When our Founding Fathers were alive, there was no radio or TV, no electronic recording or broadcasting devices. Free speech was thought of as the sound a human being makes when speaking in some sort of public or semi-public setting, a meeting, a church or rally, for example. The meaning of free speech was broadened to include the public dissemination of written speech in the form of a printed pamphlet, broadside or newspaper.
That’s the way the world was when our Founding Fathers wrote about freedom of speech. Imagine yourself in their shoes, living at that time. Talking live and writing were the only free speech options back then. No talk shows, no web sites, no PACs. Freedom of speech was seen as a mechanism to allow each person a fair and equal opportunity to publicly state an opinion without fear of government reprisal.
Over time, the notion of free speech was extended to include public road signs, advertisements and billboards. This allowed the person with the largest amount of money to build the greatest number of billboards, and thus have the loudest free speech.
Recently, the US Supreme Court has ruled that both domestic and foreign corporations may now donate unlimited amounts of money to PACs for the purpose of influencing pending legislation, because the money itself is considered to be free speech. The fallacy here is that money, lobbies, PACs, campaign contributions, billboards and TV ads are not in themselves speech; they are amplifiers of speech.
Consider this. In a shouting contest, it’s the person with the loudest amplifier who will win, not necessarily the smartest shouter or the one with the best message or most melodious voice. The reality is that we are all born with the ability to speak, but we are not all born with unlimited amounts of money with which to buy big amplifiers for our speech.
As a result of the Court’s decision, our political system gives a clear advantage to those with unlimited amounts of money to spend on an amplifier for their voice, while at the same time it puts the people with smaller amplifiers and less money at a distinct disadvantage.
Lobbies, PACs and ads are nothing more than amplifiers. They take a relatively small number of voices and make them sound loud in order to give the impression that there are more individual voices than there really are.
Unlimited money allows unlimited corruption. Lobbies typically get into the legislative process long before something becomes legislation. Lobbyists usually help craft legislation. Then, after crafting the legislation, they lobby the politicians with unlimited amounts of money to get them to pass the legislation they themselves have written.
Unlimited amounts of money will fund the same rowdies who disrupted the recent town hall meetings. Unlimited amounts of free speech money will go to fund pseudo-grassroots political front groups whose sole purpose is to amplify the free speech of the person who is paying the unlimited amount of money.
And thus, the voice of the people is usurped by unlimited money. Clearly, this does not reflect the spirit and intent with which freedom of speech was originally framed. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that people with unlimited money to spend have the right to commandeer the legislative process.
Somewhere along the way we have lost the original concept of just what it is that constitutes free speech, as that speech relates to and influences political processes and outcomes.
Money in no way equates with speech. Speech has an ideational content. Speech conveys an idea or a concept. It has meaning in a logical, linguistic sense. Money has none of those characteristics. The transfer of money from one hand to another is in no way comparable to the transfer of a spoken or written idea from one person to another. Money neither adds to nor subtracts from the truth or value of the message contained in the free speech utterance. Money is not speech. Money is bribery.
Where will it end? Bribery is a subtle form of coercion. If one can brandish money in order to influence the behavior of another, then by the same logic, one could just as well brandish a gun or a bayonet. The intent in both instances is the same. It is to convince someone to heed your speech and to do as you say. Money, guns and bayonets are not speech; they are amplifiers of speech.
Moreover, the only way the recent SCOTUS ruling could be fair or just would be if everybody had access to unlimited amounts of money, just the same as everybody has the ability to exercise free speech. That would make for a fair playing field. Obviously, that’s not the case.
Access to and ability to acquire unlimited amounts of money are not now and never have been universally distributed characteristics in the American population, nor are they rights guaranteed or protected by the Constitution. Clearly, it is contrary to the obvious intent of our Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution, to assert that we should equate unlimited amounts of money with free speech.
Money itself does not have a semantic content, as does written or spoken language. Money is not speech, free or otherwise.