So rather than limit the power of the politicians, we’ll restrict political speech.
But I’m a compromising type, so I’ll grant that yes, there is a problem, and yes, it would be good to solve it. the problem is that while your proposals are reasonable, the only way you can get them passed is to pass an extremely broad increase in Congress’ power to regulate all political speech from any source. That’s far more dangerous than the situation we have now.
The history of campaign finance reform has taught me that the next step is always reasonable and it would be crazy to think reformers would want to go farther. For example, after Citizens United, I remember a lot of posters on many boards saying that they didn’t care how much money individuals spent on elections, but we needed to keep corporations from owning the system. Then individuals started spending lots of money on elections and they wanted to limit that too. The former argument was “corporations aren’t people”, but that must have been a disingenous argument because apparently the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson aren’t people either. In your example, the primary concern used to be big money buying candidates, but after an initiative in California to label GMO foods was defeated by an industry ad campaign, many called for limiting that as well. I’m not sure what’s corrupt about going directly to the people on an issue, but whatever. I think for a lot of people it’s not about corruption, it’s about relative power. Which is defensible, but you can’t have both limits on relative power of speech and free speech at the same time.
While direct banning of things like the Daily Show would be a bridge too far, they don’t need to go that far. Incumbents who don’t like being made fun of would simply make veiled threats about shows like the Daily Show trying to illegally swing an election and maybe some legislation to limit the undue influence of such shows over the political process should be considered. Only reasonable limits of course, like requiring Stewart to tell jokes 50/50 between making fun of Democrats and Republicans.
This is not an argument you’re going to win simply by ignoring what I just explained. Do you deny that views on campaign finance are generally delineated by left vs. right ideologies and viewpoints? If so, better have a look at how the vote on Citizens United was split up among the justices. Just because you bring up someone like Turley who’s mostly progressive but perversely libertarian in some areas just proves that people are individuals; it doesn’t change how the world works or the general agenda of conservative ideology.
You’re still on with the Nazi book-burning meme and failing to appreciate that this is ultimately all about trying to control the corrupting influence of money in politics as much as possible. Citizens United wasn’t about the film per se, it was about who was paying to advertise it and to have it run on TV as a sort of infomercial. The rights of a free press to free speech in the expression of editorial opinions does not involve the payment of money by assorted political agencies to purchase public opinion, so there’s nothing to regulate.
And before you go raising the spectre of billionaires buying up all the media and editorializing until the cows come home, there are such things as rules about concentration of media ownership to promote diversity in media, though once again conservatives have been working hard to dismantle those, too, because of course it runs against their interests. It’s also one of the reasons I strongly support a well-funded independent public broadcasting system beholden to no one. If the media is treated and protected as a public trust then its editorial capacity can’t be monopolized and abused.
Well, diversity in media isn’t a problem anymore thanks to cable and the internet. Too many sources to monopolize.
But I think if reformers want to actually solve this issue they need to agree on and define the objectives as narrowly as possible and tailor a constitutional amendment to achieve those narrow ends. A repeal of the 1st amendment isn’t the answer, and yes, that’s exactly what the Udall amendment does. Assuming it doesn’t self-nullify because Democrats don’t know what freedom of the press actually is.
If this was to be ratified, we’d then get the wonderful scene of Democrats arguing, “Yes, we know the text nullifies the amendment, but think of the intent of the drafters, not what was actually written!”
You keep playing that card like it’s a winner, but that dog won’t hunt. We could easily limit the amounts that can be donated in PACs, SuperPacs and to candidates, that’s the big issue. The little stuff like censoring movies and stuff can be ignored … the important thing is to keep our legislators from being purchased wholesale by rich individuals and corporations, which is what is happening now.
Why are you so blase about American democracy being destroyed by money, Ibn?
All of those would be eliminating money from one side but not the other, which would not be doing what the amendment allows.
And if the government does descend into tyranny , what the law says doesn’t matter. A tyrannical government can just change or ignore the law. That’s what makes it tyrannical.
