Yeah, like they totally did with all the other violations in the last decade (let alone century). They were so quick to turn on the Patriot act and the NDAA right? And they’re leaping to defend us from uncostitutional search and seizures, in digital form, right? Lets not be coy and pretend that there have been no cases that even touch on any of these subjects to try to pass the buck.
No, it really isn’t. And by your logic, the required disclaimers on drugs and medication are also literacy tests and grandfather clauses. Moving said clause to the front, rather than the end of the advertisement, and requiring a standard recording instead of the fastest often times unintelligble (for many) speaker they can hire, is the only difference, save duration.
Fire in a crowded building. Laws against alerting others to criminal investigations. Slander and liable laws. Copywrite and trademark laws. “Any attempt.” You really didn’t think your response through.
Really? Your first time responding to someone and you resort to a personal attack? That’s really, really shameful. Especially on this sort of board.
It’s also based on so many wrong assumptions that you strike me as the audience this board is trying to eradicate.
And no, I wont bother dignifying such blatant and proud arrogance with an actual explanation of why you have no idea who you are talking to, or what my values might be.
You can try if you want, but when it comes to First Amendment cases, the courts have been pretty good at seeing through such nonsense as yours.
That’s absurd. Warning labels have a legitimate purpose.
You ADMIT your only purpose is to try to suppress the speech, for God’s sake. Even if you were smart enough not to say so in public when proposing this law, nobody would be fooled.
Those are legitimate limits. Yours is not. Your proposal is an attempt to get around the rules, not enforce rules.
That’s not even remotely a personal attack.
I don’t know what your values are, only what your proposal would do. And your proposal doesn’t respect freedom of speech. And it’s not arrogant to say so.
I’ll do my best not to resort to the kind of low tactics I just caught you employing.
We know. But just disliking the conclusion doesn’t mean a proposition is illogical. Can you now follow the logic chain enough to understand that you were wrong and that this isn’t an argument for indiscriminate speech banning?
Yeah I remember page 2 of the thread. Go back there if you have forgotten my response to this objection. For now, lets concentrate on the issue at hand. Do you now understand how my conception of balancing of rights provides a framework for justifying certain limitations but not others?
I’m talking about voting, of course. When a political party becomes too extreme you vote for someone else. If you are not allowed to ask other people if the party in power has become too extreme then you have no need to ask the question in the first place.
I have no problem with you explaining the implications so long as you actually explain them. Your habit has been otherwise. Typically you just claim with no rationale that my words mean something other than what they say.
I don’t believe “limited government” should be the proper term for a government that is only limited by itself. I’m unimpressed with the protection of rights under this system and, more pertinent to our discussion here, it sows confusion. Take for instance your bipolar arguments. On the one hand you act as if government is a bully. Give it power and it will abuse it. And on the other you act as if everything will be OK if the government has the ability to tell itself that it shouldn’t do that.
So yeah I do reject judicial review as a shitty way to run a country but that’s really a subject for a different thread. For our purposes here it is really only important that you be more precise in your thinking. When I say the government can do something it’s not a legal assertion but one of possibility. It is possible for a government to do that thing. I do not require that you conform to my thinking. I remember that you can and will make constitutional and legal arguments even if I will not.
They’re not low tactics at all. I’m trying to make sure you don’t use the tactic of employing a definition as an argument, that’s all.
Your argument is for giving the government the power to ban speech indiscriminately.
You have yet to justify your proposed limits. The only justifications you’ve offered would also justify massive, and unacceptable, limits as well.
Huh? Who isn’t allowed to ask something? And what’s that got to do with voting?
No, that’s you doing that.
Well, no. Government can indeed be a bully - there’s no way you can deny that. We have a system that tries hard to avoid that, in part by setting aside certain powers the government can never have, in a document it must adhere to.
Okay. I say it shouldn’t. I say prohibiting it has worked quite well and it doesn’t need to be changed.
I’m underwhelmed by the lack of content in your reply. As I’ve said, noticing that speech might be valuable and that valuable things might be corrupting (and that we might ban potential corruption) only means that we might consider banning some speech not that we should or must ban any and all speech.
