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Books get banned all the time?!? What books, proof, links?


And I will agree with you that corps do not have the right to usurp the political interests of its owners or customers (employees I would argue are different, they choose to work there, they can always leave) I believe the free market will control the political aspirations of corporation. Say Walmart endorses Candidate A, and Protor & Gamble endorse Candidate B. I can choose to stop shopping at Walmart and not to buy products from P&G. I believe this ability will limit how corporation get into politics. Political correctness will as well. I also don't see these limits stopping Unions from doing the same thing, as they already endorse candidates and spend big bucks toward that end.

One other note, corps and unions cannot donate directly to candidates or parties, but can spend money as they see fit, there is a big difference there.

 

Absolutely. It's common. Just type "Banned Books Week" into your search engine. The American Library Association compiles a list of bannings and attemped banning of books in public libraries and schools. In schools, there may be a need for parents to complain, and to have some books removed (but it really depends), but I take exception in public libraries. Of course, the Catcher in the Rye is in the 10 most banned books every year. But it's been a while since I checked.

 

Refreshing optimism. Do I understand you right that donations will offset each other, leading to a stable equilibrium? Do you really believe that? Is that guaranteed? Just how exactly will that work? And why is that so?

That one can't tell because the hand of the free market is invisible after all is no acceptable answer btw

PS: As for banned books ...

 

Actually we were given to read Catcher in the Rye before 7th grade. Granted, it was a children's version, and I didn't catch any of the trickier moments until I read the original in 10th grade, but still - I wonder what those oversensitive parents who tried to ban it in high school would think if they saw a 12-year old reading it.

 

Shaman,
naturally, they want to thwart the subversion of values and general indoctrination of their children at the hands of the Liberal school system. The most consequent approach to that problem is of course home schooling, i.e. the avoidance of public schools altogether.

~*~​

As for the ruling, as for now, America is screwed. I don't take comfort in that within a relatively short time American citizens, Liberals and Conservatives alike, will be disgusted at the immense amounts of money corporations will invest into election campaigns and the overt corruption that will come with that.

Then add then international dimension that I alluded to earlier: Under the ruling a corporation is a corporation. And a foreign corporation (it doesn't matter whether it is from the US or Japan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE or the European Union) is going to be able to spend their monies influencing who is elected to the United States Congress. It is open to debate just how good that is for the average citizen or the country.

Under the ruling campaign contributions will also not be transparent. When money is being funnelled through the Chamber of Commerce for example, the Chamber will not be forced to disclose where the money they spent came from. Another inevitable aspect of such funding will be reciprocity, i.e. thank-you-dear-donor legislation, votes and appointments.

The effect of the inevitable influx of the large amount of money will be in rather short term that any candidate running for public office who is not business friendly enough will be outspent by his opponent. It is fairly predictable that fundamentalists like the Club for Growth crowd or the Chamber of Commerce will use the implications of the ruling to the fullest to further weed out RINO's or moderate republicans from the candidate rolls. The GOP will become more right wing. There will be more litmus tests. I can't make a real prognosis for the Democrats in this regard.

The ruling reflects the consequence of the appointment of a conservative majority at the supreme court. Jack Balkin at his blog put it well when he wrote:

What great prospects in the context of the ruling in question. Thus my proposal:

Create a constitutional amendment saying explicitly that "persons" will only mean "natural persons" under the constitution and that only natural persons will be recognized as having rights, and that campaign contributions are only open to American citizens i.e. natural persons. Only such explicit language can effectively prevent (conservative) judicial activism as seen in the ruling.

 

I'm talking about a hypothetical category. I don't know if it formally exists in the law or not, but the way the law works seems to recognize that it should. As I said, you can start with property. A corporation or company has to be able to own property in order to do just about anything. That then infers that corporations have the right to own property. If they have that right, they may have others. Which rights are up to the legislature and judiciary, but corporations do have at least some rights. They must in order to exist.

Please, Ragusa. They don't have to go through corporations for that.

Just one problem:

It doesn't give the people the freedom of speech. It says Congress can't abridge that freedom, no matter who wields it, apparently. If you doubt this, just look at the next phrase. "The press", even in those days, did not refer to individuals so much as to organizations. It almost sounds as if the Founding Father's didn't see Freedom of Speech to be a possession of individuals so much as a seperate and sacred entity, which must be protected whether used by a citizen, an immigrant, or not at all.

 

As a result of a string of bad rulings, they have the right to take YOUR property if it suits them.

