San Francisco Attempts to Regulate Blogging

Lawrence Person writes "Forget about theocratic Iran or Communist China; today's report of a political entity trying to regulate blogging comes not from The People's Republic of China, but rather The People's Republic of San Francisco. 'The San Francisco Board of Supervisors [announced] yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate." Worse, this is not an April Fools joke. It seems that 'campaign finance reform' is turning out to be the biggest Trojan Horse in the campaign to regulate free speech. "Are you now or have you ever been a blogger?"" Chris Nolan -- the "not a joke" link above -- is more reserved about the true scope of the proposed law (which would deal with election-related journaling specifically, not most diary-style Web journals), but has little good to say about it.

Comments

Loyalty Fee?

[fembots]

This is only applicable to blogs that mention candidates for local office. So I don't think you have to pay if you're blogging about your dog.

However, this might give corporates some ideas. For example, if your blogs contain certain movies, music, celebrities, you may have to start paying for the loyalty fee, like what radio stations are doing now.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Lehk228]

in other words, you have freedom of speech as long as you don't discuss politics? how long before i get my papers?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[baldass_newbie]

Boy, all the Republicans against this bill pointed out that limiting campaign contributions was tantamount to limiting free speech. (I don't recall any Democrats against this as their two biggest special interests, Unions and the Press, are exempted specifically.)

Kind of like when Clinton signed the Violence Against Women act allowing prosecutors to dig into a person's private sexual history for background.

Nothing like the Law of Unintended Consquences, eh?

And counting down for the modbombing in 3, 2, 1...

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[imkonen]

" webloggers continuously hammer on the idea that they want to be treated as "real journalists". and now they are."

"real journalists" are allowed to express political opinions without begin regulated by campaign finance laws. Every major newspaper in the country endorses candidates in elections.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[rekenner]

And some just want a place to air their thoughts. It'd be incredibly stupid to make people that talk about politics in their blog (which covers a very wide range of things) register their blog, regardless of if they prefer to think of themselves as journlists or not.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

Are journalists or columnists in traditional media required to register with the local authorities, pay a registration fee because they're popular, report all their costs (such as travel, meals with sources, etc), or turnover their readership (auditing of server logs) to the government so they can see who might be reading certain opinions?

I doubt that they are. If they are, then that's, at the very LEAST, highly disturbing. The fact that you wish that bloggers would stop posting doesn't mean that the government, or anyone else, should be able to come in and regulate their speech. It's the same principle as the tv: if you don't like the programming, then change the channel, or turn it off.

The reasons politicians are interested in singling out blogs are pretty obvious. Blogs have a relatively low startup and maintenance cost, can be started by anyone, and whereas there are relatively few points of regulation for traditional media, blogs are highly distributed. The squashing of a scandal, omission of facts, or the redirection of public attention becomes incredibly difficult for people (politicians, corporations, etc) who have become accustomed to a certain amount of cover from the elitist press.

Traditional MSM are scared because of such scandals like Dan Rather's Forged Memo story. Before blogs, the fact that there were some serious questions about the authenticity of those national guard memos would have never seen a wide audience and would have been largely relegated to the lore of right-wing conspiracy theorists.

CBS and others are pissed because now their job, getting the story RIGHT, has suddenly become that much more difficult with people who are both knowledgable in such matters AND able to make that knowledge widely known. Furthermore, because of the rapid response made possible by blogs, the facts are checked over and over again and a truer picture of what actually happened becomes hammered out. Contrast this with the relatively slow response times of the NYT or WT, stories with innaccuracies are only slowly corrected and usually in the back sections of the paper. An inaccurate picture is usually what people are left with.

I think there is no clearer ideal of what free political speech looks like.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

in other words, you have freedom of speech as long as you don't discuss politics? how long before i get my papers?

No. You can't be on the payroll of some politician or otherwise perform electioneering on his behalf without making it public that that's what you're doing.

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Speech ranges from "I have a dream" to spam. The type of speech that enjoys First Amendment protection is politically protected speech. If you are spending money to sell a product, like turtle wax, that's commercial speech- which is subject to a limited set of restrictions. Examples are when they force pharmaceutical companies to mention the diarrhea and vomiting, or when weight loss ads are forced to put "ADVERTISEMENT" in the footer of real-looking news articles. Restrictions on commercial speech are perfectly constitutional as long as they are reasonable.

This business with campaigning is treading closer to politically protected speech, and overlapping with it, since the speech is primarily political rather than purely commercial in nature. The controversial campaign finance reform was controversial precisely because it attempted to regulate speech in this domain. But not all political speech is necessarily constitutionally protected political speech- depending on the circumstances, it may have a commercial character. I may be receiving money in response for saying what I'm saying. The campaign finance laws- however you feel about them- were part of an attempt to impose reasonable and legitimate regulation of speech in this domain. One of the main strategies that this legislation took was to enforce full disclosure of the commercial aspects of speech, and to make sure that commercial means were not used to escape political consequences of speech. That's why you hear "I approved this message".

This ordinance looks like a minor piece of accountability legislation. It says that if you spend more than $1000 in any venue performing electioneering for a candidate, you have to register. This is so that accurate information about election funding can be kept as part of the public record. That is all. This is a restriction in that you are forced to disclose this information to the public, but they're not preventing you from saying anything, and it only applies to the commercial component of your speech.

This is much ado about nothing. Political demonstrations and public gatherings are about the most protected form of political speech there is, but in the United States you have to remain inside designated fenced-in areas or they'll arrest you for leaving your "First Amendment Zone".

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

ok

they can try to regulate bloggers.

