Nonsense.
Well, that’s a rather compelling argument.
In all seriousness if you think you don’t need money to successfully political beliefs except for a small number of limited instances you’re ignoring reality.
Possibly - but I understand that Citizens United lost a lawsuit against Fahrenheit 911 because the court found that the movie wasn’t electioneering.
By hold on to your hat, because this part is obviously going to blow your mind, given the questions you’ve asked me: I think Michael Moore and David Bossie should abide by exactly the same set of rules.
Are you still with me? No feeling of impending doom?
I don’t know the facts surrounding the book. It’s like you’re asking me if Roger James of Portland, Oregon should have been convicted of robbery in 2004. How the hell should I know?
Obviously, most Americans don’t support elimination of child labor laws. Perhaps you can explain why you favor the effective indentured servitude of first grade children to Republican billionaires who want to eliminate poor people through racist policies?
(See, I can poison the well and strawman just as well as you can!)
Are they engaged in electioneering? Give me some examples.
I’m not particularly interested in providing answer to endless hypothetical scenarios – “Well, what if the book has a BLUE cover? And what if Michael Moore wrote it?? Gotcha ya!”
Suffice it to say that I think people with common sense can generally tell the difference between political campaigns and selling books or magazines. Nobody wanders in to a campaign office thinking that it is a Barnes and Noble, whether that office is funded by regulated donations to a candidate or by an anonymous billionaire. Somehow we manage to have a system in which campaign contributions to candidates is generally adequately regulated, and nobody is asking whether a non-citizen is allowed to loan a cup of sugar to his neighbor who is a candidate for political office without the FEC deploying a SWAT team.
I’m sure you think you’re being clever but I don’t think your view is shared.
Ah, so then you seem to be conceding that if Fox News or MSNBC engaged in behavior that bureaucrats for the FEC determined to be “electioneering” then they could and should be sanctioned in your opinion?
Is that a correct reading of your beliefs?
I’m afraid you’ve just made it clear you didn’t understand how McCain-Feingold changed the landscape, because the law drastically altered the way in which it could be determined what did and didn’t constitute a “campaign contribution” by essentially giving the FEC broad authority to determine what communications did and didn’t constitute “electioneering” activity. Under McCain-Feingold they could essentially classify anything they determined to be for the purpose of agitating for or against political candidates and sanction those who made it.
Obviously to most reasonable people this makes a mockery of the idea of free speech and it’s also quite asinine to suggest that prohibiting the government from being able to do so, since of course the United States managed to survive into the first Bush administration without having McCain-Feingold in place.
You seem to think that it should be rather obvious what is “electioneering” activity that should be regulated and what shouldn’t be and are refusing to answer specific questions because in doing so you’d have to start explaining why say a documentary criticizing George Bush should not be sanctioned while a documentary criticizing Hillary Clinton should be.
That’s the way it always is when you decide to start censoring things. It’s rather easy to believe that people are “abusing free speech” and the book burners, whether they’re targets be blasphemy, “hate speech”, Muhammad cartoons, pornography, or “electioneering” materials, in the end, the defense is always the same. “Think of the children”. Thankfully, at least for now, in Citizens United the book burners were defeated and left beaten, whipped and whimpering.
Do you think the United Kingdom is an unfree country? Sure sounds like it.
Can you describe a world of “free speech” in which one cannot spend any money to produce political speech?
By the way, in that little speech you gave there, you should really up the hyperbole a bit. Calling the 85% of Americans who dislike our election laws “book burners” is pretty inflammatory, but I bet you could do better. Try “thought Nazis.” Or maybe they are “promoting the genocide of opinions.” Or perhaps they are “Constitution rapists.”
Seriously, your posts need a little more oomph!
That is the goal isn’t it? To dis-empower either by shame, ridicule, threats of violence, or the force of the state opposing viewpoints.
The real tragedy was 4 of the 9 justices are too stupid or too partisan to not recognize that the government can not be trusted to regulate speech. Nor does it have the legitimate power to do so.
Cowbell. They need more cowbell.
So you only support fining people for distributing books if they do so from a campaign office, and only support fining people for distributing films if they do so from a campaign office?
You don’t support fining people for distributing books from Barnes and Noble or films from the local cinema?
because if that isn’t what you believe, your comment about people mistaking a campaign office for a Barnes and Noble is a complete red herring, isn’t it? You must believe that it is the source of distribution that allows you to determine whether distribution should be fined, otherwise why would you say that it is obvious what needs to be fined based upon the source?
No, my only test would not be from what storefront the campaign materials came from. Another pretty silly set of questions.
Then why is it relevant that someone can tell barnes and Noble from a campaign office?
Is there any chance you will stop being coy and just explain to us how you decide when to fine someone for distributing written material pertaining to a politician?
You’ve already told us that you believe some people *should *be fined for distributing written material pertaining to a politician.
Can you please just tell use how you decide which people and which material, rather than implying that it’s based on the storefront, and then retreating from that when asked outright?
You made a loud, declarative statement that this was an easy and clear distinction to make. So why are you being so coy about how you make that distinction?
Could the government pass a law saying that although a woman has a right to an abortion she may not spend money to have one? Could the government say that although same sex marriage is legal, no same sex couple may spend money to buy a marriage license?
That’s why the founders saw fit to add freedom of the press to the 1st amendment. Printing presses are not free.
Come on, pal. This is about whether such a rule should exist, not about existing rules. And it’s not really a “depends” answer.
Why?
How on earth can you justify clamping down on speech based on the content of the speech or the intent of the speakers?
No such violation exists for campaigns though. Campaigns are free to spend as much as they want on any kind of speech they want. Limits on spending imposed on campaigns were struck down as unconstitutional long ago.
Why should it be different for anyone else?
I think most of us agree on “it depends”, but laws give authorities powers, and it’s hard to write a campaign finance law that doesn’t give the authorities the power to do things like censor movies, books, and the media. You can say you don’t support such things, but if a law allows it, then you in effect support it.
Or ban the use of money to publish a Bible? Or ban newspapers from buying ink and paper? Or ban the buying or selling of megaphones or PA systems, bus and portapotty rental, and signs or banners or material to make signs and banners just before a huge political march on Washington?
Or ban the sale of internet access and website hosting?
What kind of “storefronts” would be covered? How would that even work?
Sure! You can copy all the fliers and posters by hand instead of going to Kinkos and spending money.
Oh, wait, you can’t spend money on paper or markers. Never mind.
/sarcasm off/
The sad thing about those who oppose the Citizen’ United decision or say “money isn’t speech” is that they must embrace the most ridiculously judicial conservative interpretation of the First Amendment - that “speech” only means the act of a human being using his or her voice.
You should just forbid him from spending money on his comments. That would solve the problem.