First Amendment vs. First Amendment

Reason has an interesting post posing the question: Does the Freedom of Assembly Limit Freedom of Speech?

The Right to Free Speech is Apparently Restricted by Political Correctness

In LA, anyway.

We Are Now Media . . . And There Was Much Rejoicing

The FEC has ruled that blogs dealing with politics are media for election law purposes. In the words of TechCrunch, "Essentially it reaffirmed the right of American bloggers to exercise their free speech rights without being subject to US electoral law, in the same way that media organizations are able to."

How Dare You, Sir!

Congress has just cut off the salary for Andrew Biggs, the new Deputy Commissioner of Social Security. Apparently, the fool dared to suggest that young workers be allowed to invest their Social Security in private accounts. The scoundrel.

Oldies but Goodies

Apologies for being stingy with posts lately. Here are some fun tidbits from the last few days:

• From Albany Times Union article (HT: Fark headline):

"In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Passengers are prohibited from carrying containers holding more than three ounces of liquids, gels or aerosols through airport checkpoints. The screeners at Albany International confiscated the water bottle but missed the bomb."

• From Anchorage Daily News article (via Club for Growth post):

"'When you are chairman of a committee, you represent the whole nation; you don't represent one district, which is in my case is one state,' [Congressman Don Young (R-AK)] said. 'Earmarks are good for the country and good for the people you represent. That is the role of a congressman. If you can't get money for your district, you shouldn't be in Congress,' he said."

• From Slate article (via a Greg Mankiw's blog post):

"Alumni with kids are 13 percentage points more likely than alumni without kids to give in any year. The tendency to give rises slowly—by three more percentage points total—through kids' early teens... And, indeed, while giving declines after age 14 among parents of kids who do not go on to apply, giving rises from about 18 to 25 percentage points (above the level of the childless alums) for those whose kids do apply a few years later. The timing is certainly suggestive."

• From a Reason article:

"In theory, redistribution of wealth is supposed to benefit the least fortunate. In practice, it doesn’t necessarily work out that way. In a new study, Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute and Paul J. Gessig of the Rio Grande Foundation crunch census data for the 1990s and find that the poor did much better in states with low taxes and low spending than in states with higher taxes."

• From Club for Growth post:

"With alarming contempt toward the U.S. Constitution and American taxpayers, Representatives David Obey (D-WI) and Barney Frank (D-MA) have introduced new legislation clamping down on political speech by outlawing all private expenditures from general elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. Ironically named the Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act, the Obey-Frank legislation will publicly fund all general election House races with taxpayer dollars."

Fairness Doctrine Resurrected

The Heritage Foundation has a good article on the Fairness Doctrine and how some in Congress would like to resurrect it. Anyone interested in free speech issues should read it.

Girls Gone Union

I am not sure what to say about this, except that it might help someone see how ridiculous compulsory unionization is. Unless you think it is a good idea. Then I can call you authoritarian and idiotic.

The problem with people like Joe Francis [owner and founder of Girls Gone Wild] is that he is exploiting non-unionized, unprotected, poorly compensated, unlicensed (and often incapacitated) temp workers, and profiting handsomely from this exploitative labor market. Eligibility to work as a model for pornography, and legal hiring for pornography, should be contingent on the model's membership in a sex worker union, which would a variety of legal, health, pay scale and other occupational protections. If we moved to such a model, then we might have some hope of rationally addressing this issue within the context of existing social norms about the appropriate legal age limits for contracting one's labor. And no one would have the legal right to drive by a crowd and say "here's 100 bucks to pull up your shirt" to a bunch of young women lacking union cards.