Perhaps if you put more thought into the thread than it takes to reply within 17 minutes of my post you wouldn’t have to ask questions that are easily answered by reading the thread. Sorry, I don’t feel like doing the remedial work for you this time.
Where? Please point to one single example of me claiming without explanation that your words meant something other than how you intended them.
Yes, you do. You’ve been quite consistent. But given that I’ve posted an easily followed chain of reasoning do you now realize that doing so is a personal choice that flies in the face of logic? For reference, here is the logic chain again:
A: Speech might be valuable.
B: Valuable things might be corrupting.
C. We might ban potential corruption.
D: Therefor we might consider banning some speech but not any and all speech.
So you meant that it was I who was claiming without rationale that my words mean what I mean them to mean and not what you say they mean? Again if this is correct please point to a post where I do so. If not, I continue to wait for that example. If what you are saying, whichever you are saying, is true then you will have no trouble citing it since the entire thread is still here for anyone to view. If I am wrong and you meant something else why then I am happy to accept a cite for that instead.
E: Speech should never be banned for being “corrupting” - freedom of speech must always prevail.
It’s simply ludicrous to argue that saying something nice about someone, even in exchange for favors, should ever be a criminal act. Even if you manage to do so without opening up the possibility of criminalizing pretty much ALL political speech.
In short: come on. You can’t be serious.
See above - I’m saying that your words hide the flatly ludicrous argument you’re making.
Yes we know how you feel. But you were also denying the logic itself. Denying that speech could be potentially corrupting. Denying that there could be an interest in regulating speech in the form of outside campaign commercials (other than from an evil desire to control others)? Do you now realize that all of that crap WAS crap?
Absolutely anything of value could be corrupting if you want to fit it into your logic chain. I deny that it makes any sense to call it “corruption” and criminalize it.
Sure, someone can have an interest in just about anything too.
So what?
It wasn’t crap. Crap is even considering criminalizing speech because it happens to benefit a politician. That’s criminalizing all political speech. It’s absurd.
I’ll give you credit for not playing the “it’s not speech, it’s money” game. You came right out and admitted you don’t like certain speech and wan to criminalize it.
And the thing about speech having value, we should talk about that. You realize that it only has value if the voters decide to give it value, right? You can’t escape the fact that speech involves listeners, and those listeners are not idiots who can’t think about what they hear. If you think they are, you don’t believe in democracy at all.
You’re incredibly naive. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re advocating a totalitarian government. I’m not overstating that.
So (despite your desire not to criminalize it) you do admit that campaign ads for a candidate, even if purchased by someone else, are potentially corrupting just as giving the money to the candidate to buy the commercials herself is potentially corrupting?
This is another semantic argument. I’m not talking about a general interest as in a curiosity about or desire for something but specifically that there is a logical reason for something. People have good reason to be concerned about unregulated campaign spending. It’s not just a whim.
Is that a yes or a no? Do you now realize that it’s bullshit to deny that speech can be potentially corrupting or to deny that based on that reality some might, in good faith, seek to regulate outside campaign commercials?
BTW- How exactly do you know that criminalizing speech is a bad idea without considering it?
Are you just repeating by rote what someone else told you to think?
I don’t agree that being deceived makes you an idiot. Anyone can be fooled by the right con.
Clearly I don’t agree. Personally I tend to be a lot more concerned about ongoing issues (endemic political corruption) a lot more than unsupported hypotheticals. I know you like to frame it as the brave crusader for freedom against the dark forces but from my point of view it’s the elite and their desire to continue buying politicians you are defending so sincerely.
Hmmm. I might, if you admit that simply saying “vote for Obama” without spending any money or giving it to anyone could also qualify as corrupting in the same way – and therefore ALL political speech could qualify as corrupting. Will you follow your own logic to that absurdity? I think you will.
Okay. There are also logical reasons not to adopt your proposals.
I say the question is insane. You cannot and should not regulate speech, on its own, for being corrupting or potential corrupting.
That applies to outside campaign commercials too.
Thousands of years of history help.
No. I’m a free man. I think for myself. Nobody controls me, nor controls what I see or hear, because I live in a country where speech is free.
If that’s true, then YOU can be decieved too, right? So I can just say you’re being decieved now and you don’t really think what you’re saying or it’s not valid. That was easy.
