Daily Archives: 12 February 2014

Freedom of Speech

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The House Ways and Means Committee voted—on party lines—to move to the full House for debate (and passage) a bill that would delay Treasury’s proposed regulations that would “limit the political activities of so-called social welfare groups.”  These regulations are targeted at 501(c)(4) groups and written in a way that will affect conservative groups more than liberal groups.

That’s not what interests me, though.  What does interest me is a Democratic Party Congressman’s remark decrying the bill.  Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr (D, NJ), who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said,

It is about disclosure.  Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say you have the right to say anything you want—and also not pay any taxes.

There are a couple of things wrong in this short statement….

Actually, there is such a right, and it’s not just in the Bill of Rights, but in the Constitution as a whole.  Our Constitution is a document that explicitly limits the Federal government to a short list of permitted activities and powers with which to carry out those activities: the 18 clauses of Article I, Section 8, and the powers enumerated in Articles II and III are the sum total of what the Federal government can do.  Nowhere in there is there any tying of political speech to the payment of taxes.  An American citizen has no obligation whatsoever to pay a tax to the Federal government in order to receive permission to speak publicly.

Moreover, what rights American citizens do have under this Constitution, especially in relation to the powers of the Federal government, were clearly laid out in The Federalist [emphasis added]

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined.  Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former will be exercised principally on external objects…with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.  The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people….

and in the 9th and 10th articles of the Bill of Rights which Pascrell seems not to have read:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

and in the 1st article of the apparently unread Bill of Rights, which says this, in part:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech….

Notice that: nowhere in there is speech tied to the payment of a tax.  Quite the opposite.  Speech cannot be abridged in any way, and taxes exist primarily to fund the government’s ability to engage in its outward looking authorizations.  In particular, taxes cannot be used to regulate—to abridge—speech.

To say to an organization, “If you want excusal from paying taxes, you must engage primarily in these kinds of activities” is entirely legitimate.  To say to that same organization, however, “If you want excusal from paying taxes, you may not speak of these things which we will identify for you,” is exactly that abridgment.  This is, nakedly, a tax on speech.

Then there’s this: “It is about disclosure.”  No, Congressman, it isn’t.  The Federal government has no legitimate interest in who says what in the political arena.  The articles in The Federalist were, every one, written by Publius, even though the authors in fact were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.  Anonymity is, in fact, a major protection for a speaker against a government that might presume to object to that speech and seek to act against the speaker—by, for instance, demanding a tax payment as a condition of being allowed to speak.

A propos this whole free speech limitation that the Democrats want to impose on us is this statement with which “Publius” opened The Federalist:

It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

This is a typical Democrat’s lack of understanding of our Constitution.

Good for the Skins

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On the all-important Question of the Universe concerning what Washington should name their professional football team, Senator Maria Cantwell (D, WA) and Congressman Tom Cole (R, OK) wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in which they decried the Washington Redskins’ name as “an insult to Native Americans” and demanding that the Skins change their name to something more politically correct, more acceptable to these two Speech Police Officers.

In response to this foolishness, the Washington Redskins have issued a statement outlining their position on this matter.

STATEMENT BY THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS

ON SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL’S (D-Wash.) LETTER TO THE NFL:

As the former Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Senator Cantwell should be aware that there are many challenges facing Native Americans, including an extremely cold winter with high energy bills, high unemployment, life threatening health problems, inadequate education and many other issues more pressing than the name of a football team which has received strong support from Native Americans.

If the Senator wants us to change our team name, has she already told that to the team named “Redskins” in Wellpinit, Wash., where the school’s population is more than 90 percent Native American?  We hope Senator Cantwell has visited with those students in order to hear their thoughts.  We hope Senator Cantwell is aware how upset the students in Port Townsend were when they were forced to change their name.

In an ESPN report on Sept. 18, 2013, Tim Ames, the superintendent of Wellpinit schools stated, “I’ve talked to our students, our parents and our community about this and nobody finds any offense at all in it.  Redskins is not an insult to our kids.  “Wagon burners” is an insult.  “Prairie n—–s” is an insult.  Those are very upsetting to our kids.  But “Redskins” is an honorable name we wear with pride….  In fact, I’d like to see somebody come up here and try to change it.”

Finally, why did Senator Cantwell send her letter to the New York Times before she had the courtesy of sending it to the NFL?  No one other than a politician does that.

Surely, with all the issues Congress is supposed to work on such as the economy, jobs, war and health care, the Senator must have more important things to do.

“Redskin” is an insult?  How that dastardly slur, “Yankee,” or “Yankee doodle” that those Evil Redcoats used to call us?  Oh, wait….

Obamacare Failure

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Some random thoughts on President Barack Obama’s latest…delay…of inconvenient parts of his health welfare law:

House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH):

[O]nce again, the president is rewriting law on a whim.  If the administration doesn’t believe employers can manage the burden of the law, how can struggling families be expected to?

This latest rewrite, now being carried out by the Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew in President Barack Obama’s name, is as lawless as Obama’s previous rewrites.  No authority to rewrite, or to refuse to enforce parts of, the Obamacare law or any other law exists in the Executive Branch.  Law writing and changing—both!—are the sole prerogative of the people’s elected representatives in the Congress.  What Obama is doing isn’t a rule adjustment in order to better effect the law, it’s a plain and simple refusal to enforce the law (under the guise of rewriting it), as the President and his Treasury Secretary are sworn to do.  And it was done solely for Democratic Party electoral gain; the move has nothing to do with what’s good for American businesses, and not at all with anything related to what’s good for American citizens.

Incidentally, the Treasurer’s oath of office is this (the President’s oath of office is in Art II, Section 1 of the Constitution):

I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.  So help me God.

“Support and defend the Constitution of the United States” means, in this context, that the Treasurer is sworn to honor the separation of powers delineated in Articles I and II of the Constitution, which means in turn, he must do his part to enforce the law as it’s written; he cannot (as opposed to may not) rewrite it at convenience of for any other purpose.

I’m unsympathetic toward the insurers here.  Insurance company management wanted Obamacare, and they lobbied hard for it.  Now they’re reaping what they sowed, in terms of unbalanced costs.  The insurance companies’ management has been immoral and cowardly: they wanted to get into bed with government and take advantage of personal relationships with government bureaucrats and politicians so they could freeload off their fellow citizens and their tax money.  Instead, they should have chosen the path of being responsible fellow citizens themselves, taking advantage of their relationships with customers through free market.

As advertised, this…rewrite…is a temporary change, and the law will resume its full force in 2017 (conveniently after the next two elections, by the way).  As a temporary measure, it can have no effect on our economy, on business’ decisions as they operate in our economy, or on hiring (or not hiring).  This just extends the uncertainty, and it continues the drag on our economy and on Americans’ prosperity.  Any high school student of economics understands this, and so do Obama, Lew, and their Progressive fellows in Congress.

Again: this is a move purely for cynical Party gain, and nothing else at all.