7 ms·

The First Amendment forbids any such legislation.

• commandlinefan 6y ago
  And thank god for it.
  • srswtf123 6y ago
    We should probably thank the _humans_ that wrote it.
    • gillytech 6y ago
      Per Thomas Jefferson the "unalienable rights" guaranteed by the US Constitution are God-given, and cannot be suspended or set aside by other humans.
      • AlexandrB 6y ago
        But they can be added to? Either it's a human document you can amend or it's an immutable religious text.
        • runsWphotons 6y ago
          The unalienable rights are in the declaration of independence. The bill of rights are like human made restrictions on government which attempt protect the unalienable rights (correct me if I am wrong).
      • boomboomsubban 6y ago
        Per Thomas Jefferson, people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," which has different nuances than "God-given." And it was in the Declaration of Independence as someone else said, only thematically connected to the Constitution.
      • ethbr0 6y ago
        If you want to cite the Declaration, you should probably quote that entire passage: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
• Spooky23 6y ago
  It absolutely does not do any such thing. Speech can be well-regulated, just like other constitutional rights. Your right to speak does not mandate a megaphone. What I described was the law from the 1930s until the 1980s. Our predecessors saw what happened in fascist and communist states and wisely took measures to avoid that.
  • tiahura 6y ago
    I'd like a cite for Speech can be well-regulated. First Ammendment caselaw is a little muddled, however, content regulation falls between strict scrutiny and per se invalid depending on which way the wind is blowing. See eg. Simon & Shuster v. NY (invalidating Son of Sam law). See also, RAV (invalidating hate speech law).
  • dnissley 6y ago
    What measures?
  • sokoloff 6y ago
    I think there's a legitimate difference whether the Fairness Doctrine was imposed as a condition of licensing the use of a limited, public resource (frequency spectrum allocation) or as an attempt to regulate freedom of the speech or press. Because of the way it was implemented, I believe it was a condition of the use of public spectrum, not a regulation on speech broadly.
  • joshuamorton 6y ago
    > Speech can be well-regulated, just like other constitutional rights Broadly, the opinion of SCOTUS has been that speech cannot be regulated outside of very particular circumstances, and those circumstances have, in general, been shrinking over time (from undefined to "clear and present danger" to "imminent lawless action" to clarify that "imminent lawless action" really means right now, and not just relatively soon) The Fairness Doctrine isn't a regulation on speech, it's a regulation on use of government licensed airwaves.
  • sneak 6y ago
    FYI: the "well-regulated" of 2A refers to a concept more along the lines of "well oiled" than what we term "government regulation" today.
• pwinnski 6y ago
  And yet the Fairness Doctrine was the rule for 38 years, and the US Supreme Court agreed it was within the purview of the FCC to do so. It's not about free speech, it's about what's broadcast over public airwaves.
  • bhupy 6y ago
    But that was only in the context of radio broadcasting, where there is a scarcity of frequencies. Even while it was active, the Fairness Doctrine never applied to cable television: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-fairness-doctrine/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-fairness-doc... https://fair.org/extra/the-fairness-doctrine/ https://fair.org/extra/the-fairness-doctrine/ "Since cable’s infrastructure is privately owned and cable channels can, in theory, be endlessly multiplied, the FCC does not put public interest requirements on that medium." In the context of cable news and journalism on the internet (basically infinite supply), there's no version of the Fairness Doctrine that would hold up.