They’re hardly “unsupported.” There are many examples from history.
It’s really kinda both. But crusades for freedom always win.
Look, you don’t like democracy or free speech. You think the people are too stupid to handle certain speech. There’s no way you can possibly argue that speech needs regulation without that part. I repeat - your arguments for regulating speech depend totally on the idea that the people can’t handle certain speech, so the government must do it for them. It’s unavoidable.
That’s fine, you don’t have to like democracy. Just don’t pretend you do and don’t try to convince me.
Why are you dodging the question? Can I please get a yes or no answer? Do you agree that campaign ads for a candidate, even if purchased by someone else, are potentially corrupting just as giving the money to the candidate to buy the commercials herself is potentially corrupting?
As for your counterproposal, it’s the same ground we’ve been over. Just saying it doesn’t make it valuable. I just said it out loud and I don’t see how that could possibly be of any use to a politician. What is it you are still failing to grasp here?
Why are you dodging the question? It’s not asking if we should regulate speech. I understand that you object to that. It only seeks to clarify your understanding of the preconditions. Lets not get ahead of ourselves for a minute. Can I please get a yes or no answer? Do you agree that speech can be potentially corrupting and that based on that reality some might, in good faith, seek to regulate outside campaign commercials?
So you admit that you have considered criminalizing speech?
You certainly can say that but you haven’t provided any logical reason to believe it to be true. Just as you have provided no logical reason to support your claim that I hate democracy and think people are ignorant. Not that that has been stopping you.
Cite? I don’t need all that many examples. How about just three instances of a modern democracy starting to regulate speech and ending up a totalitarian state.
I realize that 2sense is keeping you pretty busy, but I just want to ask a simple question. I remembered the name of the guy who was running those particularly annoying commercials on CNN in 2012 – Thomas Peterffy. In the large scheme of things, relative to monumental forces like the Koch brothers and Corporate America he’s almost inconsequential – sort of quaint. Yet he spent $8 million on scare ads trying to link Democrats with Soviet-era socialism so he’s kind of the poster boy of the small-time minor billionaire with a few words to say to the public.
There was a lot that I had to say to counter that, but, alas, I checked my bank account and I didn’t have $8 million to spare. At best I might have enough money to buy about 0.0002 seconds of CNN commercial time, which is not enough time even for my lips to move or a full sound wave to register, and CNN doesn’t sell microsecond timeslots anyway.
Please remind me which of these choices represents your philosophical outlook on this state of affairs:
(a) Tough shit, maybe you should have been rich
(b) Doesn’t matter, because the general public are so smart that they never, ever pay any attention to advertising of any kind
Another multiple-choice for you. How do you define “democracy”?
(a) A bunch of folks voting on stuff
(b) A population informed enough to be able to govern themselves effectively
Kinda both, although your framing of the answers is designed to make them both seem unpalatable.
As far as a) goes, rich people can afford better lawyers than poor people. Does this mean rich people should be forced to accept public defenders? Of course more money means greater ability to exercise rights. Rich people can speak louder, own more guns, buy their own church, get better legal representation. This does not mean we limit rights to whatever the average person can exercise. If we had done something like that in 1980, the internet would essentially be illegal. Because whereas in 1980 I could get at most, oh, 20 people to listen to me, now hundreds read my words on this little discussion board. And bloggers, most of whom are just regular folk, can have readerships in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Is this unfair? Should the more popular bloggers be shut down?
Now b), if you believe the people are easily persuaded by any old argument, then we might as well get rid of democracy. So you would have liked to rebut the millionaire comparing Democrats to Communists? You would have been wasting your money. The Democrats had tons more resources than he did to rebut him and didn’t even try, because his ads weren’t persuading anyone who didn’t already believe Democrats were pinkos. Jonah Goldberg’s book, “Liberal fascism”, was actually far more consequential despite not even having close to as much money behind it. It still didn’t persuade too many people, but it was dangerous enough at least that a lot of liberal writers and columnists felt the need to rebut it.
Democracy works because in the end, the people usually get it right. For me, the greatest threat to democracy is the buying of voters, not the buying of politicians. When your livelihood depends on who gets elected, then you are no longer a free voter. You are owned by that political party.
