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[City of New York] Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association boss Pat Lynch slashed the maximum number of cards that could be issued to current cops from 30 to 20, and to retirees from 20 to 10, sources told The Post.
The cards are often used to wiggle out of minor trouble such as speeding tickets, the theory being that presenting one suggests you know someone in the NYPD.
The rank and file is livid.
“They are treating active members like s–t, and retired members even worse than s–t,” griped an NYPD cop who retired on disability. “All the cops I spoke to were . . . very disappointed they couldn’t hand them out as Christmas gifts.”
Source: NYPost
The cards, issued for various states and agencies -- such as the DEA -- are available for purchase on eBay for around $100.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday January 23 2018, @09:41PM (8 children)
And nobody says that here. Here's the Wikipedia short version [wikipedia.org]:
See? It was an act of speech, the airing of a movie critical of Clinton, that was suppressed, not some pile of money.
(Score: 4, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:21AM (7 children)
Emphasis added. Try reading it again, and don't stop halfway through this time.
The law says you can't spend money advocating the defeat of a candidate. They had that law overturned so they could spend money advocating the defeat of a candidate. How, exactly, is that not about money?
Even the Wikipedia article that you linked to makes that clear right in the first paragraph:
It was not a restriction on speech, it was a restriction on spending money. And that was overturned, because they decided that money is a form of speech.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:42AM (6 children)
The part where they are advocating.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:14AM (5 children)
Right, so what you're saying is exactly what the court said, which is exactly what you previously claimed they DIDN'T say -- that money is speech. Can you try to stick to the same argument for more than two posts for once?
If money is speech, it also means prostitution is legal (it's no different than standard dating if money is no different than speech), taxes are illegal (as a federal regulation on speech), and companies have no obligation to honor warranties or returns because enforcing that would restrict how they can take your money, amounting to a government restriction on their speech. Also the Constitution contradicts itself by specifically stating that the government has a right to regulate monetary transactions (the commerce clause) and that they cannot regulate speech (first amendment) -- if those are the same thing, then those clauses are contradictions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 24 2018, @06:26AM (1 child)
Perhaps you could point to where in the court ruling a Supreme Court justice on the winning side actually said that money is speech? I think you won't be able to do that because "money is speech" is a silly label for paying for speech (which as I've already mentioned is protected by the First Amendment).
Non sequiturs don't mean a thing. By definition. Even if we were to attempt to assume that money is speech those ridiculous conclusions would not follow due to the absence of logic. For example, there's nothing to respond to in your argument that prostitution is like dating because money is like speech.
First Amendment takes priority because it came after. Next.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday January 25 2018, @10:19PM
Clearly that was not the intent of the amendment, or they would have made it explicit. It's part of the same document, written by pretty much the same people at roughly the same time. And they wrote quite a bit about why these documents say what they do. If they intended to make such a substantial change to the original document someone would have mentioned that at some point. In fact, what they wrote was that they did not consider the Bill of Rights to be necessary at all. They believed the existing Constitution constrained the government such that it could not violate any civil rights, and that enumerating some would only endanger those that were not explicitly mentioned. They certainly did not say that they intended the Bill of Rights to alter or correct the existing Constitution.
Found it! Check page 44 of the opinion (emphasis added):
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf [supremecourt.gov]
According to the court, the expenditure -- the act of spending money -- is political speech *by definition*. Or perhaps more accurately, they write as though the two concepts are already synonymous.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 25 2018, @08:55AM (2 children)
In other words, the idea is that US-based government shouldn't be able to force you to fund the political speech of another private party. There is plenty of precedent where US-based government can and does successfully force us to fund government speech, such as wartime propaganda, public health notices and educational services, weather reports, and economic reports.
Once again, it's not the money that is claimed to be the problem, but the nature of the activities (particularly, political lobbying) done with the money. This is yet another example of why money is speech is a terrible description of what is actually going on.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday January 25 2018, @10:17PM (1 child)
How is that a speech issue? The speech might be what's getting people upset, but legally it seems pretty irrelevant IMO. When my employer gives me my paycheck, they don't get to tell me how much to spend on rent or how often I can go buy a case of beer or what I can talk about while I'm drinking that beer. They don't control the spending or the resulting speech -- once they pay me it's my money and I can do whatever I want with it. So there's no conflict with the union spending their money how they want to spend it -- it's *their money*! The problem is purely about people being compelled to pay for services that they might not want...although generally in these cases those services are being provided regardless as a condition of employment, so having to pay for services that you are receiving seems rather fair to me...nobody is forcing you at gunpoint to take that job...but that's a different issue. As far as free speech is concerned, the money can only be an issue if you're claiming that the money itself is a form of speech. Otherwise there's no conflict with your right to free speech -- your free speech rights do not extend to telling other people what they can and cannot say. Regardless of your relationship to that person or organization. Doesn't matter if you're paying them either, your money cannot revoke their right to free speech.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 26 2018, @04:18AM
You are forced to give your money to another party who promotes speech that you disagree with. In your example, the employer is not paying you for your speech and thus, doesn't have expectations of your speech outside of the workplace. In the case of the labor union example, lobbying is a key part of its activities, and the union payments by non-union members are expected to in part go to this activity.
Further, the employer is a government. So we have a government withholding money from your paycheck to pay for speech by an organization whose speech you disagree with.