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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (129340)	1/26/2010 6:09:41 PM
From: Travis_Bickle	Respond to of 542009

This goes towards why Congress passed the law in the first place. What if the association does not represent the views of its members? Should it be afforded the right to political speech? Congress realized that it could not pick and choose which associations are entitled to free speech and which are not ... so it barred all associations from free speech on political matters under certain circumstances. To repeat, it barred ALL OF THEM. There are no circumstances under which the government can pick and choose which associations have the right to political speech and which do not ... I don't care if you pack the court with 100% "progressives," that will not pass muster. So either all associations have freedom of speech, or none do. Freedom of speech means that you will sometimes have to put up with speech that you disagree with, and that may even be repugant to you. I am not thrilled by the fact that the Klu Klux Klan has the right to assemble and deliver its message in the village square ... but that is the price I have to pay for my right to assemble and deliver my message in the village square. The modern publicly traded corporation is, imo, a travesty, but that is something that comes and goes, maybe in 40 years it will not be a travesty. I don't think that these temporary changes in corporate governance are so important that we have to turn over our freedom of speech to Congress. If the Supreme Court is to err on one side or the other, I would prefer that it err on the side of freedom of speech.