But can they regulate just ordinary crazy whackjobs on the street yelling about politics?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[SeventyBang]

"real journalists" are in a "pull" industry. bloggers are in a pull industry x100'000. You have to track these people done and continue to track them down on a regular basis. If they were to periodically relocate their online resources, how many people would some particularly sufficient set of personal resources to stay current?

All of that said, can you imagine sitting down in a cyber cafe, and about the time you start blogging, two guys come walking over, one, whose name could easily be "Guido" want to see your blogging license.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Jim Logajan]

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Dang - I must have the abbreviated version of the First Amendment. All my copy says is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Naturally your copy, and that of our esteemed judiciary, must have the small print version many of us lack. I have no doubt that as time goes on, more and more of that small print will be claimed to exist - all for perfectly high-sounding reasons of "fairness".

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

The Supreme court has already dealt with this issue in the case of Steve Forbes. If you are spending your own money, as do newspapers and bloggers, your speech is protected by the First Ammendment. As it should be, even if you are filthy, stinking rich, or even if you are some kid (of any age) posting to the web from your mom's basement.

The extent to which this law might be supportable is highly dependant on the exact legal meaning of the word "electioneering" and only that portion of monies spent on such "electioneering" could be held to count, up until the time you accept payment of at least $100 from some other person to engage in electioneering.

But yes, the bill does not dicriminate (I've, like, actually read it and stuff). It is not aimed at bloggers and applies to any "Electioneering Communication" that is "distributed," "including, but not limited to" Cable, satellite, Internet, flyers, doorhangers, etc, etc, etc.

KFG

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

Actually, I just offered a high profile example. I never implied that this sort of legislation was only coming from one side.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

Dang - I must have the abbreviated version of the First Amendment. All my copy says is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Naturally your copy, and that of our esteemed judiciary, must have the small print version many of us lack.

(Emphasis mine)
You are correct. Interpretation of the Constitution is the Federal Court's Constitutionally mandated role, as per Article III.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Mr2001]

Traditional MSM are scared because of such scandals like Dan Rather's Forged Memo story. Before blogs, the fact that there were some serious questions about the authenticity of those national guard memos would have never seen a wide audience and would have been largely relegated to the lore of right-wing conspiracy theorists.

More importantly: Before blogs, the public might never have found out there were holes in the President's military record to begin with.

Those particular memos were only part of the story. The scandal over the fake documents has overshadowed the rest of it, including the fact that the people who were around for the original events corroborated the content of the fake memos.

And where did that story develop? Who did the research that the MSM was unwilling to do? Blogs. CBS's memos were something the bloggers hadn't seen yet (which turned out to be because they were written recently), but the story itself had been common knowledge on the blogs for ages.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

But yes, the bill does not dicriminate (I've, like, actually read it and stuff). It is not aimed at bloggers and applies to any "Electioneering Communication" that is "distributed," "including, but not limited to" Cable, satellite, Internet, flyers, doorhangers, etc, etc, etc.

On the face of it, you're correct; the bill doesn't discriminate. If you read down further, in the definitions section, you'll see:

The term "Electioneering communication" shall not include: .
.
.
new stories, commentaries, or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio station, television station, or other recognized news medium unless such news medium is owned or controlled by any political party, political committee or candidate.

I'm not too good with this sort of thing, but it seems that the wording is pretty vague. If blogs aren't "recognized" as a "news medium," wouldn't this mean they could be considered "electioneering communications?" (This is an honest question, not an attempt to score a point.)

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[learn fast]

Are journalists or columnists in traditional media required to register with the local authorities, pay a registration fee because they're popular, report all their costs (such as travel, meals with sources, etc), or turnover their readership (auditing of server logs) to the government so they can see who might be reading certain opinions?

No, and neither are bloggers. As many others on the this thread have pointed out, this is Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary -- the ordinance does not mention blogs anywhere, and only regulates spending by campaigns themselves. All it says is that any campaign has to register and report all media spending once it exceeds $1000.

What happened was somebody took this and sort of said something like "campaigns could spend money on blogs... so this ordinance regulates 'blogs'" so it sounds like the ordinance tries to regulate all blogs. No, that is not what's happening, what's happening is that local campaigns have to report all spending they do, in theory they could spend money on some blogs. So even if they did, it's not the blogs that are being regulated it's the campaign. The blogs themselves wouldn't have to report anything.

It's like saying the local police force has to track how much money they spend on bullets. So, bullets are a subset of "arms", so that means they want to regulate "arms". So, they want to "regulate arms" which is forbidden in the Constitution. It's like that children's game, playing telephone, but playing telephone with logic. It would be so easy to look up what the ordinance actually says, too, but I guess that's breaking the rules.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[DrMrLordX]

Limiting campaign spending is limiting free speech, period. If anyone feels that large political machines gain too much power from having too much money, then the only logical response is to provide more free forums in which smaller political groups can be heard.

More speech is good, less speech is bad.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[grammar fascist]

Nothing like the Law of Unintended Consquences, eh?

And counting down for the modbombing in 3, 2, 1...

Wow...you got the modbombing, didn't you?

Hey moderators: if you don't like what he has to say, reply . The man speaks the truth: it was primarily conservatives who were against McCain-Feingold.

Why did we all-of-the-sudden forget this around here on Slashdot? Or maybe...those with the mod points want us to forget. Let's not play that game, okay?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[scotch]

It's a shame tha the parent post can only be moderated up to 5. It's also a shame that the one-line display of ignorance that is the granparent post made it at least up to 3.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Trepalium]

Well, how about the other side of this story. Weblogs are becoming an ever increasingly popular method for astroturfing. What better way to make it seem like there's a ground spring of popular support for something than to make a couple of blogs that support your position. Frankly, the public deserves to know if an opinion was bought or if it's genuine (I would further state that so-called non-profit think tanks should have the same obligation).

