Dear John Anderson and Clean Money campaigners:

Use of money to influence political decisions is like giving the rich person the most platform time,  whereas our system is predicated on equal opportunity in the forum  -- and equal chance everywhere to enjoy the blessings of liberty.

We do not have democracy, but propaganda mills can pretty much make the average person believe we do.

What should and must be targeted is the U.S. Supreme Court (egged on by ACLU) and its decisions that use of money is protected free speech

Your recent fund appeal has the admitted irony of complaining of political money while at the same time asking for it.

Eleven years ago I publicly spoke at great length to this social/political evil, and am circulating copies.  If you wish a copy of "So You Think We Have Democracy?" please say so.

The "speech" that is free, absolutely, is public civil discussion (as in the traditional town hall meeting).  Had the nation's founders proclaimed a freedom of mere speaking they would have been thought idiots.  The word speech in colonial times (see Oxford English Dictionary) meant conversation, as in the common phrase "I wish to have speech with you."

In monstrous error, every high court decision has dealt with one-way utterance exclusively, both oral and written, rather than two-way oral and civil interchange (the process of "minds rubbing together").  Democratic self-government, as Alexander Meiklejohn said, cannot survive without unfettered ability to get heads together discussing common concerns. 

The difference is between a one-way street and a two-way street. 

Oh.  I almost forgot.  The words "the freedom of speech" come from a 1689 British bill of rights meaning, unquestionably, speech-making and debates in Parliament. 

Respectfully, 
Louis Worth Jones
 

Subj: Voting rights and free speech
Date: 10/01/99
To: [email protected]

 Dear Voting Rights Institute:

The current (but false) legal doctrine, parading as free speech and expression, is that a wealthy citizen has more platform time than an impecunious citizen; that a wealthy citizen has greater rights of access to a legislator than one who is not wealthy.

And that use of campaign money that is hard to distinguish from bribery is "protected" by the First Amendment.

Not only that, but free speech addicts will tell you that a citizen hired to advocate this or that, or to influence this or that course of political action, has as much right in the forum as a citizen who is honestly and forthrightly expressing his own views.

In other words, free speech means that ours is a government of, by and for the rich and their hirelings.

There is no more revered free speech champion than Alexander Meiklejohn.  There can be no scholarly talk about free speech without at least a mention of Meiklejohn.  He said the First Amendment does not protect a person in saying what someone pays him or her to say.

He also said that speaking, an act of human conduct, is subject to regulation (governmental or peer) "the same as shooting a gun."

He lectured at length some 50 years ago that the First Amendment has been misinterpreted.  That commercialism controls most of what we see and hear, and that we have given the name "freedoms" to the most flagrant enslavement of our minds and wills.  He said we as citizens are being manipulated, and that such manipulation is the destruction of self-government.

In short, he said the speech that is free, and free absolutely, is public discussion  --  interactive speaking  --  among political equals about issues later subject to decision at the polling place.  The model, he said, is the traditional town meeting and, indeed, the nation's Congress itself.

Meiklejohn failed to point out, as I have done, that the word speech in the First Amendment does not pertain to speaking, which is one-way communication (message sending); rather the word speech in colonial times (see Oxford English Dictionary) meant conversation, as in the once common expression "I wish to have speech with you."

Also, Meiklejohn failed to point out, as I have done, that the words "the freedom of speech" have a history dating back to a 1689 British bill of rights meaning speech-making and debates in Parliament.  The same words appear in early state constitutions and in the Articles of Confederation.  This same absolute freedom is guaranteed to national legislators in Article I, section 6, of the U.S. Constitution ("for any speech or debate in either House they shall not be questioned in any other place").

When it comes to face-to-face discussion, free speech means you and I and other citizens have precisely the same right and freedom to participate in governance as that which is accorded members of Congress.  What could be clearer?

A gross subversion of the intended meaning of free speech has taken place.  No individual right is actually created.  Rather, a collective right of the citizenry is proclaimed to make governmental decisions in quintessential democratic manner, i. e., following traditional parliamentary law.

Democratic self-government cannot survive without recognizing this.

To contend that the First Amendment creates a right of one person at the expense of another is a manifest absurdity.  To content it applies to conduct of one citizen as regards another is equally absurd.  Our Bill of Rights deals with rights against government, not against one's citizen peers. 

No historian or Constitutional law scholar can show there is any First Amendment intent to deal with relationships between citizens, whether hostile or benign.   There is nowhere in civilized society a freedom of conduct or behavior, and speaking to or about another person is a matter of conduct.

There is no "right" to offend, annoy, threaten or vilify another.  There is no right to beat another's eardrums or incessantly imbed commercial or political messages in another's brain cells.  There is not even a right to another's attention; civility demands that one first ask.

Free speech champion Hugo Black said no one has a right to tramp up and down the streets threatening others.  That's conduct, he said.

Doesn't everyone have the right to speak out and be heard?  Here is the answer:  Participation as equals in the process of democratic self-government is not a right but a civic necessity.  When meeting face-to-face in discussion one is expected to discuss issues, not one's adversary.

I have tried to condense all this in a talk ten years ago titled "So You Think We Have Democracy?"   If requested you will be sent a copy to your street address. 

Louis Worth Jones
 
 
 

1999