No, really, no. The press in those days was almost always private, and often just an owner with a journeyman or an apprentice, who was a young family member. Read the life of Ben Franklin, who, btw, has become my favorite founder. His early life describes the printing business in colonial America in the 18th Century very well. Boston for instance, only had two presses and one was owned by Ben's brother, which was how he got started in the business that made him his fortune.

If you go back and just look at the history of the Revolution, you can read how important the owners of printing shops were on both sides. There was no large corporate media. There was mostly small, private printing shops.

Printing presses were not even made here. Ben had to travel to England to purchase his equipment, where because of strange circumstances with the Governor of Pennsylvania, he ended up working for a large printing house in London, and even that one was a private esatblishment.

Edit: There were four shops in Boston at that time, not two. I had to go back and check. The First American: The Life and Times of Ben Franklin. W. H. Brands.

 

Ragusa, this is EXACTLY the way that the Constitution SHOULD be read ... very, very literally. It is NOT "activism" to actually make judicial decisions based on the literal reading of the Constitution. Activism occurs when justices start making decisions based on NON-literal readings, because when you do that, you can make any words mean anything you want them to mean.

And while I'm not exactly comfortable with the direction that this decision will go regarding campaign funding issues, etc., I love how the decision was made on what appears to be a literal reading of the Constitution. And if that forces people to understand that that's the ONLY proper way to read the Constitution, then this decision will have accomplished something exceptional... It would force people, Congress, and the SCOTUS to understand that the only thing that matters is the literal meaning of the written word. While this may result in some uncomfortable judicial decisions, it will force Congress to write more exacting laws and perhaps constitutional amendments that say EXACTLY what they want them to say, instead of using some gobbledy-gook that could be twisted to mean anything.

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It is not the job of the SCOTUS to produce rulings that produce a right and just result (ignoring the obvious that what constitutes "right and just" may differ considerably between you and I). It IS the job of the SCOTUS to determine the constitutionality of a case. And if a properly constitutional decision happens to produce a result that's not "right and just", it's not the job, the responsibility, nor the right, of the Supreme Court to make it just or right. It is not the responsibility of the Supreme Court to determine right or wrong. It's their job to determine constitutionality. And if they ARE making decisions based on right or wrong, then they are exceeding their mandate, and stealing power that properly belongs to the Congress.

 

crucis,
afaik when read literally there is no mentioning of corporations or legal entities or legal persons whatsoever in the parts of the US constitution covering free speech. Needless to say, legally 'persons' and legal entities like 'legal persons' (i.e. corporations) are different things.

To read out of the constitution that a legal entity is a person, too, and thus must be accorded the same rights is already interpretation, and not merely reading the text literally. To call that exercise 'Originalism' doesn't change that.

 

Nice link, but no, these are books banned from local libraries and schools. You, as a consumer, are still able to purchase any of those books through a multitude of sources. I was speaking about the Federal Government banning a book from being printed. In the SC case, the corporation was banned from distributing is movie through theaters or DVD sales, they did not allow the public from seeing it. Now you may disagree with the message, even claim every fact in the movie was a lie, but are you telling me it should not be seen in America? This is not Cuba or Venezuela, although some in our government would like that, and through Freedom of Speech, we are allowed to disagree with the government and any politician.

Now, once again, do you know of any instants where the government banned you from viewing anyone else's political speech?

 

Public libraries are exactly that: public. And yes the government can ban books off the shelves of the PL. They have even done so in my local community in the past, when various groups have complained (in my community, it is the County Commissioners who do the banning). There was an instance where the library was able to have some books restored that had been banned. I think most of the groups have given up here, because so many other people have counter-complained over the banning of books by the commissioners.

As far as consumer purchases go I've never heard of a book being banned, but I was only commenting that the government CAN ban books and that they indeed do so.

Yes, that is a job that the Court usurped for itself. That was really not its intended job, since the Constitution does not define it as such. Since you want a literal meaning of the Constitution, it does not "literally" say that in the Constitution. Read article III.

 

If I am the head of LKDCorps, and I have decided that I want Senator Buford T. Buttweiller re-elected, as long as my shareholders don't have a vote blocking me from so doing, I should be able to take out ads lauding the glories of Sen. Buttweiller and criticising the vileness of the challenger Horace D. Humpalot. As long as I don't commit slander, I really don't see the problem. It's a free country and LKDCorps should be able to advocate for it's own interests in the Marketplace of Ideas.

I understand why this would concern some people, but I don't see this as a threat to democracy.

 

...And you have decided to steal your shareholder's profits to promote your own personal, political agenda. How nice for you, KING LKD.

