Thread: Taxpayer funding of the arts violates your 1st Amendment protection

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 “Queer 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."

We have to stop all these nonsense funding projects. They're stupid, juvenile, special interest, paying for elitist crap elites or business should pay for themselves.

If federal moneys to the arts is a violation of our freedom of speech, then federal money to religious organizations is a violation of the separation of church and state.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

If federal moneys to the arts is a violation of our freedom of speech, then federal money to religious organizations is a violation of the separation of church and state.

oh hell yes!!! Pass the FairTax and shut down all these phony "charity" frauds who waste, yes WASTE $1.4 trillion in tax exempt revenue a year on tomfoolery, all to pay THEMSELVES huge money while handing out trinkets to the "poor" or "think tanking". OH GAWD, it makes me want to puke.

Do you realize if that $1.4 trillion, 10% of the US economy weren't siphoned off into these useless "charities", that money would be invested and multiply 5 to 7 times over working its way through our economy creating jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans who need them. That $1.4 trillion is SS, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Food Stamps and Free School Lunch .... COMBINED. So tell me what "charity" they're providing with their $1.4 trillion? Because they aren't feeding the poor, healing the sick or sheltering the homeless.

FAIRTAX NOW! Shut these phony "charity" frauds down.

Originally Posted by Judy

oh hell yes!!! Pass the FairTax and shut down all these phony "charity" frauds who waste, yes WASTE $1.4 trillion in tax exempt revenue a year on tomfoolery, all to pay THEMSELVES huge money while handing out trinkets to the "poor" or "think tanking". OH GAWD, it makes me want to puke.

Do you realize if that $1.4 trillion, 10% of the US economy weren't siphoned off into these useless "charities", that money would be invested and multiply 5 to 7 times over working its way through our economy creating jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans who need them. That $1.4 trillion is SS, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Food Stamps and Free School Lunch .... COMBINED. So tell me what "charity" they're providing with their $1.4 trillion? Because they aren't feeding the poor, healing the sick or sheltering the homeless.

FAIRTAX NOW! Shut these phony "charity" frauds down.

I'm not talking about tax exemptions, I'm talking about where religious organizations get checks directly from the government.

I have nothing against the tax exempt status for religious organizations.

They get it for providing a service, right? They're contractors in those cases, and paid very very well for their service, I might add. They don't get money for their church or religious activities, they get the money because they're either doing a tax exempt charity or a tax exempt non-profit service. It really went out of control during the Bush I Presidency, this is his "1000 Points of Light". Oh gawd, what phooey. Don't even get me started .... it's too hot here for my blood pressure to rise.

I totally oppose tax exempt status for religious organizations. These are huge businesses. Tax exempt money all over the place doing nothing for the economy or jobs or wages and the "charity" you could put in a dog bowl.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

If federal moneys to the arts is a violation of our freedom of speech, then federal money to religious organizations is a violation of the separation of church and state.

I laid out a specific case involving tax money going to fund the production of "art". Let us try to keep to the subject instead of wondering off into an entirely different subject.

JWK


American citizens are sick and tired of being made into tax-slaves to finance a maternity ward for the poverty stricken populations of other countries who invade America’s borders to give birth.

Originally Posted by johnwk

I laid out a specific case involving tax money going to fund the production of "art". Let us try to keep to the subject instead of wondering off into an entirely different subject.
....

Sorry, but I think they are problems too similar to ignore:

If federal moneys to the arts is a violation of our freedom of speech, then federal money to religious organizations is a violation of the separation of church and state.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

Sorry, but I think they are problems too similar to ignore:

If federal moneys to the arts is a violation of our freedom of speech, then federal money to religious organizations is a violation of the separation of church and state.

I don't believe you are sorry. I believe your intention is to switch the subject, if not, how do you feel about our federal government taxing a working person’s earn wage which is then transferred to another individual to finance the promotion of their political opinions more forcefully than the tax payer, opinions which always seems to be socialist/progressive propaganda?

JWK

"To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen [a working person’s earned wage] and with the other to bestow upon favored individuals, [socialists, progressives and sexual deviants], 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).

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).