When I asked for example laws, I didn’t mean laws that could never pass in a democratic society. I mean laws that would sound good enough to be passed but have unintended consequences.
If the Constitution were the only thing preventing tyranny, non-constitutional democracies couldn’t exist.
Because it’s not.
I have a functioning brain and a competent knowledge of American history and therefore I’m aware that American politics are vastly less corrupt than they’ve been in previous generations.
Anyone who thinks differently should read up on Tammany Hall, Boston, Chicago, or the 1960 Presidential election.
Now, since I’ve been polite and answered your question have the courtesy to answer mine.
Since you’re supporting an amendment that would give the government the power to regulate the Colbert Report and the Daily Show from “influencing” elections, do you also think that the government should also regulate the O’Reilly Factor and the Wall Street Journal?
If not, why should they be exempt?
This amendment and all other anti-Citizens United amendments give Congress far more power than that. It’s like assuring us that this new interstate commerce clause thingie will only be used to prevent trade barriers between the states, honest.
Why are you so trusting of the motives of a corrupted institution? What makes you think they’ll resist using the law to make it easier for them to win elections? the power of incumbency is already great. Incumbents need campaign cash far less than challengers. THey get free mailing privileges, a lot more free media, and have established relationships with the community and with the local media. Of COURSE they love reform! It would make them even less accountable than they are now. Instead of being accountable to their donors, they’ll be accountable to no one at all! Democracy!
Tyranny is a strong word, but let’s be clear: if the government is all-powerful, limited only by the voters, then the majority can just do whatever it wants. Including forbid SNL from doing political satire.
BTW, while I do agree that speech requires money, the problem I have is that everyone is supposed to have equal speech, but they do not have equal money. The problem is that, if money equals speech, then those who have more money have more speech. And since speech is a finite resource, as you can only listen to so much speech in a given day, more speech for some means less for others.
That’s the reason for limiting the amount of money spent, so as to prevent less monied speech from being drowned out.
Non-monied speech is drowned out anyway. The way non-monied speech avoids being drowned out is by pooling so they can compete with the big boys. Such as, the NRA, which BTW was going to be exempt from the DISCLOSE Act, just to demonstrate how Congress can’t be trusted to legislate fairly. I support the NRA, but there is no reason other than politics for it to be exempt from a campaign finance law. Even if we acknowledge that political speech rights should be limited more, they should not be horsetraded like road projects. That’s how groups get REALLY powerful compared to other groups.
Well, that’s a fair and frank point of view, and just to follow up on it, it’s one that I happen to disagree with rather strongly. I think it reflects an all too common but ultimately counterproductive distrust of government. I’d rather distrust self-serving bloodsucking corporations and their owners than the elected representatives of a constitutional democracy, especially if those representatives are elected without undue influence from said bloodsuckers. There’s at least a good chance that a properly constituted government will look after the people’s best interests; with corporations and their billionaire owners, you know whose interests they’ll be looking after – pretty much as a matter of mandated fiduciary responsibility – and it sure ain’t yours or mine.
I think it’s also worth noting that in most countries governments do indeed have a lot more power to control election spending under generally much more restrictive laws, and it hasn’t resulted in either tyranny or book-burning bonfires. It’s resulted, in fact, in governments far less beholden to wealthy corporate interests and more responsive to issues like protection of personal privacy, and prioritizing things like social spending over tax cuts for the wealthy. Whereas consider the converse: in his recent book, no less a Reaganite conservative than David Stockman blasted the utter lunacy of the Romney-Ryan budget platform that so overwhelmingly pandered to the wealthy at enormous cost to the tax base while gutting relatively lower-cost essential social programs for the very poorest. This wasn’t the result of some unfortunate mistake, it was the explicit, intentional, and malign objective to do just that.
As your concern shows, democracy can be subverted. Where it is not subverted by corporations, it is often subverted by the government. If you can control who can speak and when, then you can control the discourse. People respond logically to incentives. Incumbents already stack the deck in their favor through shady but legal means. This amendment gives them a huge new tool.
