Scalia tells Juilliard audience govt can choose artwork when it's funding

[kskiska]

Scalia tells Juilliard audience govt can choose the artwork when it's funding it

NEW YORK -- The government is privileged to choose what artwork is worthwhile without being accused of censorship as long as it is funding the art, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday.

"The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune," Scalia said at a symposium entitled "American Society and the Arts," hosted by the Juilliard School.

Scalia discussed and fielded questions about only the arts. He said he was not suggesting that the government not fund the arts but that if it does, just like when it runs a school system, it gets to pick the contents.

Congress created institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts, which passes tax dollars to artists and can require them to use it in ways approved by the government, Scalia said.

more…
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--scalia0922sep22,0,3030959.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[karlrschneider]

1. All I want is 45 seconds alone with Fat Tony.

:grr:

[barb162]

11. Fat Tony is a perfect name for that slug

[wellstone_democrat]

14. i'll hold him down for you

gladly.

[despairing optimist]

2. Scalia at something called American Society and the Arts?

I can imagine him at a symposium called Art for the Artless or Faith-Based Drekmaking for Fun and Profit, but really, Juilliard, when you cast the net did you know what you'd be pulling in?

[tk2kewl]

3. And the people fund the government, ASSHOLE

So we get to decide what the issues are. FUCK YOU Tony!

[Triana]

6. EXACTLY...

...When meathead Tony refers to 'the government' funding something - that means the TAXPAYERS - ie: the public. WE pay for it and WE ought to decide what belongs there and what doesn't.

Arrogant asshole. :mad:

[StopThief]

32. Absolutely right. . .

and we DO decide through the decisions made by our elected representatives.

[marbuc]

4. If the government is of the people, by the people, for the people

doesn't that mean the people choose which art is worthwhile? It's funny how the repubs cry about the government's detachment from the people in one breath, and claim the government has the right to subvert the will of the people in the next.

[bunny planet]

5. So much fun to be an artist in Bush's America.

I suppose only blue-eyed, blonde haired Jesus pictures will be sanctioned by the homeland soon.

[Ilsa]

7. Wait a minute, wasn't the point of having public funding (through

taxes funding the govt)so that art wouldn't be censored? So we would be exposed to many forms/types of art?

Tricky bastards. Subverting the will of the people like that.

[happyslug]

16. Simple answer, NO.

With Government pay comes Government controls (including Censorship). While since the 1960s the Government has paid for Art the Government refused to censor, that was based on how Congress set up the National Endowment for the Arts NOT based on any constitutional protections concerns.

Now from the start of the Republic the local, State and Federal Governments have "funded" artists but until the Great Depression these were one-time grants for specific projects (Statutes and building mostly). It is only with the Great Depression that the Government started to fund "the arts". This funding during the Depression was part of the programs to get American's working again and even than the art projects tended to be things Governmental Officials wanted done NOT want the Artist wanted done (When the people shows what they want through their elected officials, thus it is the elected officials who approved or disapproved Art programs till the 1960s).

The Art program stayed alive till the 1960s when it was expanded by LBJ as "The National Endowments for the Arts". While NEA started under LBJ, it started to get on the national stage under Nixon do to the "abuses" of the NEA reported by the Newspaper while Nixon was president.

Nixon did NOT like the art program but the NEA had too much support in Congress, thus Nixon did to the Arts what he did to Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other government programs he disliked. What Nixon did was to appoint people who would than apply the most radical interpretation of the statute setting up the program so to bring the program into disrepute among the voters. When Carter became President he straighten out OSHA, the EPA and most of the other Governmental agencies Nixon had tried to destroyed (including the NEA) but when Reagan became President the process started all over again (Thus most of the real bad cases that made it to the Newspapers occurred while Reagan was President).

There is NO Constitutional requirement that the Government fund the art, and if the Government funds the Arts the Government can put whatever restriction it wants on that art. The Bill of Rights does prohibit the Government from restricting what people do as art, but if the artist wants support from the Federal Government the Artist better do what the Government wants him to make. Now the NEA did NOT impose such restrictions, under the Democrats the NEA avoided funding "art" programs that would lead to opposition to the NEA, the opposite under Republican administration, the GOP wanted the program killed and the more controversial the art the better.

Now what most government wants as art is "Soviet Realism" (Soviet Realism gets its name from the Soviet Union under Stalin where this style was taken to its broadest use). Soviet Realism is an Art form that celebrates the Heroic stands of people and their Government (The Iwo Jima Monument is the best know example of Soviet Realism in the US). The various Civil War monuments are an early form of such "Soviet Realism" with the various paintings and other artwork done during the Great Depression a later form in the US (Some Artist do NOT consider Soviet Realism Art, but it is the Art form most liked by Governmental officials for it causes the least controversy among non-artists).

Anyway, while we might not like Scalia, on this point he is correct, if the Government is footing the bill the Government can require the Artist to do what the Government wants done (Now if the Artist wants to do something else, the Artist can BUT NOT ON THE GOVERNMENT'S PAY).

[Ilsa]

22. Thanks for the history on this. eom

[architect359]

26. Here's hoping

that come the next election we muster enough votes to oust the current neo-con administration. Hopfully, there will be another "Jimmy Carter" like fix to our government institutions before the damage goes any further.

[mitchum]

8. Fat Tony, I fund the the government...

a fact you high-handed shits often seem to forget.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

29. Exactly. The government...

...IS the people (theoretically anyway). And if the people express their will that the government is NOT to be in the business of deciding what does or does not constitute "Art," then they shouldn't be. Of course, with the Supreme Court and Diebold being the new appointers of presidents and other government officials, it's a bit difficult to get them to listen to the concerns of the people any more.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

9. It's the Arts, not the Farts, Skatoulaki

Little shit head...