That’s the genius of our system. The founders held two opposite concepts in hand at the same time: voters are stupid, voters are enlightened. So they let voters pick who would represent them, but limited what those representatives could do. And that’s the other big threat to democracy, the fact that the federal government has been increasing its power. You need an informed citizenry to rein in a powerful government. A less powerful government is less consequential, so it doesn’t matter as much if voters are uninformed and apathetic. As powerful as the government is now, though, I don’t think a nation of 200 IQ voters could grasp it all. We live in an age where the government is unaccountable because we don’t vote for the people who actually carry out the law. And elected officials put several layers of bureaucracy between those who actually do stuff and themselves so that they can’t be blamed.
The people who understand the government best understand maybe 5% of it. Are their votes really that much more informed than people who understand 1% of it? I don’t think so.
I’m not saying that no individual founders thought of regular people as stupid but mostly they spoke of them as ignorant. “Wanting information” was a frequent expression. They also gave common people credit for being uncorrupted and having common wisdom. These assumptions make sense given how their world worked. Regular people did tend to be uninformed and unjaded given that they were forced to spend their daylight hours toiling. Trusting the common wisdom in effect meant that the sense of the community, where the leading members took the lead to be sure, could mostly be relied on. So freeholders could know enough to elect local men to represent their interests even if the complexities of exactly what those interests were was beyond them.
At the same time reigning in democracy was a major concern during the constitutional convention. Elites were horrified when the small folk began to not only make known what they wanted from their state governments but to actually vote against men, well established gentlemen, who failed to deliver. When legislatures began producing stay laws (allowing nonpayment of debts), paper money, and increasing taxes on unimproved (speculative) lands the powers that be were not amused. But to be clear it was legislative power that was being limited first by dividing it (as the framers resolutely refused to divide the Executive) and then by giving the Executive and the Judiciary a veto.
It’s not government getting more powerful that worries me but rather what the government is doing. You expect the government to be powerful. It has to be to be effective after all. You expect it to be able to spy on anyone it wants but it’s troubling that it wants to spy on all of us. It’s troubling that it wants to cut good spending, on people, but not spending on corporate interests. Things like that.
The federal government should be very powerful within the realms it has been ceded power. And elected officials should be accountable for everything the federal government does. One of the biggest threats to democratic legitimacy today is the unelected bureaucracy enabling elected officials to claim ignorance when the bureaucracy misbehaves or is incompetent, and enough voters believe them that accountability is lost. When accountability is lost, democratic legitimacy is lost. Who do we vote out of office when the IRS does us wrong? Or the EPA? Or the FBI? According to a lot of people, no one. But if that’s true, we no longer vote for our leaders. We just vote for powerless figureheads.
If you’re going to invoke the founders, you have to acknowledge that they adopted the First Amendment, which very clearly and without reservation or exception stated that they valued freedom of speech as among the highest values to be protected as a right.
And to try to make a disctinction between stupid and ignorant, and try to say the founders would have thought violation of speech rights was an answer to that, is not supported by the facts either. The founders clearly saw free speech as the solution to ignorance.
You can’t possibly separate the two. Especially since you are actually advocating giving more power to the government.
I sure am glad people are out there pooling their money by giving it to groups that are running ads exposing legislators for their failures.
I think it’s kind of funny how liberals on my side of the aisle tend to rail against money and speech and Super PACs, but then don’t say a word when their side does it. For instance:
Gabby Giffords’ Gun Control Group Outraises All Other Super PACs
You have a right to as much speech as you can get. You don’t have a right to as much speech as everyone else can get. So in that regard, (a).
But that leads to my question - suppose some celebrity or famous public figure gets lots of media attention which results in his speech being spread all over. You aren’t a celebrity. Is that unfair? Should celebrity’s speech be limited because of that?
but my answer is:
(c) you can do what people do all the time - pool your money with others by donating to a group that can use it to run ads. Freedom of association and all that. You don’t whine, you fight back.
(c) a population educated enough to be able to inform themselves and judge the information without interference from the government or well-meaning, but arrogant, people who think some speech needs to be limited because the people can’t handle it or judge it on their own.