If they can’t be trusted to redistrict fairly, they certainly can’t be trusted to police political discourse fairly.
I’m all for taking power out of the hands of non-elected plutocrats and putting it into the hands of elected representatives.
Let me fix that last sentence for you, I’m sure what you ACTUALLY meant to say was:
" Instead of being accountable to their donors, they’ll be accountable to** the voters that elect them**! Democracy!"
Yes, American democracy has been corrupt in the past but that is NO excuse for being blase about its being corrupt now. Especially since two of the three instances you mentioned were local instances of corruption, not national instances like we have now. I still think you are being very blase about the death of American democracy. But now I know it’s because you think Tammany Hall = Super PACs is the reason.
The government should regulate how much money ANY of these media can contribute to candidates. That’s all, they can still say what they like.
You are naïve.
The press is owned and managed by people with agendas. They hire editorialists with agendas. Look a the contrast between Fox News and MSNBC. They are in the political business, they sell advertising to fund their business, to influence public opinion.
So then yes you favor the government limiting the speech of SNL, The Colbert Report, The O’Reilly Factor and so forth by limiting the amount of money they spend on episodes criticizing or praising political candidates.
Correct?
THe non-elected plutocrats aren’t dictating what content SNL can have, other than NBC. And they kinda own the show.
It doesn’t work that way in practice, unfortunately. Man has not yet devised a system where the little guy is represented as well as the big guy. All you do when you take the power out of the hands of wealthy private interests is that you put it into the hands of entrenched government interests. While this probably produces a better overall outcome to the average liberal, it is not more democracy, it’s less than what we have now. At least now, we hear a wide variety of voices and in the end the voter makes the decision. With this amendment, we’ll hear far less.
Wow! Well, I guess we’re at an impasse, because if you repeatedly insist that government – the very institution that free peoples founded on democratic principles to protect themselves against tyranny from random self-serving powers that may arise, like warlords, warfaring nations, and unprincipled commercial interests and monopolies – if you insist that this very institution is no better and probably worse than the tyrannies it’s supposed to protect us from, then there’s no hope of a productive discussion.
The proof of how wrong you are is not just in the democracies of other countries, but in the historical greatness of democracy in the US itself, in Presidents like Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR, and great programs like the New Deal, social security, and Medicare. Where are those values today? The ACA is pathetically weak and the Republican lunatics are still trying to repeal it because it’s “too socialist” even though Nixon himself had similar proposals. Where we are today is well represented by unprincipled travesties like the Romney-Ryan budget that I talked about before – giving even more to the rich, and cutting even more from the poor. Why do you suppose this historic sea change in government priorities is happening, and has been happening for decades now? Do you suppose there’s any connection at all between the vast and virtually unlimited influence of the wealthy on political finance and public communications and the growing inclination of government to enact policies favoring the wealthy?
People are people. The founders created government to restrain the strong from oppressing the weak and to guarantee our liberties. The government in turn is restrained by a supreme document that states what the government may legislate on and what it may not legislate on. One of the things it may not legislate on is political speech. Supporters of this amendment want to remove that protection and trust the government that the founders did not trust enough to regulate political speech.
Where you see greatness I see a steady erosion of the constitutional bounds that keep government restrained. So now I live in a society where the average person gives up 30-40% of their income to feed an insatiable government and where every activity can be regulated because it might somehow effect interstate commerce. This state of affairs came about because the courts decided that Congress’ spending power and interstate commerce power were extremely broad, with few limits. I’m not sure I want to see what a Congress with unlimited power to regulate political speech would do.
Write a narrower amendment and we can talk. First, define the problem in a way that can be empirically demonstrated as true. Amendments shouldn’t be written to deal with amorphous problems that may or may not actually exist. “Big money corrupts the process” is an unprovable statement. “Congressmen give earmarks to campaign contributors” is a provable statement. And a problem that lends itself to a solution. “getting money out of politics” is not an achievable mission. Not only will supporters not know when the job is done, they won’t even be able to demonstrate if things are getting better or worse.