Want to start an unsubstantiated rumour about your political opponent? What better place to start than at some anonymous blog, and then for good measure, post some trackbacks at a few more anonymous blogs. Like any good rumour mill, the bloggers will repeat and repost it, all the while believing they're scooping the traditional media.

The Public Relations industry has always been at the forefront of technology in their eternal pursuit of manipulating public opinions. Their use of weblogs should be of no surprise, but bloggers seem to continue to insist that their 'community' has not been infected by these corporate interests. Like it or not, you are being used to spread misinformation, and blinding yourself to it only does yourself a disservice.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[LittleBigScript]

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Speech ranges from "I have a dream" to spam.

I have a dream to spam?

but in the United States you have to remain inside designated fenced-in areas or they'll arrest you for leaving your "First Amendment Zone".

I have a dream spam in the zone?

Restrictions on commercial speech are perfectly constitutional as long as they are reasonable.

I have a resonable dream of prefectly constitutional long spam?

...to mention the diarrhea and vomiting, or when weight loss ads...

Nevermind.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

Want to start an unsubstantiated rumour about your political opponent? What better place to start than at some anonymous blog, and then for good measure, post some trackbacks at a few more anonymous blogs. Like any good rumour mill, the bloggers will repeat and repost it, all the while believing they're scooping the traditional media.

You're assuming that bloggers wouldn't fact check from sources other than other bloggers.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Lemmy Caution]

The question then is, what is speech? After all, slander, threats, libel, bribary, and verbal contracts are all "speech," yet they aren't free.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

". . . the wording is pretty vague."

Of such are court cases made, although some of these issues have already been addressed by various Supreme Court decisions.

"If blogs aren't "recognized" as a "news medium," wouldn't this mean they could be considered "electioneering communications?" "

And so we must define just what "recognized" and "news medium" is, yes. Notice the caveat about ownership though, and again, personal political speech is already protected, even if you spend money on it. The issue at hand that the bill is seeking to address is monies spent directly in the process of "electioneering." Flying from San Francisco to Boston to support a candidate at a convention would not be "electioneering," merely a protected expression of your politics, at least by the time the case reached a high court (would your legal expenses be considered part of what you spent on "electioneering"? Ah, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to regulate political speech).

Nor does the section you quote actually absolve newspapers from the law, it simply recognizes that certain kinds of speech that they engage in do not fall under the umbrella of "electioneering." Other forms of speech they might engage in just might.

The bill is also voluntary, in the sense that there won't be blog registration police roaming around knocking on the doors of everyone with a blog demanding that they obtain a speech license. You are expected to determine whether you must register yourself and take the steps to do so if you feel the bill applies to you. If you are not being paid to support a candidate it almost certainly doesn't.

And it's San Franciso, so there might also be some other, mitigating bill if you take harmonica lessons or something. They're funny out there.

Of course none of this addresses the core issue, to wit, any election campaign finance reform can only be effective to the extent that we throw out the First Ammendment and institute a speech police force.

To my mind this is a disease far worse than the "cure."

KFG

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[croddy]

it's not so much astro-turfing as just plain search spamming. webloggers don't contribute anything of value to our culture. i want them gone, and i don't care what the cost is.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

Of course none of this addresses the core issue, to wit, any election campaign finance reform can only be effective to the extent that we throw out the First Ammendment and institute a speech police force. To my mind this is a disease far worse than the "cure."

I've always been uncomfortable with election campaign finance reform. If I interpret the rest of your post correctly, you're of the mind that this is bad legislation not because it singles out blogs (or rather, doesn't), but because the entire concept of campaign finance reform starts to open a number of regulatory doors that are antithetical to true free speech.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Caseyscrib]

I hear ya. I would like to be told when something is an advertisement or actual reporting. All Media should be required to disclose if the producers of the content were paid to write it. In a blog it doesn't really make as much of a difference though, because there are many fact checkers to call BS when a reporting agency is lying. Still a good law to have though, provided it can be consistant with the first ammendment.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Babbster]

Slander and libel, at least, are quite free until someone decides to file, and then wins, a lawsuit. I can say that the editorial staff of the New York Times kill kittens just to watch them die. That's at least libelous and probably slanderous, but I'm free as a bird to say it loud and proud until the folks at the NYT sue me and a judgement is entered against me. I'm nitpicking, but I felt an opportunity to talk about someone killing kittens and had to go for it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go yell "MOVIE!" in a crowded firehouse.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

That's correct.

Even though the laws escape legal censure because they are aimed at the flow of money, such monies are overtly those used to purchase access to pulic forums, speech.

In a best case scenario this innately results in a database of who is spending what money on what political issues, whereas the only "correct" interpretation of the First Ammendment is that this is "noone's fucking business."

But, of course, it doesn't stop there, and, as the blurb suggests, in the worst case scenario the laws can be leveraged against speech itself.

For instance, yes, registration is voluntary, and personal speech is still "free," but that does nothing to prevent someone from prosecuting a blogger for being in violation of the law, and said blogger is unlikely to have the financial resources to defend his speech that the Washington Post does.

So the blogger is forced to shut down, or worse, bankrupted, then forced to shut down. His speech is effectively suppressed, although within the bounds of the law as she is writ.

But let us consider the case where, just as a rhetorical example, I feel so strongly about some political issue that I am willing to spend a thousand bucks of my own money to engage in what would legally be considered "electioneering."

Say I print up a bunch of flyers and distribute them myself on the street corner, of my own volition, purely as an expression of my own view that a certain candidate should prevail.