 

You are reading the Constitution entirely wrong.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights in particular does NOT "give" rights. It lists those areas where the government cannot deny rights. Just because corporations, etc. are not listed in the 1st Amendment does not mean that they can be denied 1st Am rights.

No, actually (IIRC), defining a "legal entity" (i.e. a corp) as a "person" is something that's written into the laws that enable corporations within the law.

It's an "interpretation" to imply that the 1st Am only applies to actual persons, because it says no such thing. The 1st AM only says that the Congress cannot abridge free speech rights. It does not say that it cannot abridge those rights to group A but can abridge those rights to group B. It simply says that it cannot abridge free speech rights ... period.

 

If it's totally personal, then my shareholders will likely cut off my ding-a-ling, figuratively speaking. But if I can convince them that if Buttweiller gets elected, LKDCorps will make better profits in the years to come, then it's a good investment, and my shareholders are hopefully bright enough to understand that. Nothing wrong with making investments with the hope that they will come back to the company ten-fold!

 

Companies and corporations were around at the time the Contitution was framed, and the framers certainly could have included them. The Framers did not include corporations within the BoR. Period.

That sounds very "democratic" to me, LKD.

 

Chandos, I agree that public libraries are "public". And I'm uncomfortable with banning books in libraries.

HOWEVER... public libraries are indeed PUBLIC. Who are the librarians to veto, to override the desires of the majority of their community? If the majority of the people in the community do not want book X to be in their library, who the hell are the librarians to override that decision? They work for the people of that community, not the other way around!!!!

Now, mind you, I said that I'm uncomfortable with banning books, and frankly, it'd take a LOT to get me to want to ban a given book. But I don't think that the right to make this decision belongs to the librarians, nor the courts. It lies with The People. If the majority of the people in a community vote to ban (for a familiar example) "Catcher in the Rye", I may not like that decision, but it's their right to make that decision for the community, not the librarians'.

This is a little unclear. The Constitution says: "In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." (Article III, section 2, para. 2, sentence 2)

It seems moderately clear (maybe clear as mud) that saying that the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction in "all other cases" that they are the final arbiter of constitutionality, given that they are the "supreme" court.

I'm not sure whether I'd say that the SCOTUS "usurped" power in Marbury v. Madison, or they simply more clearly defined what was already in the Constitution, though vaguely.

I'm not usually a fan of the SCOTUS because I happen to think that far too often they cross the line between simply interpreting and creating new law.
I'm not exactly fond of the primary result of this particular free speech decision regarding corps, etc., but I think that it was a constitutionally proper decision... and if Congress decides that it doesn't like the seemingly obvious result of the decision, then they should write a law that will produce the desired result that can pass constitutional muster.

((Caveat: I'm not exactly sure that it would be possible to write a new law that could pass "constitutional muster", given the openness of the free speech clause, and because I haven't read the majority decision and don't know the exact basis for this decision. It may be that it's only possible to change this situation by passing a constitutional amendment. I don't really know.))

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Like Ragusa, you're reading the BoR backwards.

The BoR does not list the people's rights. It lists those areas where the government has NO rights. The fact that companies and corporations aren't listed is meaningless. The 1st AM says that Congress may not abridge free speech rights. It does not have to say what groups this applies to... It applies to everyone.

 

Since they were not included in the orginal document: Thomas Jefferson, the person who suggested the BoR to James Madison, said that they are "protections and restrictions" from government and its agents:

This seems to be more sharply defined in his comments by 1789:

They are guards, protections to our liberties, as Jefferson and Madison intended them to be.

What is this about?

A corporation is not a person; therfore it is not an "everyone" but it is a "thing."

 

I don't think the Constitutional right to free expression (and by extension, free exposure to the expression of others) should be overridden by the vote of a majority. I'll make a test case. I like those!

LKD has written a fabulous book entitled "My Whore of an Ex-Wife" -- SP readers have been blessed with some excerpts from this text over the past several years, but now here it is, larger than life, and a million times more controversial than The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Great Gatsby put together!

Now, the fine community of Middleville has a nice little public library. This blockbuster novel is on the shelves for only half a day when the community explodes. A vote is held. 51% of the community wants it out of the library, 49% wants to keep it. Should the 51% have the right to stop the 49% from reading the book? I think not.

Now, some rules about WHERE the book is kept (far away from the eyes of the little 'uns, cannot be taken out by anyone under 18 without parental consent, etc) are reasonable. But to ban it outright from the library? I cannot believe that is constitutional. It seems to me to trample on the rights of the minority -- and that holds true even if the "ban" vote was 90% and the "keep" vote was 10%

 

LKD - Very good post. And I agree.