From Reason's Hit & Run

Problems and Solutions

• A great new government program - Problem: State government loses money due to reliance on gas tax; Solution: Spend $800 million to raise $4.8 million - from Townhall.com
• Stalin-Esque Show Trial At Tufts University - Problem: Free Speech; Solution: "'We don't like you. Nobody likes you . . . There should be consequences.'" - from Townhall.com
• Free Minds, Free Eastern Market - Problem: DC-owned market burns down; Solution: Have Eleanor Holmes Norton promise to rebuild it with federal money as soon as she's done trumping the constitution on who gets seats in Congress. - from Reason Magazine
• Blogged Down - Problem: Any "public figure" determines that any statement made on any blog is defamatory; Solution: State gives blogger two days to remove the statement, if he doesn't, state slaps blogger with "'a presumption of malice intent,' and the statement would not actually have to be defamatory for the presumption to kick in." - from Reason Magazine
• House Rules - Problem: Someone needs/wants a roommate. This person would prefer a person with or without certain traits so that they are compatible; Solution: Sue the site that hosted the online add using the Communications Decency Act - from Reason Magazine
• What the Hate Crimes Law Would Do - Problem: You tell me that you think something I am doing is bad in some way; Solution: I lobby congress to pass a law making any statement to that effect a hate crime (oh, and for good measure, congress restricts it to statement made against the specific thing that I am doing and refuses to extend it to anything else) - from Townhall.com

This Is My Land

A very scary article at LegalTimes.com about a man who refused to give an easement to the US government, and has been harassed for years as a result. It is a perfect example of the concept that with enough laws, everyone becomes a criminal, and thus subject to government pressure and action against him.

McCain-Feingold Review

Cato-at-Liberty has a nice article on McCain-Feingold and it's effects on the last election. It makes a number of interesting points about a law so sketchy that was signed by the president with the understanding that it would be found unconstitutional later.

Ornstein and Corrado suggest the law reduced the number of negative ads. But that’s pure speculation. Judging by the complaints of the “reform community,” campaigns remain as negative as ever. Of course, negative advertising is good for American democracy, and in any case, advocates always said campaign finance regulations concerned money and not the content of speech. If BCRA really sought to improve the content of speech, doesn’t that mean the law violated the First Amendment from the start?

Flags and Free Speech

Here at Society and Money, the vast majority of our posts, comments, and links refer to the money half of our title. Why this is I can only speculate, but for my part I believe it has something to do with the impersonal nature of economics which allows me to point to a chart and tell someone they are wrong. The society part must include more detailed, nuanced arguments which are difficult to convey in a blog. However, today I bring you a post that has nothing to do with economics or money.

San Francisco State University is investigating a group of students for burning a flag. I know this is a contentious issue. There are arguments with merit on both sides of this issue. I recognize that the flag is a symbol of our country, and that an insult to the flag is an insult to our country. However, if someone wants to insult our country, our freedom of speech traditions would seem to protect their right to do so. In the polarized political landscape we inhabit, "conservatives" have been in favor of making flag burning illegal, while "liberals" have defended the act as a first amendment right, although many exceptions exist. Personally, I think that it is usually better to err on the side of freedom. If someone wants to burn our nation in effigy, that is a freedom we should respect.

But what if someone burned another flag? The flag of an organization that most of the world considers a terrorist group, responsible for acts of war and murder on an international scale? What if someone burned the Hezbollah flag?

College Republicans are under investigation for disrespecting the flag of Hezbollah. "After students filed a complaint claiming they were offended because the flags bore the word “Allah,” SFSU initiated an investigation into accusations of incitement, creation of a hostile environment, and incivility." This will be interesting to watch. Burning a flag is an insult, no question. But is that insult something that should be punishable? If the school decides that it is, it will have amazing repercussions across the country as people on both sides jump in to "end the insensitivity and insult" to their symbol of choice, banning any act they find offensive (Note that Nazi flags have a cross on them. Indeed they consist of nothing but a cross and circle on a field. Should the Church sue to prevent the desecration of Nazi artifacts? Discuss).

I doubt that any actual punishment will result from this investigation, but the fact that there is an investigation seems to show a double standard in respect for the United States of America and Hezbollah.