My speech is still protected, but if I do not place my name in the database and open my personal finances to legal inspection I am guilty of a crime for having done nothing but exercise a right.

I find this concept abhorent, and to evade this situation I am perfectly willing to accept the obvious fact that rich people can print up more flyers than I can. A restriction on spending money on speech is still a restriction on my speech spending, even if I don't have that sort of money available to spend on speech. This is a concept that seems a bit too subtle for most, although to me it appears writ in large, flashing neon signs.

The ultimate solution is obvious, for speech to be so inexpensive that anyone can afford to reach the world, at will, at far less expense than any reasonable restriction on "campaign financing" could entail, and thus alleviate the need for such restrictions.

What we really need is something like. . .the Internet. Go figure.

Here on Slashdot alone this political speech that I am engaging in right now might be reaching people numbering in the millions (the lurkers outnumber the registered users), and, prorated against my annual expense for all computer communications activities (ooooooh, say, seven or eight hundred bucks a year), cost less than a penny. Adding a simple web page would increase my annual out of pocket expenses about . . .ooooooh, nothing at all.

Sure, you can spend arbitrarily large amounts on a simple web page (I could, for instance, spend a half million on a stupid logo my mom would do for a pizza), but these expenditures really have nothing to do with the cost of the speech; and regulating the money spent on such has no effect on "reforming" political campaigns.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe that in America The People are still entirely responsible for the government they get.

The fact that the people are largely idiots is unregulatable.

KFG

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[McDutchie]

Speech ranges from "I have a dream" to spam.

(cough) Sorry to get offtopic, but no, it really doesn't. Spam has everything to do with volume and unsolicitedness and nothing with content; therefore, it has nothing to do with speech.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[xpurple]

Congress shall make no law

They should have stopped there :)

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[xpurple]

Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.

Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.

None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

Sorry to get offtopic, but no, it really doesn't. Spam has everything to do with volume and unsolicitedness and nothing with content; therefore, it has nothing to do with speech.

Spam does involve infringement on property rights. It screws up your servers, wastes your bandwidth, and consumes your time. But that shouldn't obscure the fact that the First Amendment protections that it does enjoy for being speech are in fact extremely limited by case law. It's advertising. Not only are they breaking laws by appropriating bandwidth and resources that aren't theirs, they're also breaking it if they make unsubstantiated commercial claims- like if they claim you can add an inch to your penis if you spend $50 for a book with "exercise instructions". There was a case last year where some perpetually-unendowed plaintiffs actually sued a spammer on exactly that basis and won.

Unsolicited email can still enjoy full First Amendment protection. If the spam had been political in nature, like a "Free So-and-So from jail" type thing, a suit like that would have been much more difficult to pursue. The only ones who could sue in that case would be the people whose time or bandwidth was wasted- they would still have a good property-rights suit.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[R.Caley]

After all, slander, threats, libel, bribary, and verbal contracts are all "speech," yet they aren't free.

You need to distinguish between controling speech and holding people responsible for the results of their actions, even if the action in question was `speech'. The classic example of course is shouting `fire!'.

The problem with requiring registration before people are allowed to write about political issues is that it prevents the speech from happening. That is many orders of magnitude more dangerous than things like libel which only kick in after the speech has happened.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[LucBorg]

This actually is a complete load of rubbish. Whatever happened to free speech? This isn't like radio stations because we aren't distributing materials for enjoyment. What we do in blogging is comment on events, comment on our lives, and if we feel that we should copy and paste a section of a speech made by Bush or Kerry or whoever, then we should be able to! I want to know that if I ever feel so inclined, I can freely and without loss (of anything, money etc) post about whatever and whomever I want. At least I don't live in San Fransisco. But how long before other states follow? And other countries - I won't be suprised if England follows suit soon. If this passes China and Iran and North Korea can do anything they want with Bloggers because they can simply say "well look what (parts of) the US are doing, why can't we do the same?"

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[R.Caley]

You can't be on the payroll of some politician or otherwise perform electioneering on his behalf without making it public that that's what you're doing.

The kicker is that `or otherwise'. More or less anything political I might write at the moment would effectively be electioneering for or against some candidate, since the Uk is in the middle of an (unnoficial until tomorrow) general election campagn. If I write that something needs to be done about the rail system, then that is support for candidates and parties who have that as a priority.

If you say that such speech doesn't require registration because it doesn't mention specific candidates, then those you imagine should be registered will just remove the names but write in such a way that everyone knows who they are electioneering for.

So, in effect, such a registration law becomes registration for all political speech, or none.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[R.Caley]

But can they regulate just ordinary crazy whackjobs on the street yelling about politics?

If they get too anoying and spittle-spreading we lock them up in big institutions called parliament or congresses or similar euphamisms for loonie-bin.

I think it's cruel to televise their ravings though, however entertaining it is sometimes.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[jcr]

Are journalists or columnists in traditional media required to register with the local authorities,

They are in China!

I wouldn't worry about this measure too much. The Ninth Circuit doesn't have a whole lot of patience for this kind of crap. If it's actually passed, I give it a week before there's a federal injunction staying its enforcemet, and approximately a snowball's chance in hell of it being upheld.

Nevertheless, any SF voters should take very careful note of 1) who proposed this fascist idea, and 2) who voted for it.

-jcr

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[CrashPoint]

True. But it's not as if conservatives are any different in that respect. Party-liners only recognize threats to freedom when they come from The Other Guy.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[dirty]

The same could be said about conservatives and Republicans. All political parties are full of bastards. You just need to pick the party that agrees with your views most of the time, and yell at them when they don't.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[paranode]

Certainly there are areas where the government has taken too much leeway in restricting free speech. However, can you honestly say someone should be able to say they're selling cookies but in reality it is dog shit? Or if the newspapers came out with an article that said Jim Logajan is a three-legged circus clown who rapes donkeys?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[dmd]

That's ridiculous. Under that kind of logic, I'm free as a bird to commit murder - that is, until the folks at the precinct come and arrest me.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Maestro4k]

Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.

Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.

None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.

• And that wasn't the grandparent's point. You still have your freedom of speech. Mainly what the judiciary has done over the centuries is define what speech isn't covered under the first admendment, and that is speech that infringes on other people's rights. You have the right to free speech, you do not have the right to speech that intentionally harms another person. This is no different than the right to bear arms. You have the right to bear arms, but you don't have the right to kill someone in cold blood with those arms.

• That's what the grandparent's point was, the judiciary is involved in determining what passes constitutional muster and what doesn't regarding laws. Congress can pass a law saying you can speak the word blue, the president can even sign it into law, then the courts will get involved and find it unconstitutional and it will eventually be striken from the record. This is all part of the checks and balances put into the constitution to make sure things like that don't happen.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[identity0]

Dook dook dook... If you're not aware that some types of speech such as libel are not protected by the constitution, you must not have passed civics class. Political speech is, of course, but this ordinance does not seem to infringe on it.

Alright, I'll make it simple enough for you to understand. This ordinance does not infringe on the constitution, because it does not stop free speech nor imposes prior restraint on it.

The ordinance basically requires political ads to have the "paid for by (whoever)" tag, and requires campaigns to file their expenses with the ethics commision. This does not prevent speech of any kind, it merely requires you to make more speech to inform the voters.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[dwpro]

Although I too do not want the goverment sifting through my finances if I decide to be politically active, I believe this to be positive overall. How else would we be able to to differentiate between those who actually support a cause and those who are being paid to support a cause? This seems to give those who have less funds more equal footing in the political areana, which I view to be a good thing.
Without this joe poor would have 1 blog and joe rich would have 1 blog and 1400 purchased blogs that seemed equally unbiased without the (I'm being paid) footnote.
Unless you can think of a way to validate that people are supporting a view of their own free will without having a record of their finances.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

Unless you can think of a way to validate that people are supporting a view of their own free will without having a record of their finances.

I can't think of a reason to care. I agree or disagree with their view equally either way. YMMV.

KFG

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[overunderunderdone]

in other words, you have freedom of speech as long as you don't discuss politics?

Which was the whole point of free speech in the first place. Ironic isn't it.

I'm not that old and I remember when the argument was: "If we regulate porn we might inadvertently trample someone's right to political free speech". Porn and other forms of expression people found questionable were defended not for their own sakes but by fears of a "slippery slope". Now they go straight for the central principle behind free speech protections, and start regulating the criticism of our leaders... and hardly a peep of protest... maybe we were all too distracted looking at porn to notice our fundamental constitutional rights flipped on their heads.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mzieg]

Why were the parent (and grandparent) modded Troll? When did truth, or even someone's opinion of "truth", suddenly go out of fashion on Slashdot?

This story is about the right to comment on politics, and moderators are thumping anyone who disagrees with them. What the hell?

Fortunately, readers have the "right" to set our reading preferences to full inclusion, but I find it disturbing when long-time community members (moderators) squelch dissent in "YRO." I didn't think that's what we were about.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Kineticabstract]

I must have the abbreviated version of the First Amendment.

You're absolutely right - the Bill of Rights does not directly account for this sort of regulation regarding types of speech. So, by all means, let's stick to exactly what it says - after all, the beloved forefathers, with their magic crystal balls, accounted for every possible use and mis-use of this document, right?

Why is the U.S. Constitution so sacred? It's an old document, founded in a time of relative innocence. It has fantastically high ideals that I personally believe we should strive to uphold. Having said that, there are certainly those in our society who can and will cheerfully abuse that same document to their own betterment. We're talking about more here than what is covered by a simplistic and sarcastic reference to "fairness".

The mega corporations will cheerfully lie in order to pull the last possible penny from your pocket. Not "mis-lead", not "mis-inform", but outright "lie". This is a historically proven truism.

Should there be no regulations in this regard? No protections for the buyer? If we only look to the First Amendment in regards to this issue, then that's what we're left with.

In my opinion, we have to allow for common sense in law making. It's dangerous, but otherwise, we're left with a document with no flexibility to fix those loopholes found by the unscrupulous. Article V allows for changes to be made, but those changes must be made carefully, sparingly. Any time you open the Constitution for real change, you take the risk that it will be modified by those in power for their own ends, rather than for the betterment of the majority.

Applying the common sense rule, and allowing for laws that plug the loopholes without opening the document for change, gives us a solution with less risk. Laws that control those who's only goal is profiting for themselves (whether monetarily, or politically) without impinging upon the ideals of the magic document are necessary. More necessary yet is the attention of the above-average citizen who looks at these laws with a skeptical eye, ready to raise the bullshit flag when controls are overly strict, or made without regard to the comman man.

Or, we can stick with stubborn tenacity to the wording of the original document, ignoring the changes that come about regularly as our society morphs and evolves.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[goof21]

I find people's faith in the Supreme Court laughable. The Court hasn't exactly acted as a guardian of liberty in its history, and you can find all sorts of questionable decisions (Plessy vs. Ferguson, anyone? How about Dred Scott?)

...or maybe Brown vs. Board of Education?

Instead of dredging up cases from over 100 years ago, you may want to find something more timely to back up your arguement.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Tackhead]

> The Ninth Circuit doesn't have a whole lot of patience for this kind of crap. If it's actually passed, I give it a week before there's a federal injunction staying its enforcemet, and approximately a snowball's chance in hell of it being upheld.

