Remember Obama Girl? In 2008 this way cute Obama Girl was a thing. I’m misusing her and the videos she made and making some misstatements and misrepresentations to illustrate what the FEC – Federal Elections Commission – is doing and what it means to those of us in the United States. See if you can identify them before I reveal them later in this post.
That video is from mid 2007. Obama Girl began appearing in 2007 and MSNBC named her one of the most influential women of 2007. Impressive. The video has 26+ million views.
Obama Girl is Amber Lee Ettinger iRL. Her videos are said to have helped elect President Obama.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution assures Americans free speech. Quoting:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – Reference
So, if you wanted to be the Bernie Girl (AFAIK there isn’t one, if there is, sorry.), you could make your ‘Girl’ video and put it out there. Your video could even be a full length movie if you wanted.
Think again…
Three members of the Federal Elections Commission just voted to block such speech. Fortunately, the other three members voted against them. In a tie vote no action is taken, stalemate.
With Republicans in control of Congress the FEC against-votes decided a new Obama-Girl-type movie would fall in their jurisdiction and while the maker of the movie was not associated with any political party, they would have to file for a media exemption and report it as a contribution to a political campaign… An apparent effort to stop speech they don’t agree with.
Is that ABRIDGING that person’s free speech?
Merriam-Webster: abridge
1a archaic : depriveb : to reduce in scope : diminish <attempts to abridge the right of free speech>
2: to shorten in duration or extent <modern transportation that abridges distance>
3: to shorten by omission of words without sacrifice of sense : condense
Would you be willing to call or write your Congressional representative and have them back the FEC off? What if you are a Clinton or Trump supporter, would you still be willing to write your rep? After all they’re trying to stop Bernie…
The Constitution makes no exception nor grants the right to government to abridge our right to free speech, anywhere. It specifically prohibits the government from making any such laws. Technically, that means you can yell FIRE in a crowded theater when there is no fire and it is lawful. But, we all know that we have allowed government to override the Constitution in this case and thus set a bad precedent. In 1954 Lynden Johnson proposed and got passed what is known as the Johnson Amendment, which restricts what can be said in a church. Now we are moving on to limiting speech by classing hate-speech made anywhere as unlawful. Who do you think gets to decide what is hate speech? Not you. All of these are abridgments to free speech.
What political party do those members of the FEC voting to control citizen made videos and movies belong to?
What party is proposing the FEC be changed to have 7 members rather than 6? No more tie votes. And how do they propose the party affiliations be handled?
Have you even heard this happening, now? May be you need better sources of news.
Oh yeah… which parts of this article misrepresent what is happening? And does that make a difference to your thinking on the matter? If so, why?
Look here if you didn’t catch my misrepresentations: Reference.