High court's ruling is all-out assault on right to engage in politics

do you agree with this article, andy?

 

WOW, and and Scalia agree!

 

Yeah, maybe we can get to the point, like in Italy, where one guy owns almost all the TV and then has it promotes his candicacy so he can become president.

Maybe Murdoch can buy up CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC etc. give himself free airtime .

The we will really be free and have "free speech" unfettered by government regulation.

 

Money is not free speech, it's property. Want to support your candidate? Get off your ass and campaign for him or her.

Money has absolutely *no* place in campaigns -- it keeps candidates from being impartial (or even fair), and gives the rich an even greater influence in politics. That is not democracy. We should all have the same amount of influence in politics.

One person should equal one vote. One person should not equal one vote and a say in national economic policies because they raised $10 million for the candidate.

 

Frankly, as much as this can be a propping up of the incumbent, I'm glad it made it through. Soft money and, especially, non-connected party support can be a serious issue in politics.

The local GOP provides a perfect example. I'd point to the Dems, but, frankly, they have no money and little organization so they can't afford to do this.

During the past few city and county races, the Harris County GOP and some groups loosely affiliated with them used money in their general fund to pay for negative campaign mailers and radio ads against opponents of local republicans. Because the money came from their general fund, they were not required to disclose how much was spent or who gave them donations.

Increasingly, political parties are encouraging businesses and individuals to give donations to the party's general fund from which it can do basically anything include advocate for or against politicians and issues. The problem is that there is no money trail like there are in campaigns that must submit finance reports to state and federal regulatory committees.

The people who give money to specific campaigns, who they work for and how much they gave are then disclosed for open records. This allows everyone to see just how a candidate or issue is supported and provides oversight. Because party and PAC general funds do not have such oversight, they can do whatever they want and there is no trail to see where the funding is coming from.

What this law does is force candidates and parties to re-connect with individual voters. They can take as many individual donations as they like. Obviously, they have to disclose that information, but it makes the funding more evenly distributed. More people have access and candidates cannot rely solely on huge corporate contributions.

It forces them to go grassroots and actually meet with the people who will vote for them and be beholden to their wishes not just because of their vote but because of their contributions. That's a good thing.

 

I totally agree with the article. The Supreme Court has just opened the floodgates to the political class to piss all over our right of free political speech, which is why the Founders made damned sure to put that in Constitution. Not to protect p*rn peddlers and pagans, but to protect our right to criticize our govt. These are dangerous times for liberty, my friends.

 

You really should actually READ the First Amendment and the Federalist Papers which discuss it. This does not impinge the freedom of speech. The Supreme Court did not threaten to jail or to fine those who have a dissenting voince. In fact, they may have broadened the voices to be heard by limiting the ability of the select political few to dominate via the use of enormous sums of money.

BTW...this is probably one of the only times I will read a political post by GreenVegan and think..."Damned right."

 

As a political science double major, I know the First Amendment very well. It's you who need to read it.

I think that restricting my right to place an ad on TV 60 days before an election that might "pertain" to an election is a clear assault on it. How can you think otherwise?

If the Supreme Court decides in a case on the side of a law, it is fully enforceable, meaning the Imperial Federal govt can use deadly force to compel you to follow its mandates, no matter how onerous they are. It states simply "Congress shall make NO law......" But they made a law and the Supremes ruled in favor of it, which is total horse manure.

Why is that awful law abridging the First? I've used this example a million times. Let's say that you and I oppose an interstate being built through our neighborhood. So we want to have a group that buys time on TV during the election, because candidate A, the incumbent supports the project and candidate B, opposes it. If we simply say that candidate A supports a bad project 60 days before the election, we've broken the law! So 60 days before an election, we can't use the airwaves to express our right to criticize our govt? What b.s. If that isn't an corruption of the First, I don't know what is. Money is speech. And this law would also help incumbents, who receive all kinds of coverage due to their position (which is in effect, free advertising because any congressmen can call a press conference and they show up. If joe-schmo candidate calls one, good luck!) to keep challengers from ever being able to mount any sort of challege against them (how can you convince voters when you have a hard cap against your advertising and the incumbent is on TV all the time because they are in office?).

