The First Amendment is not for the common people, it’s for corporations and politicians.
Growing up in America, I often times heard the word “freedom” being used to describe America. Take the line from our national anthem for example, “…O’er the land of the free…”. This line clearly attributes us to being the land of the free. But, what makes us the land of the free?
The answer to that question is our human rights, more importantly, our first amendment. Our first amendment gives us our freedom of speech, press, religion, right to assemble, and the right to petition. These fundamental rights have made America special and one of a kind considering the limitations other countries have on their civilians. Our constitution protects our fundamental rights from being limited. Yet, things feel pretty limited right now.
What do I mean by that? Well, to begin with, let’s take our capitalistic society. We live in a society where money rules everything. Money can get us a nice home, a nice car, a higher education, and well, basically, money can give us a hell of lot more opportunities. We see that money can clearly buy us a lot of materialistic things, but what nonmaterial things money can give us? Well, according to David Harvey’s “Freedom is Just Another Word” from A Brief History of Neoliberism, money can tailor the way the government works in order to benefit those who hold the money. In Harvey’s piece, he mentions that a neoliberal state is one in which “freedoms it embodies reflect the interests of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations, and financial capital”. Harvey illustrates this by mentioning how Margaret Thatcher created a favorable business climate when elected as Britain’s prime minister.
He mentions her famous words, “… there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women… and families” as well as, “Economics are the method, but the object is to change the soul”.
Now we look at this and think, well if not a society, then what individual men and women can account for us as a society? Well, simple, the rich and powerful. Let’s take the case Citizens United vs. FEC. The case ruled that political spending was a form of free speech and that the government could not keep corporations from doing so. Ok, so corporations are entitled to the first amendment, cool. Now what does this mean? Well, aside from corporations being able to spend loads of money to denounce or support a candidate, it gives corporations personhood.
How is does this affect us? How is this dangerous for us? Well, the first amendment was written to protect human interests, with this however, it protects corporate interests as well. On top of this, the person who owns the corporation is even more powerful because in essence, he/she has their own rights as well as the rights of their corporation protected making them even more powerful than the rest of us.
We can say at least we have our rights, right? Yes, we do. But at what point do corporate leaders have a say in limiting our rights and personal expressions?
Let’s go back a couple days to the Women’s March. The Women’s March took place after the inauguration of president Trump. Women all around the world gathered to express their concern with the new president as well as standing in solidarity with each other. The issues protested ranged from women’s reproductive rights, black lives matter movement, immigration policies, to many other issues that have been threatened by the new presidency. Anyone who disagreed with president Trump’s policies or who just wanted to have their voice heard on an issue was welcome to come. Everyone except the San Francisco Chronicle’s employees. No, they were not barred from coming from the actual Women’s March coordinators, they were banned from coming from the newspaper itself. The employees of the San Francisco Chronicle received an email from their editor-in-chief stating that no employee was allowed to attend political protests; if they disobeyed, they would be fired. This came days before the Women’s March which clearly articulated that the Women’s March was off limits. But… doesn’t our 1st amendment give us the right to assemble peacefully if we wish to? Well, apparently not to the San Francisco Chronicle. What’s even more baffling is that not only were the political reporters banned, every single person was banned from attending, even the sports reporters! Now it’s common for news outlets to discourage its reporters from attending since it might conflict with work, but these employees were actually threatened to be fired. These journalist were left with a tough choice, to exercise their 1st amendment and lose their jobs or to keep their jobs but be silent. Women in particular (although men were also included) faced this limitation to their 1st amendments. These women (and men) could not voice their opinion in the march tailored specifically for them because of the restrictions posed upon them. At what point do media outlets (or any other jobs) let their employees exercise their rights without it “conflicting with work”? This shows us how anyone at the top could limit the voices of those at the bottom.
Now, lets talk politicians. We know corporations can limit our freedom, but what about the people that represent us… the people who hold the power? We all know President Trump has ongoing war on with the media. We saw this during his campaign trail when Megyn Kelly asked him “tough” questions at his debate on the issue of derogatory comments he used to describe women.
After the debate, Trump went on the news claiming that Megyn should apologize to him for the “inappropriate” questions and went on to saying “…there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever…”
Whoa. Kinda harsh words for someone who was just doing their job, no? Megyn Kelly simply asked a question on an issue she deeply cared about- women’s protection and the role women would have if Trump became president. After the terrible comments, Trump went on a twitter rampage tweeting and retweeting virtually every negative thing about Kelly. The tweet shown here shows people calling her a “bimbo” for asking questions about women’s rights while posing like this. Her integrity as a reporter is being questioned by the very words of a politician. But, how does this limit her rights you may ask? Trump’s attack on Kelly’s “inapporpriate” question makes one wonder what is an appropiate question? According to Trump, that question, as well as any question that would hurt his image, was out of line. Now, as a reporter who’s up and coming, these attacks may frighten the reporter to speak up on an issue he/she cares about because he/she may be labeled a “bimbo” or have their integrity questioned. Like Kelly, if any reporter dares to speak up on an issue that contradicts Trump’s way, they will be subjected to bashing and raging twitter wars. By using this sort of diction and rage towards journalists, Trump, a business man and now president, controls the questions and statements directed at him. Another example of this is with Washington Post, CNN, Buzzfeed, and Politico. Because these media outlets criticized Trump, he let the world know that these media outlets were “fake news” or “dishonest press”. He even went as far as denying press credentials to Politico, the Huffington post, the Washington Post, and Buzzfeed because they all contradicted or criticized him and his policies. Does that not take away the true meaning of freedom of the press? Marty Baron, editor of the post, describes Trumps tactics as “A repudiation of the role of a free and independent press.” A politician who is now the president of the United States is seeking to control and limit the free press as well as what can be asked of him.
We see that both corporate leaders and politicians can limit an individuals freedom of expression. By having the power or the money one can do whatever they wish… even limiting the rights of everyone beneath them! The examples of this are endless; time after time corporations and politicians work to tailor the government around themselves, not the people. “We the people” turns into “We the corporations” and “We the politicians”.
