Nobody was stopping them from making or distributing the movie. The case concerned restrictions on the airing of ads in a narrow window of time to prevent unlimited use of money for electioneering purposes.
The District Court determined that the movie itself was "electioneering communication":
> After viewing The Movie and examining the 73-page script at length, the court finds Mr. Morris's description to be accurate. The Movie is susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her.[12] The 280*280 Movie is thus the functional equivalent of express advocacy. See WRTL, 127 S.Ct. at 2667 (setting out the "functional equivalent" standard). As such, it falls within the holding of McConnell sustaining, as against the First Amendment, § 203 insofar as it bars corporations from funding electioneering communications that constitute the functional equivalent of express advocacy.
This essentially prevented the group from airing the movie on television within 30 days of the Democratic Primary (i.e. the very period during which one might want to air a movie advocating for or against a candidate!) The group would have faced civil and criminal penalties for airing the movie.
And you've just gotten to the heart of why it's different from Brown. Money corrupts politics and threatens democracy. There is no such problem with violent video games.
If you think it's "insane" that we make this distinction, all I can say is that I think you're insane for not making it.
There was nothing about that movie that was related to "Money" per se. This wasn't the Koch brothers conspiring with George Soros. This was a couple of goofballs editing together some news footage and dubbing over some scary narration. That is, shit that happens on youtube every day. You know, speech. After the FEC has silenced all the little guys who dare criticize a candidate, do you really think the Kochs will be reduced to normal private citizens?
> After the FEC has silenced all the little guys who dare criticize a candidate, do you really think the Kochs will be reduced to normal private citizens?
Exactly. People vastly misunderstand Citizens United.
Fox News is Rupert Murdoch buying airtime in bulk for his political speech. Unless you propose to shut it down along with every other privately owned media company, money is speech.
If laws were made with the philosophy that they must perfectly solve all aspects of a problem, there would either be no laws, or there would be complete totalitarianism. Thankfully, people rarely subscribe to absolutist philosophies once you actually get them to think about a topic.
So what practical solution are you proposing? Rupert Murdoch gets as much speech as he can afford to buy but some smaller entity can't buy more than some arbitrarily set small amount of airtime preceding an election?
The rules were limited to corporations, associations and unions. Individuals were not restricted in this type of speech. Citizens United was a nonprofit corporation.
Yes, which was the heart of the CU decision: if individual are unlimited, and corporations, associations, and unions are collections of individuals, then how can those be limited?
Put another way, the CU decision argued that individuals do not give up their right to free expressions just because they decided to pool their money in a particular way.
Remind us again, what's the problem with money and politics? Is the problem really that some people make money by commenting on politics? I guess you're thinking of like, Rush Limbaugh? Maybe Jon Stewart? Really? Please think more carefully.
If money is like cooties, in that it ruins everything it touches, no matter what actual role it plays in the situation, then everything in this world is screwed up forever. But, that's not the case. The real problem with money in politics is the corruption of political, regulatory, administrative, and legislative decisions. When you fixate on stupid shit like some movie some dudes made, that idiocy is quite useful for those who benefit by that corruption.
The irony of your statement is that Rockstar Games almost certainly has a ton more money than Citizens United, and is a for-profit corporation on top of all that. Citizens United is just an advocacy organization, no different than Sierra Club, etc. Who exactly is the "moneyed interest" here?
I must have missed the part where Rockstar Games is engaged in electioneering at all, much less with Grand Theft Auto. Could you point me to some sources on that? As it stands, your comment has absolutely nothing to do with my statement.
My point is that Rockstar Games is a wealthy for-profit corporation, while Citizens United is a political organization funded by individuals. The latter seems for more worthy of having free speech rights than the former.
Your point, which I think is a fundamentally flawed and even dangerous view of speech rights, is not actually relevant to the philosophy you don't understand but claim is insane.
The speech CU engaged in implicates practical problems violent video games do not. The question has never been one of worth. If it were, I'd have a long list of people I'd like locked up, starting with all politicians and lawyers.
No, the interest in remedying those problems overcomes the protection to which all speech is entitled. Why do you find this surprising? It's the same way any speech restriction is upheld.
(I'm very confused as to how you came to this conclusion, by the way, and would appreciate an explanation. That it's a matter of what "deserves" protection is exactly the idea the comment you replied to sought to dismiss, so somehow you've interpreted my statements exactly backwards.)
From what I understand, speech restrictions are upheld in very narrow ways:
- "time, place, and manner" restrictions such as not yelling at 4 AM in a residential area (these must withstand what's called "immediate scrutiny", which basically says that the restrictions must be content neutral, narrowly tailored to serve a specific government interest, and leave ample opportunity to share outside of the specific circumstances)
- "content" restrictions, such as restrictions on direct threats or child porn. These must pass strict scrutiny (narrowly tailored, serve a specific government interest, and be the least restrictive means to serve that interest.)
The government's interest has never been in "remedying" the problem of people speaking about politics, regardless of money (it does have an interest in stopping bribery, but that's a different issue.) Indeed, Kennedy's majority opinion in Citizens United is quite direct about wanting to allow more people to speak about politics -- specifically, allowing associations of people (ie, corporations, unions, etc.) the same ability to speak that single wealthy individuals have. The alternative to CU is frightening -- the only people whose political messages could be heard would be the few with the money to own media companies, or the few with the social networking apparatus to create faux-viral content.
This parallels older supreme court decisions such as:
Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819)
Providence Bank v. Billings, 29 U.S. 514 (1830)
Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)
United States v. United Auto Workers, 352 U.S. 567 (1957)
In my opinion, restrictions on electioneering spending do pass strict scrutiny.
> The government's interest has never been in "remedying" the problem of people speaking about politics, regardless of money
Money is all that is at issue here. Like many others, I categorically reject the notion that money is speech, and have done so for a very long time in the face of far more detailed and principled arguments to the contrary than have been presented in this thread.
> (it does have an interest in stopping bribery, but that's a different issue.)
Bribery is not a different issue -- campaign contributions, direct or not, are bribery.
> allowing associations of people
I will never consider "associations" that shield their members/owners from personal liability to be entitled to speak or do anything else without the permission of society.
The alternative to CU is not frightening. The alternative to CU is recognition of the obvious: Limited liability entities are not entitled to any rights, political campaigns should be publicly funded, and individual spending on electioneering should be strictly limited.
Notice I keep saying "electioneering", not "politics", because the conduct at issue is expenditure of money on electioneering, not speaking about or spending money on politics in general. This is just one example of the vast disconnect in evidence here.
If a single wealthy person is, non-anonmously, going to be allowed to electioneer, that's actually the price that should be paid for restrictions on associations.
People can judge the message by the speaker. When billionaiare Meg Whitman ran for office, her ads were on every single commercial break. She still lost. People saw through her.
When you have a multitude of associations, you can't tell who is saying what, and it creates confusion.
