Taxpayer funding of the arts violates your 1st Amendment protection

[johnwk]

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With regard to this subject it is very instructive to recall what one of our forefathers stated concerning the limited power granted to Congress relevant to encouraging “learning and useful arts”.

"The framers of the Constitution guarded so much against a possibility of such partial preferences as might be given, if Congress had the right to grant them, that, even to encourage learning and useful arts, the granting of patents is the extent of their power.” Annals of Congress Feb 7th,1792 Representative Page

Not only is federal funding of the “arts” not authorized by our federal Constitution, but taxing and spending for this purpose, has given us such things as Andres Serrano's anti-Christian bigotry called "P*** Christ"; Robert Mapplethorpe’s homosexual display called “The Perfect Moment”; Annie Sprinkle’s pornographic performances at a New York theater; Karen Finley, “the nude, chocolate smeared women”; Kyle Abraham’s “The Watershed and When the Wolves Came In” focusing on sexual identity; a 2016 festival for sexual deviant singing groups who appeared in a “flash mob” in Denver; taxpayer financing for a sexual deviant festival in San Francisco; funding for the Feminist Press at the City University of New York to digitize classic LGBT titles; an open mic group in D.C for story telling about “***** Culture in America"; and the latest venomous and hateful smut on display financed by tax revenue being Shakespeare In Central Park depicting the violent murder of President Trump ___ all of which is a plain violation of a working person's 1st Amendment protections who has their earned wages confiscated to finance such crap. Let me explain some history.


In 1998, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in the case National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley that NEA grants are constitutional if content does not offend "...general standards of decency..." But the Court not only ignored the absence of a power granted to Congress by our Constitution to fund the promotion of art, it likewise ignored the carefully limited wording in our Constitution granting power to Congress To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts and how may this be done? “. . . by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”


So, how does federal funding of the arts violate a taxpayer’s guarantee that Congress shall make no law …abridging freedom of speech? Federal funding does so by allowing A, who has received federal grant money taxed away from B, to vocalize and express their opinions and feelings in a more forceful manner than B, who has been taxed to finance A’s expressions and feelings in public, while B’s financial resources are reduced by the hand of the federal government in its quest to fund A’s speech and expressions.


So, are we really ok with government force being used to confiscate a hard working person’s earned wages which are then transferred at the discretion of government to another individual so they may express their personal opinions and feelings more forcefully than the wage earner who has been taxed and who may disagree with the tax-getters personal opinions and feelings? Should we really support such tyranny?

JWK


”That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. . .” Jefferson, "A Bill For establishing religious freedom."

[johnwk]

Our forefathers never intended the force of federal taxation to be used to tax one individual to finance the promotion of ideas or opinions of another taxpayer, and particularly not when the tax payer finds the tax getter’s opinions to be abhorrent and sinful. But this is exactly what the National Endowment for the Arts has been doing for decades, and it is our socialist/progressive crowd’s propaganda which finds favor when the NEA hands out “free”government cheese. For example see: The National Endowment For The Arts Funds Political Propaganda


”Name a liberal political issue—gun control, climate change, open immigration, gender identity—and you can find a government-funded art project that promotes it. Last month the agency doled out thousands of dollars for a play about activist lesbians who “are staunchly opposed to gun ownership.” They paid $20,000 for a series of “climate change-themed public art installations” in Minneapolis. Checking the immigration reform box, it approved a theatrical interpretation of President Obama’s deferred action program for $40,000.”

And with respect to our forefathers and Founders wisdom, which our socialist/progressive crowd enjoys disparaging, it has been vindicated countless times over the years. Have the following words not come to pass?

”The encouragement which the General Government might give to the fine arts, to commerce, to manufactures, and agriculture, might, if judiciously applied, redound to the honor of Congress, and the splendor, magnificence, and real advantage of the United States; but the wise framers of our Constitution saw that, if Congress had the power of exerting what has been called a royal munificence for these purposes, Congress might, like many royal benefactors, misplace their munificence; might elevate sycophants, and be inattentive to men unfriendly to the views of Government; might reward the ingenuity of the citizens of one State, and neglect a much greater genius of another. A citizen of a powerful State it might be said, was attended to, whilst that of one of less weight in the Federal scale was totally neglected. It is not sufficient, to remove these objections, to say, as some gentlemen have said, that Congress in incapable of partiality or absurdities, and that they are as far from committing them as my colleagues or myself. I tell them the Constitution was formed on a supposition of human frailty, and to restrain abuses of mistaken powers.”Annals of Congress Feb 7th,1792 Representative Page

JWK


"To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen [a working person’searned wage] and with the other to bestow upon favored individuals [chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts], to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes is none the less a robbery because it is done under forms of law and called taxation."____ Savings and Loan Association v.Topeka,(1875).

