Congress makes the laws that allow corporations to operate nationally. It can be argued that Congress has abridged the freedoms of speech, the press, and assembly by creating the environment in which private entities own everything that resembles a modern public venue.

> Congress makes the laws that allow corporations to operate nationally. It can be argued that Congress has abridged the freedoms of speech, the press, and assembly by creating the environment in which private entities own everything that resembles a modern public venue.

Only if by "it can be argued" you're referring to being physically capable of arguing. Otherwise, no. The first amendment was never about guaranteeing you a platform or about otherwise ensuring anyone else hears you. It was about the government not arresting you for what comes out of your mouth.

All that matters is what the country needs now, not what some reasonably insightful but far from clairvoyant people thought a couple hundred years ago.

Also you put words into my mouth. I never said anything about guarantees or platforms. But consider this: if the government's intention was always to turn over every useful platform to wealthy private owners, why bother with a bill of rights or first amendment at all?

Oh, so you think Net Neutrality was unconstitutional?

> Oh, so you think Net Neutrality was unconstitutional?

I can't even understand your logic to try to make sense of this and respond to you. Are you saying you think if the first amendment doesn't imply X then X is unconstitutional?

My point is that the First Amendment is far more complicated than your comment. The government regularly forces private corporations to carry speech they disagree with in the name of the First Amendment. AT&T can't censor my calls if they don't like the content, so clearly corporations do intersect with the first amendment.

EDIT: Can't reply to your comment, so here's one such article, from the EFF no less, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-...

I'm pretty darn sure net neutrality regulation was there to promote competition, protect consumers, etc. (see: commerce clause, among others) rather than to protect people's first-amendment rights. Notwithstanding how you may have personally viewed it, you're gonna need some serious citations if you're going to seriously argue the regulation was there due to 1st-amendment free speech concerns. Here's a link from my end to get you started. https://www.forbes.com/sites/washingtonbytes/2017/03/10/the-...

EDIT in response to your edit: you dodged this pretty cleverly. Senators say a lot of wrong and even contradictory things (I hope I don't need to waste time finding you videos), and like any interest group, EFF stretches arguments beyond their applicability to support their agenda. (Not saying they have bad agendas! But having a desirable conclusion doesn't imply good arguments are being provided for it.)

There are pretty clear lines between:

[1] "some senators (and EFF) feel a lack of net neutrality would violate the first amendment" (which wasn't your argument, and if it was, is a pretty weak claim),

[2] "net neutrality was there to protect first amendment rights" (which was your argument, and the one I was asking you to support, and a pretty easy one to prove if correct -- all you need is to quote the rationales for the net neutrality regulation we had), and

[3] "lack of net neutrality actually violates the first amendment" (which you've been arguing towards, but which would require case law as proof, not senators' feelings)