This is, the Ninth Circuit court you're talking about, right?

The Supreme Court doesn't have a whole lot of patience for the Ninth Circuit's crap either :)

> Nevertheless, any SF voters should take very careful note of 1) who proposed this fascist idea, and 2) who voted for it.

As the ordinance hasn't passed, I'll let that slide. Otherwise, up against the wall, motherfucker!

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Perl-Pusher]

Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.

Many so called rights are taken away all the time. Ms. Schiavo supposedly had the right to life, she didn't have a living will, so others took it upon themselves to end her life. After Perl Harbor, Americans of Japanese descent were rounded up and put in internment camps. Slavery existed for about 84 years after the Bill of Rights. Gun rights will be a thing of the past if currents trends continue. As it stands right now any of our so called rights can be re-interpreted by the courts. Tomorrow, if a majority of the Supreme court justices were to rule that freedom of speech did not include political discussion, it would take a 2/3's majority in congress to amend the constitution. How's that for power? The checks and balances our constitution provided for heavily favor the courts. Federal judges have almost no accountability accept to the Supreme Court.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[fimbulvetr]

This is ridiculous.
Will a mod with balls please mod this back up?
These guys are _NOT_ trolling.

The American "liberal" is not infallible.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[archnerd]

I think you have your wish. These days it's the courts making most of the laws.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[whitehatlurker]

Interesting ... "A right can not be taken away". I believe that the Yanks have something about "life liberty and pursuit of happiness" as rights, but liberty is routinely taken away when a felon is incarcerated. (Which IMHO is a GoodThing [TM].)

The removal of happiness by governments is usually evidenced around Tax Time ;-)

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Heroic Salmon]

I would guess it was modded troll because of the trollish way he referred to the press as being a liberal lobby. Yeah, he had a point. Yeah, he used inflammatory language. Yeah, he deserves modded down.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Maestro4k]

Where does it say that?

I'm serious.

Point out an Article and Section. I implore you to do so.

• If you're asking me to present you with a part of the constitution itself that says there are checks and balances I can't, but then you're being intentionally pedantic. The constitution does not say "oh yeah, these are the checks and balances" but instead lays out the powers of each branch. These powers all have checks and balances built in because other branches can affect them, or overrule them. Some examples that also includes things beyond just the judiciary:

• • The House of Representatives (legislative branch) has the power to impeach the president/vice president as well as judges. (executive branch & judicial branch)
  • The Senate (legislative branch) has the power to try these impeachments (executive and judicial branchs)
  • The Senate approves appointments of federal judges
  • Bills must be passed by both the House and Senate (self-checking because of the dual houses of the legislative branch)
  • The President can veto bills
  • The President appoints judges
  • The President can do recess appointments (this is a check & balance against the legislative branch, rarely used although Bush did use this recently)
  • The President can pardon people (check against the judiciary)
  • Can call emergency sessions of congress
  • Judicial branch reviews laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the President
  • Chief justice sits as president of the Senate during impeachment trials

  If you want to read more, try here, that page has a more comprehensive list of the checks and balances the constiution sets up.

  Also this page has information on what the framers of our constitution were trying to accomplish. They constitution is intentionally vague and sets up an inefficient set of branches. The intention was to make sure that no branch could gain too much power and take control of the country. Remember that this was framed after we rebelled against being subjects of a king hundreds of miles away on another continent who was making us pay taxes without us having any say in them. Our founding fathers feared and hated this and intentionally set up our government to prevent it from ever occurring here. Whether or not they succeeded is up for argument, but that was their intentions.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[LocoMan]

One question here... I did read the ordinance (not troughouly, though, I had some time while I was waiting for a render to finish) and at least as far as I understand it it doesn't limit anything, it just says that if while doing a political campaign you pay over $1000 to an electronic media (including blogs) to campaign or put out the good word for your side, you have to report it. It doesn't (again, as far as I can see) put any limits, it just says that if you pay for campaign in a blog you have to report that you paid.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[keithcstone]

Turtle Wax? Since this is a thread about San Francisco shouldn't it be Rice-a-Roni?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Jim Logajan]

And yet, there is no constitutional mandate for judicial invention of text that does not appear in that same document. For example, the concept of "commercial speech" appears no where in the constitution. Yet commercial speech existed at the time the constitution was written. Check out Ben Franklin's commercial writings, for example.

Of course, the British probably would have had a much easier time squashing the American revolution if they could track the funding of publications critical of the Crown prior to the opening of hostilities - the revolution would have been nipped in the bud.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Kineticabstract]

We have a method for changimg the document itself: Amendment.

Yep, I believe I referred to Article 5 in my post.

Do you REALLY want to make an amendment to change the wording of the First Amendment? Think about it for a second. Who do you trust in the Senate to write a bill that would have wording you'd agree with?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Tassach]

Limiting campaign spending is limiting free speech, period

Bullshit. There are legitimate reasons to limit how campaign funds are spent which do not impact legitimate free speech.

Should a candidate be able to pay people to vote for him? Should a candidate be able to bribe a media outlet into not running his opponent's ads? Should a candidate be able to pay his opponent to dropping out of the race?

The reality is that large campaign contributions are de-facto legalized bribes. Do you honestly believe that somone who donates $100,000 or more to a politician (or to a political party) doesn't expect to get something back?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Babbster]

Well, here are a couple little, tiny differences:

1) Libel and slander = not crimes (see the difference between civil law and criminal law).
2) Murder is the unlawful taking of a human life while libel and slander are legal terms that essentially come down to saying "mean things" about somebody.

