shrug. There are places one can escape Fox News too. Doesn’t mean Fox News is not a wildly powerful tool of propaganda.
We do ?
Well, if you’re not, then I don’t know what point you were trying to make. I was arguing against the OP, and you were arguing against me, so it would natural to assume that you are the OP’s side, unless you made it clear otherwise.
I was arguing against what I thought was a particularly dim argument, that’s all.
If it’s a dim argument, then tell us again how someone gets “drowned out” on the internet.
To clarify, and Godwinize: if you had been arguing that Hitler is a horrible horrible person because he launched multiple wars of aggression, enacted forced sterilization policies, murdered thousands of innocents in systematic fashion, durably wrecked Germany’s image and bombed Pearl Harbour ; I would feel moved to correct you all the same, and explain that it was *Stalin *who did that last part.
Would that make me pro-Hitler ?
Oh, now I see. You’re arguing that the internet is just like tradition media in, say, the 1950s. That makes sense.
How does someone get drowned out in the “real world” ? Well there you go.
I’m saying it’s ridiculous to assert that internet is a somehow pure or idyllic form of media, impossible to mould or influence via massive amounts of money.
That’s the exact opposite of what I’m saying. I’m saying that the internet also allow yous to mould or influence with little or no money, as well. No one pays my right-wing friends to send those glurgy e-mails I get every week, or links to web sites that purport to tell me the real truth about Obama.
Time was, you had 3 networks to get your message out to the masses. Now you just need to attract eyeballs on one of the millions of internet “channels” anyone with a computer can dial into.
Nope. But it’s interesting that you raise this particular point, because someone damn sure pays money for people to write and spread those glurgy e-mails and JAQ off in the first place.
I don’t really see how what I’m arguing is in any way controversial.
- does advertising work ?
- does *political *advertising work ?
- can someone with more money than you buy more advertising than you ?
- can someone’s advertising displace yours, e.g. by outbidding you on the advert slots of a big web site ?
- can someone pay multiple people to argue for them and browbeat you into shutting up, or at least throwing up your hands in disgust and leave the discussion ?
Then how do you have the same internet presence as a moneyed interest, exactly ? Sure, you can still speak. Anyone can speak, who’s got the time to.
Doesn’t mean they’ll be heard. Nor does it mean that swiftboating will be inherently outplayed by the righteous light of the Truth seeping through the myriad faceless voices of the Interwebs. As above, so below. As out there, so in here.
Agreed, but I think it has some validity.
If I make $45,000 a year…and my neighbors all make $25,000 a year, I’m rich. If my neighbors all make $125,000 a year, I’m poor! I’m still making enough to satisfy all my basic needs: food, entertainment, transportation.
If I am able to start up a newsletter or blog, and 45,000 people read it, then that’s pretty damn good. The fact that some other guy has one that 125,000 people read doesn’t diminish mine. It just means his is better.
I’m not “losing” anything when someone else gains more.
Again, no one is “unable to hear” me. No one is “silencing” me. They’re more successful than I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure.
I honestly disagree with this premise of your contention. Bigger circulation is better…but my little neighborhood newsletter is not “deprived” in any way, just because the New York Times is read by ten thousand times more people.
Voting itself works the same way: if I belong to the Peace and Freedom Party, I can pretty much give up all hope of winning a major election. The Democratic and Republican Parties have it sewn up. This doesn’t mean that democracy doesn’t work – although it can easily feel that way when one is in a particular minority. It just means more people disagree with me than agree with me. It doesn’t mean “my vote doesn’t count.”
I’m sure some are. Is it your contention that they all are? That most are? Is it your contention that no one would do this without getting paid? How do you think campaigns staff their organizations? With paid grunts? It is to laugh.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
No.
On second thought, scratch that. It should be:
Sometimes yes, sometimes, no.
Sometimes yes, sometimes, no.
Yes.
No.
No.
Do you seriously not see a meaningful, qualitative distinction between statements made out of conviction, and statements bought with coin ? Or a meaningful distinction between advertisement that presents itself as advertisement, and advertisement that tries to trick you into believing it’s not ?
Actually, let me make this even more straightforward a debate:
One of the candidates is sitting next to the voting booths. He’ll give you (and any other voter) 500 dollars if you vote for him instead of the other guy. Straight up cash for votes, no pretenses, no bullshit, no misdirection.
Do you see a problem with this scenario, ethical societal or otherwise ?
Most Americans would answer “yes,” but that’s why we have a secret ballot. Nobody offers money-for-votes because you have no way of knowing afterwards how your bribed voters actually voted.
Oh, there are always ways. For example, if the voting is done the “traditional” way (you pick up X bulletins, each with the name of one candidate, with you in the booth and put one in a sealed envelope before coming back out) he could ask you to produce every other bulletin as proof. If the voting is done through one of those diabolical voting machines, he could ask you to record your voting process on your iPhone.
But that’s just quibbling over the practicalities of the hypothetical, rather than the principles at work, which is what I’d be interested in hearing about from him.
The Citizens United decisions applied to corporations and unions. It does not apply to individuals. Shouldn’t you try to get your facts straight before advocating throwing out the first amendment?
I guess to me the difference is this… I meet a citizen of country X, and we discuss what his country is like, and he says “oh, of course we have freedom of press and freedom of speech”, and then it turns out that there are laws against criticizing the Great Leader and all the daily newspapers have to submit their content to the government before publication every day, but he just takes that for granted and still thinks that his country has free speech… and my reaction is obviously that his country does not in fact have free speech.
Then I meet a citizen of country Y, and we discuss what his country is like, and he says “oh, of course we have freedom of press and freedom of speech”, and then it turns out that there are laws that very strongly govern what can go on during a political campaign. So in his country:
(a) all political advertisement is banned
(b) all political contributions are banned
© voters gain information about candidates through a series of non-partisan debates and pamphlets which are run by a non-governmental organization which does its best to ensure that it conveys their positions as fairly as possible
(d) but there are never any regulations at all based on the CONTENT of what you are saying… so in any context in which it would be legal to say “candidate A is awesome”, it’s also legal to say “candidate A is douchebag” or “candidate B is awesome”, but there are some public contexts in which none of the above are legal because they would count as paid political advertising.
(e) and anything you say in private conversation with others is always legal (barring slander/libel/shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-theater type exceptions)
And my reaction is that his country has a very different political system than ours, but I certainly don’t think it doesn’t have free speech just because political campaigns are very strictly regulated.
I certainly do!
A ban on political ads is a titanic infringement on free speech.
(What’s worse, people with a lot of money could get around it, simply by claiming that they are “reporting the news.” All journalism would become “Fox News” journalism!)