Here is my proposal: anytime a political ad is purchased on radio or TV the station must make a similar amount of time available to the opponent(s) for free. Stations could decide to accept no ads or double the price of political ads, so it would not hurt them.
If Daddy Warbucks decides to try and buy an election he can be sure that a less well off candidate will get just as much airtime. The voters can then choose who has the better message.
So to claim what the FFs considered to be free speech wasn’t paid for is not really correct, is it? They knew from the outset it would cost money to propagate one’s views. It wasn’t all standing up on (free) soap boxes.
(1) Corporations are made up of people, and those people have the right to exercise free speech.
(2) Within the bounds of truthfulness in advertising, corporations do have the right to publish what they choose. Can you come up with an example where a corporation has been censored and the reason wasn’t false advertising (or issues that apply equally well to individuals, such as libel, slander, or state secrets)?
Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Co. of Puerto Rico, 478 U.S. 328 (1986).
It’s a (horribly written) opinion by Rhenquist, dismissing the first amendment claims of casinos in PR who were prohibited by law from advertising to PR residents, though they could advertise to tourists.
There’s a lot of change going on within commercial speech law at the moment, but it isn’t true that false advertising is the only restriction on commercial speech.
It does protect political speech; it does not guarantee your right to spend money to propagate it. I agree entirely with Lind’s argument on that point, repeated here:
If a candidate wants to sell his ads to the public like Paine sold his pamphlets, let him try. I doubt he’ll find many buyers, and those few would have voted for him/her anyway.
That’s not about buying ad time/space, it’s about straight-out bribing the voters. A pointless practice, since the secret ballot was introduced – and certainly not a practice the First Amendment was intended to protect.
So you are happy with someone selling their pamphlets, but prevent them from paying to print them and giving them away. Are you going to put a minimum price on this? Does it also apply to religious speech? I think the Gideons might be a little bit miffed at your suggestion.
I assume you would also ban all political posters/placards unless they are sold to the people who put them in their front yards/windows. I guess we have to charge an entry fee to a campaign rally to cover the cost of room rental, security and other expenses now. After all, we can’t have a politician spending his or her own money to bring the message to the people.
No, the regulation does not apply to you, it applies to the media outlets. You can “speak” as much as you want. The stations just need to give those you find abhorrent equal time.
And no, you don’t need to go the mosque. You can just send your strawman in your place.