Wow! :)

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[d34thm0nk3y]

Limiting campaign spending is limiting free speech, period. If anyone feels that large political machines gain too much power from having too much money, then the only logical response is to provide more free forums in which smaller political groups can be heard.

Corporations should not have the same rights as individuals. If you have an organization that wants to donate money each individual should be allowed to donate whatever they want but the group as a whole has a more limited set of rights.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Trepalium]

I'm assuming that by the time the rumor was proven to be false, it would've spread so far as to have accomplished it's goal, and the next rumor would already be starting circulation. Those Clinton Suicide rumors are still floating around, and no one has proven them false or true. Just lots of innuendo. Or how about the equally futile rumors spread that "Bush Knew!". These have both been proven false, right? If so, why are they still floating around out there?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

Rumors are still floating around about a second gunman, Area 51, and a Zionist conspiracy to control the White House through Hollywood franchises.

Some people, in the face of doubt, or even overwhelming contradictory evidence, will cling to beliefs tenaciously. I don't know precisely why, but they do. I hypothesize that it may be due to having a world view that would be shattered if they did not twist facts to suit them.

Back to blogs and a point that I've made repeatedly. The MSM is probably a little less immune to mistakes than blogs, but as an aggregate, blogs correct themselves very quickly.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[fimbulvetr]

Not picking on you specifically, but ideas like that are what perpetuate our biochromatic rainbow of political ideals*.

You see:
If you're a democrat, you hate guns but approve of abortion.
If you're a republican, you support Tort law protecting corporations and you don't support stem cell research.

Surely America deserves YOUR opinion, not one of some entity that decides for you? Now you might say that the examples I give are wrong, or you do infact align exactly with those statements, but those are the trees, there is a whole forest in there.

Do what you like, I don't care, but at least don't spread those kinds of things to my kids.

* - Shamefully stolen from America - A citizens guide to democracy inaction.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[jasonditz]

Political demonstrations and public gatherings are about the most protected form of political speech there is, but in the United States you have to remain inside designated fenced-in areas or they'll arrest you for leaving your "First Amendment Zone".

On the other hand, you aren't required to notify the police of a private political gathering on private property. So unless the city of San Francisco someone is arguing these weblogs are city property its not the same thing at all.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

The point is moot, since SF has backtracked :

Pretty much everyone on the board agreed that on-line sites like this were and are exempt. The revised version of the bill makes this crystal clear. But in speech after speech, almost all of the 11 members of the board said they didn't intend to regulate web logs or - like they would try - stand alone journalists.

"Blogs are to be exempt," said Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, specifically citing the phrasing that cuts "news stories, commentaries or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio station, television station or other recognized news medium unless such news medium is owned or controlled by a political party" out of the ordinance. "The intent of the legislation is to cover blogs as a recognized news entity," Maxwell said.

It was a wingnutty story summary, anyway, since "People's Republic of" wasn't followed by "China".

Let's see how...

[Anonymous Coward]

The liberals can spin this as Bush's fault. I mean, it must be his, right?

Re:Let's see how...

[jimi the hippie]

Yeah, I mean... after all, he did get elected.

Re:Let's see how...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

point taken. Not all liberals understand liberty, and not all conservatives get conservatism..... coughBUSHcough. ;)

Actually there is an issue here, and its valid. Its just one of those issues where there is hardly an answer for. Frankly regulating bloggers is a stupid way to get bloggers to disclose their campaign connections.

The best way to deal with "trojan bloggers" or "trojan talking heads on tv" is to simply investigate them secretly and expose them, and assasinate them publically based on the facts of their doings. If someone has taken money, then expose them the old fashioned way.

GO YANKS!

Re:Let's see how...

[Bullfish]

The issue at heart is that there are now so many venues to surreptitously flog political viewpoints disguised as something else. If someone thinks they are reading a personal blog with a political viewpoint and it is in fact a paid action on behalf of a candidate, they have a right to know that up front.

This is happening in many areas and politics is just one. Marketing disguised as objective scientific evidence, etc. I've heard on these boards people dissing the BBC and the CBC because they receive government funds. Yippee, if Fox isn't an organ of republican viewpoint, I don't know what is... so this is really less about free speech and more about truth in advertising.

Re:Let's see how...

[plague3106]

I've been thinking about this alot. Why does it matter if someone actually believes what they are saying, or was just paid to say so?

More to the point..what is the point of 'campaign fianance reform?' Looking for a serious answer here...what exactly is the problem that is supposed to be solved by it?

Re:Let's see how...

[DAldredge]

The point was to make it harder for those not in power to remove those that currently have power.

Re:Let's see how...

[mpthompson]

The issue at heart is that there are now so many venues to surreptitously flog political viewpoints disguised as something else... ...so this is really less about free speech and more about truth in advertising.

People like you truly scare me. If this issue isn't about free speech (exactly the kind of speech addressed in the first amendment) then I don't know what is.

The U.S. founding fathers gave citizens some credit for using being able to use their own brain's to figure out and form their own political opinions. However, two centuries later we seem to have reached a point where a substantial segment of our society believe's that raw political opinions are too dangerous and must to be vetted and sanitized through a nanny-state machine before they are fit for the masses. Laws such this are just a start.

People who support these types of laws must remember they are a double edge sword that can and will cut both ways. Your particular political opinions may be supported for the time being with such laws and those you disagree with suppressed. However, there will come a time when the tables are turned and the same laws you support to silence your foes are used against you and your political allies.

Our founding fathers had it right. Keep your and governments grubby hands off my free speech. For both my sake and yours.

Re:Let's see how...

[jabster42]

Enough with the "Fox is all Republicans" crap.

