Shredding the First Amendment

An absolutely shocking thing happened recently in the political world (and no, the shocking thing wasn't the MSM tarring Chuck Colson after his death over the weekend):  A groups of Democrats headed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is endorsing a movement to amend the First Amendment so that speech by anything other than an individual will be open to regulation by Congress.  Here is Pelosi in her own words:

“Our Founders had an idea. It was called democracy. It said elections are determined by the people, the voice and the vote of the people, not by the bankrolls of the privileged few. This Supreme Court decision flies in the face of our Founders’ vision and we want to reverse it.” 

For one, I don't think democracy was an idea first thought up by the Founders, nor did they understand that they were simply establishing a democracy.  But I digress.  Here is more:

“I mean, in my view, a corporation is not a person. It is not an individual,” said [Rep. Donna] Edwards. “The rights that it has are those that are granted by the state, granted by the, by the Congress.” 

But, as the editors of National Review understand,

If this amendment were to be enacted, the cardinal rights protected by the First Amendment — free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances — would be redefined and reduced to the point of unrecognizability. The amendment would hold that the rights protected by the Constitution are enjoyed only by individuals acting individually; individuals acting in collaboration with others would be stripped of those rights.

And on the irony of the Left's position:

But “corporate personhood” is simply the notion that incorporated groups — businesses, political parties, unions, nonprofits, etc. — are single entities under the law. One would think that the Left would find this convenient: If Monsanto is not a “person” under the law, it cannot be regulated, taxed, sued, or fined, because for the purposes of the law it does not exist. Without the ability to treat enterprises as a single legal entity, there would be no redress for damages caused by a defective GM vehicle except to file claims against each individual owner of the 1.57 billion shares of GM stock outstanding.

On the Pandora's Box this amendment would open up:

One of the great dangers of such efforts to regulate political speech is that it puts incumbents in charge of setting the rules of the game under which their power and their position may be challenged. That is a recipe for abuse and corruption, and for smothering those critics who would draw attention to abuse and corruption.

It is a good thing that liberals have finally realized that in order to change the Constitution, amendments are required (unlike their preferred method:  the on-going constitutional convention with judges acting as representatives).