[tod evans]

I have no problem with taxpayers funding art.

However, I have major problems with government using tax-dollars to fund art in any form.

Taxpayers should be afforded deductions for contributions to "art" just like they are to charities. Get government out of the mix!

Personally I don't have a problem calling hookers and pole dancers artists any more than the next Picasso. Anything to starve government is good with me.

[euphemia]

Not a fan. The arts should be privately funded.

[Madison320]

I have no problem with taxpayers funding art.

However, I have major problems with government using tax-dollars to fund art in any form.

Taxpayers should be afforded deductions for contributions to "art" just like they are to charities. Get government out of the mix!

Personally I don't have a problem calling hookers and pole dancers artists any more than the next Picasso. Anything to starve government is good with me.

I'd rather have a nice low rate, like 1%, with no deductions and no minimums so everyone has to pay.

[timosman]

I'd rather have a nice low rate, like 1%, with no deductions and no minimums so everyone has to pay.

but then you will remain an unenlightened redneck as nobody will see you attain more empathy and the growth mindset.

[tod evans]

I'd rather have a nice low rate, like 1%, with no deductions and no minimums so everyone has to pay.

1% is just fine........

So are deductions.

[euphemia]

Art should be privately funded. It's not something that should be dictated by some bureaucrat. Art is personal. People can buy art and donate it to private and public spaces. It happens all the time, and that's how it should be done.

A monument is art. Bureaucrats are taking them down right and left, whether they are publicly or privately funded.

[Ender]

Meh.

Many things take away our rights, from marriage and drivers' licenses to property tax to income tax to health care, SSN, the TSA and beyond.

How about just getting the gov out of everything?

[tod evans]

Meh.

Many things take away our rights, from marriage and drivers' licenses to property tax to income tax to health care, SSN, the TSA and beyond.

How about just getting the gov out of everything?

But, but...........Roads

[Suzanimal]

But, but...........Roads

And art.

[tod evans]

And art.

Pole dancing is art!

[euphemia]

How about just getting the gov out of everything?

Gotta start somewhere.

[Ender]

Gotta start somewhere.

This is the least of our worries-

[Ender]

But, but...........Roads

Was wondering why the roads were so crappy around here!

[euphemia]

This is the least of our worries-

Perhaps, but I think ending the NEA and NEH is part of Trump's plan. Most of the people he hired are there to work themselves out of a job. He might not call it small government, but I think he sees an unmanageable government and is moving toward smaller government. I don't know if I agree with making cuts without understanding the principles of liberty, but there you go. I think this is where Libertarians have utterly failed. The so-called education of people has failed. Cutting to be cutting might be helpful in reducing the size of government, but without principle it will come back in another area.

[Ender]

Perhaps, but I think ending the NEA and NEH is part of Trump's plan. Most of the people he hired are there to work themselves out of a job. He might not call it small government, but I think he sees an unmanageable government and is moving toward smaller government. I don't know if I agree with making cuts without understanding the principles of liberty, but there you go. I think this is where Libertarians have utterly failed. The so-called education of people has failed. Cutting to be cutting might be helpful in reducing the size of government, but without principle it will come back in another area.

There is no "education of people". Public education was designed to make everyone a compliant factory worker.

Libertarianism is at least waking up some of the slaves.

[timosman]

There is no "education of people". Public education was designed to make everyone a compliant factory worker.

‘’Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.They got you by the balls.''

- George Carlin

[euphemia]

There is no "education of people". Public education was designed to make everyone a compliant factory worker.

You did get that I was against the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and that Trump is too, right?

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Geezus that's a long article.....

As far as street lights go.. blah, let businesses sponsor street lights, they can put a sign on them. Also why are street lights always on or off, why aren't they motion sensored on lesser traveled areas, I walk at night, and after midnight really most of the lights are lighting for nobody.

[Ender]

You did get that I was against the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and that Trump is too, right?

You get that the gov should get out of education, right?