanity

Climate Change Alarmists Ignore Life-Giving Fossil fuel Contributions

Attack on "Carbon Pollution" an Attack on Human Life

Democracy for All Amendment: The Battle for Free Speech Reaches the Constitutional Pinnacle

The battle for free speech in America has reached the constitutional level.

Two years ago, President Obama, frustrated over recent pro-free speech Supreme Court rulings, called for an end run around SCOTUS with an Amendment to Overturn the First Amendment. This month, congressional statists commenced efforts to grant him his wish.

S.J. Res.19, dubbed “Democracy for All”, was introduced in the Senate on Monday, September 8. The proposed amendment reads as follows:

SECTION 1. To advance democratic self-government and political equality, and to protect the integrity of government and the electoral process, Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.

SECTION 2. Congress and the States shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation, and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.

SECTION 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.

As The Hill reported, the amendment is intended to reverse two Supreme Court rulings; Citizens United, which struck down campaign spending limits by corporations and unions, and McCutcheon, which struck down aggregate campaign spending limits by individuals.

This amendment grants governments broad powers to abridge political free speech by legally curbing campaign spending. Speech entails spending money in myriad ways; e.g., running ads on TV or radio or in newspapers. The unabridged exercise of free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment, is inextricably linked to the right to spend one’s own money as one judges best. To restrict spending on speech is to abridge free speech.  

This amendment further seeks to limit or even forbid individuals from exercising their spending (and thus speech) rights in voluntary association with others by drawing a legal “distinct[ion] between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law.” But these entities are in fact not “created by law” but by voluntary agreement among individuals, and properly recognized by law. Entities such as corporations are voluntary associations of individuals, and to violate the rights of voluntary associations is to violate the underlying rights of the individuals involved.

Despite SECTION 3, press freedom is at risk, too. For one thing, most of the major media are incorporated entities. Second, it costs money to operate the press; e.g., a newspaper.  At it’s root, freedom of the press is freedom of speech. When a newspaper editorializes for or against a candidate, ballot referendum, or other political issue—that is, seeks to “influence elections”—it must spend money to do so. How will future legislatures and courts reconcile the government’s power to regulate, limit, or block campaign spending by corporations with freedom of the press? On what logical basis does one favor media corporations from non-media corporations? Both the NY Times and ExxonMobil are corporations. Both seek, at times, to “influence elections.” Why distinguish between the two? This amendment could become a tool of enemies of media corporations such as Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky. Dictator Hugo Chavez undermined press freedom in Venezuela by attacking the “corporate media”.

I have only offered the briefest take on this issue, as I see it. There is much more to say on this. Essentially, this amendment transforms political speech from an inalienable right that government cannot abridge, to a privileged grant from the government, effectively overturning the First Amendment and giving the political class the power to silence its own critics.

The chance for passage is virtually nil, for now, and the Senate rejected the measure. But statists are gearing up for a long-term fight to get it enacted. This promises to be the mother-of-all free speech battles, upon which the war can very well be decided. Given the critical importance of free speech, press, and association, the highest priority should be given to exposing the sinister nature of this initiative, and strangling it in its crib. No free (or semi-free) nation can last for long under laws that place the freedom to speak one’s mind at the arbitrary discretion of government officials.

Related Reading:

Obama Urges Amendment to Overturn the First Amendment

Anti-First Amendment Democracy for All Amendment Introduced in Senate

Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America—Steve Simpson

Steve Simpson on Continuing Threats to Corporate Free Speech—TOS interview