Public funding of elections is foolish in the extreme. We would have to pay, out of our tax dollars, to support the whackjob Nazis, Greens, Communists (no difference between those two, Greens are like a watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside), LaRouches and other undesirables who would line up at the Federal govt. trough. I don't want my tax dollars to bankroll their idiotic activities and infect others with their looniness. Raise your own money, socialist scum and nazi pigs. Get rid of all the limits, but make sure there is full and complete disclosure of all donations. If a candidate takes a ton of money from, say the oil companies and does their bidding, the voters will likely throw his ass out. With the full disclosure, you'd see how much they had their tentacles in him. Let the marketplace of ideas take care of that one.

And now that the Supremes have okayed this evil bit of legislation, expect more to be on the way, as the political class seeks to make themselves into a defacto nobility, since we can't vote them out of office because of all the pro-incumbent finance strictures. So expect your rights to be further trampled upon.

We wouldn't be in this pickle if stupid GWB had a pair of functioning testes and stood up to that fool McCain. But GWB is no friend of liberty.

 

Read this if you're not quite convinced.
link

 

As I have mentioned before, I am an advocate of a fully publicly funded election system. Andymoon

So Andy I assume you disagree with the article you posted to start the thread? I was thinking you were against the S. Ct decision.

In fact, they may have broadened the voices to be heard by limiting the ability of the select political few to dominate via the use of enormous sums of money. Refman

To paraphase you wrt to GreenVegan, this is one of the few posts of yours I totally agree with.

Let's have the various political ideas compete more on their merits, not just on the basis of who can spend the most to promote their ideas. Note I don't think all ideas deserve the same amount of exposure so you will still have some sort regulations and still have questions regarding free speech and incumbents trying to protect themselves. However , as we saw in California , for instance, not every wierdo deserves full federal funding of their campagns for president.

 

I remember when the Bayport Container Terminal Plan in Galveston Bay was being decided, I saw absolutely no opposing ads on TV. I only saw professionally produced ads in support of Bayport, and many of them. More groups should be able to have a voice with the current media. But I don't understand the 60-day ban, could someone explain?

 

Publicly funded elections would be a horrible waste of tax dollars. As the tax form "check the box" opinion poll shows, no one wants it to happen. Less than 10 percent of people check the box.

Money is not corrupting the system! Money in politics has always been around and will always be around. Diversity in opinion is ridiculous when my tax dollars are being spent so the LaRouches can spread their conspiracy theory horsepuckey. Get rid of all campaign finance limitations (the limits are far too low nowadays), enact full disclosure and let the chips fall where they may.

 

LOL

Thanks, I think...

 

I see your point and understand your principles, but I strongly disagree with these assertions. Money corrupts politics -- it gives favor, power and influence to those who have money, and essentially removes everybody else from the political process.

Once elected, the candidate is beholden to those who funded his or her campaign, not the constituents. That's not democracy. Everybody should have the exact same influence -- one person, one vote. If you believe enough in a candidate to support him or her, work on their campaign.

Publicly funded elections remove special interests and corporate influence from the equation, and would keep politicians honest. They would serve you and me, not those who padded their pockets.

Plus, from an economic standpoint, publicly financed elections would be an absolute boon to taxpayers. Sure, elections would cost millions to fund, but how many billions are spent annually on special interests who funded campaigns?

 

Well looky here, a conservative catfight!!



I have extensive firsthand experience with this issue that I can't/don't want to get into, but in any event my take is the issue is this: Title one (soft money) I have no problem with. Title two (issue ads) I don't like that much, it cuts a little too close to the first amendment.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this issue was the way it broke down across party lines, yet with both parties acting against their ultimate self interest. Republicans on the whole opposed the legislation(guys like McCain were the exception, guys like McConnell are more typical). Democrat, on the whole, were in favor of the legislation. Howevr, the result of the legislation was to give Republicans a huge adavantage. While Republicans collect more or as much soft money than democrats, a greater proportion of democratic contributions were soft money.

Since the legislation has been enacted, Republicans have been outraising democrats by a wide margin. Yet legislators from both parties continued to support/oppose the legislation even though it was strategicaly disadvatageous/advantageous for them to do so.

Sort of a good example (in an ironic context) of principles trumping politics for once.

 

Actually, McCain-Feingold does not prohibit you, as an individual, or even as part of a non-profit group from doing this.
Only corporations are subject to the restriction.

http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&postid=1158269

 

Oops, wrong link above. Here is is...


http://slate.msn.com/id/2064730/