[VegasWolf]

10. Scaley's concept of Arts ..

[TaleWgnDg]

12. Let's see now . . . the neo-cons don't think art is worthwhile . . .

Let's see now . . . the neo-cons don't think art is worthwhile . . . hell, why bother funding it, correct? Let's cut it out entirely, correct? Or at the very least, barely fund it, correct?

But when the neo-cons do fund the arts (crimped, narrowly, barely) the neo-cons get to pick and chose what art is "appropriate" w/ federal taxpayers dollars, correct?

:wtf:

This, according to off-the-wall neo-con Associate Justice Antonin Scalia!! What the hell constitutional and/or federal law is he "interpreting?" None of which I am aware as an attorney! This ideologue is a horrific mistake as a justice on SCOTUS! Pope Scalia. All hail Pope Scalia.

.

[Demonaut]

13. Any time this asswipe shows up in public we need people with cameras

just to annoy this fuck

[niyad]

15. at a panel discussion the other night, one of the attorneys quoted scalia

as saying something along the lines of "as xians, we should all be happy to die and go to heaven, as it is much better there." my question is, WHY is HE still here?

[QuettaKid]

31. I ask that SAME question

ALL THE TIME!!! If you want to go to heaven then fucking GO!!!! don't let us keep you or anything. The answer one invariably gets is "god has a plan for our life and we must do his work here first".....:shrug:

[Trillo]

17. Arts? or All about religion? (warning, a couple of word replacements)

NEW YORK -- The government is privileged to choose what church is worthwhile without being accused of discrimination as long as it is funding religion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday.

"The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune," Scalia said at a symposium entitled "American Society and Religion," hosted by Pat Robertson.

Scalia discussed and fielded questions about the church. He said he was not suggesting that the government not fund religion but that if it does, just like when it runs a school system, it gets to pick the doctrine.

[punpirate]

18. Sounds like Fat Tony...

... (Gore Vidal: "in visage and in name a Puccini villain") is still whizzed off about Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" to me....

[annabanana]

19. "the government chooses".....

Well, this shows that any freedom of expression we thought we had as citizens was just window dressing.

(How are supremes impeached?... What's the procedure?)

[xchrom]

20. at my alma mater?!?!

ya know -- what nut case invited that mutant worm there to speak?

did he say one enlightened{irony there big as a mountain} thing?

no!

artists there have been experiencing prejudice from the world at large regarding musicians of other faiths playing in christian churches -- so we needed that scaberous thing to come down from on high and say what we all know?

fuck!

[Karenina]

28. It's part of the ramp-up

for the Centennial. Didn't you get the memo... errr... 200 page 4-color, shiny paper, letters from Clinton and Schumer magazine announcing the extravaganza? Can't wait to get the next Journal and read what the students thought.

[Judi Lynn]

21. Republicans like Scalia are retarded socially.

They have absolutely no grasp of community. They remain self-absorbed.

Isn't it sad to see him as a Supreme Court Justice? Tragic.

When he is actually FUNDING art himself, from his own resources, THEN he can make the decisions.

He's simply sick.

[bunny planet]

23. The Nazis liked to pick their own art too, and burned or stole the rest.

[Massachusetts]

27. Agree! Excellent statement

"The Nazis liked to pick their own art too, and burned or stole the rest."

[tainowarrior]

24. yeah, asswipe, but the funding is OURS

we're the taxpayers, and we say that ALL art should be allowed, no matter what it's political persuasion or message. We, paid the "piper" to live up to our ideals of freedom for all.

Go back to hunting ducks, you asshat!

[2DleftofU]

33. Absolutely

I can't believe the arrogance of this man. It is so typical of a single repug to dismiss the views of millions of Americans just because he disagrees with them. After all it is us, the democrats, who pay the taxes; therefore we get to decide what is art and he, and anyone who thinks like him, has absolutely no right to say anything about it.

[cease_fire]

25. Guess What? America is paying with MY money.

Tony - just a little reminder in case you've lost all sense of perspective:

You're paying for that ART with MY tax money.


And since my tastes in ART might be different from Bubbas, or Julio's, or Debbies tastes in ART, in order to represent all of us (as in "Representative Government"), you don't get to choose.

Let me say that again - you don't get to choose.

I'll make you a deal white bread: If you pick to fund some ART that I don't like, I want a refund.

I am, after all, one of the patrons that pays the piper...

How's that? Or, should we go back to the governmental design that allows ALL personal expressions - you know, the one that's worked for the last 200 or so years?


Look, I get it. You can't please everyone - and guess what? I'm fine with that. But that whole taxation without representation thing should be a little more difficult to circumvent that it is.

And the last time I checked, the Government's system of "approval" has been left lacking.


CF

[PATRICK]

30. That was actually good advice

Now artists KNOW they must become politically involved unless they want to whore for corporate Medicis or Machiavellian ayatollahs. The government doesn't own you a free lunch unless YOU are the government. The should run for office, influence ideas liberally though the arts and lobby for what they are trying to express. If you can't lobby to money brained goons then work like any citizen to boot them.

And artists, who enlisted in many a revolution, are vocationally entitled to bring the piper in for a retuning.

[Walt Starr]

34. As a point of law, he's absolutely correct.

There is, of course, one area of art which teh government is strictly forbidden in the constitution from funding. That would be any form of art which, as it's purpose for existing, promotes religious beliefs.