Using your logic, one can only assume that EVERY other news outlet is an organ of the Democratic Natl Committee.

Sheesh.

Just because they have some more conservative hosts than the other news outlets does not make them in cahoots with the Repubs.

This argument is getting old.

--john

p.s. Wasn't daily kos getting paid by Dean at one point? Can't remember if it was mentioned at the time. Or at least before it was discovered.

Re:Let's see how...

[notque]

Why does it matter if someone actually believes what they are saying, or was just paid to say so?

Because the only real goal is the truth, and the rest is an attempt to obscure that for personal gains.

The goal for all of us should be a better life for all of us. You have your own personal desires, and those are not kept by someone knowingly lying to you.

Not that unknowingly setting us on a bad course is any better.

Re:Let's see how...

[Frobnicator]

what is the point of 'campaign fianance reform?' Looking for a serious answer here...what exactly is the problem that is supposed to be solved by it?

It's to help prevent the stupid and lazy people from making things much worse.

Most people are too stupid/lazy to actually check things out.

We're talking about AMERICA.

• The land where less than half of eligable voters actually get off the couch to vote.
• Land where about 1/3 of those who go vote haven't decided who to vote for until they enter the booth.
• Land where most normal voters get into the booth and think something like this:
  • President? I'm voting for the RepubliCrat Party.
  • Federal Congressional reps? Again, my favorite RepubliCrat Party.
  • Governer? I am a RepubliCrat, so I'll take this one.
  • State Auditor? Never heard of any of them, I guess I'll pick this one.
  • State AG? This one has a nice looking name.
  • State Treasurer? We have a treasurer?
  • State legislature? I think I saw this sign on my street corner...
  • City council members? I think this name was on a sign, too.
  • Judges? Sure, we need judges, I guess I'll vote for some...
  • School board? I never heard any of these names before. I'll just pick a few at random.
  • Public issues? I remember the slogan "Vote No on No 2"... Or was it "No 3"? I'll just put no on both, to be safe.
• Land where some people think that NOT voting will somehow make things better.
• Land where some people hate all politicans so they just don't vote
• Land where most people don't understand the role of government in daily life.

If you had a public that didn't decide who to vote for based on how many TV and radio ads they hear, or cared about the election and didn't feel disenfranchised about the whole thing, then this type of thing would be less of a problem.

None of the major party likes how much of the vote just comes down to these random thoughts, so they want to at least make sure that they know what the others are doing.

Also, it helps those who actually care when they want to track down the ads. It helps to know: "This ad paid for by Multinational Organizations Against Public Thought."

Hope that explains it a little for you.

Re:Let's see how...

[uhlume]

Is this like the intro to some really bad stand-up comedy routine? ("So I've been thinking...WHAT IS IT with bad airline food???") I have to believe so; the other possibility is just too grim for words.

Re:Let's see how...

[CrackHappy]

WTF? Why is this modded as Troll? You may disagree with what he says, but that does not mean it's a Troll. Come on people, read the guidelines!

Re:Let's see how...

[idlake]

It's unnecessary to spin things in order to blame Bush because Bush clearly is responsible for record deficits, thousands of deaths in unnecessary wars, and ruining our reputation abroad both as a diplomatic force and as a country respecting human rights, to name just a few. The chimp will go down as one of the worst presidents in US history.

This, however, is simply attempting to require disclosure about paid campaign advertising. It doesn't restrict free speech. That's something liberals will gladly take responsibility for because it's a good thing. If a blogger gets paid thousands of dollars for hyping up a candidate, I want to know about it, and so should you.

Re:Let's see how...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

he issue at heart is that there are now so many venues to surreptitously flog political viewpoints disguised as something else. If someone thinks they are reading a personal blog with a political viewpoint and it is in fact a paid action on behalf of a candidate, they have a right to know that up front.

Well i dont know if its more true now than ever before. I mean there has always been political deception. Voters will always have to deal with it. Perhaps now there are more obvious hiding spots, but the problem is the same problem that has existed ever since the beginning of man's quest for power. Nothing has really changed.

What it boils down to is... WHAT IS REALITY? And who the hell knows. Did we ever know to begin with?

We vote for trojan horse politicians all of the time. We are blasted with political ads that are full of bullshit. NONE of the politicians ever talk about real issues. So who really cares if a blogger is on the take? I mean what has really changed? It's been like this for years! Forget blogging.. how about NEWSPAPERS! All it takes is one leaked story (purposely leaked) to some like minded idealistic newspaper "reporter" and there you have the makings of a political bullshit parade. The rest of the talking heads (all bought and paid for by the parties) pile on top of the issue. They drive the issue into mainstream media, blinding all of us from real issues that matter...

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

There is no answer to this old problem.

Re:Let's see how...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Also if you watch C-span's washington Journal (great program) You can clearly pick out the regular callers who are obviously paid to inject issues constantly into the public thought train.

Most of the callers are real individuals without any political connection, but you can tell when the few paid callers call up.

Political Deception is out there and its nothing new. No campaign finance reform or law will stop it.

Its a question about the integrity of man/woman. There is no way to legislate the integrity of someone's claims in a free speech world.

I take a bite out of a shit sandwhich and say "MMMmmMMMMM MMMM is that sandwhich good" and you'll buy it and say "THIS TASTE LIKE SHIT!" And i will have still made my money.

Thats freedom. Its also an example of a heartless character who lacks integrity.. but hey.. THATS ADVERTISING :)

Re:Let's see how...

[zoltamatron]

However, two centuries later we seem to have reached a point where a substantial segment of our society believe's that raw political opinions are too dangerous and must to be vetted and sanitized through a nanny-state machine before they are fit for the masses.

No, raw political opinions are a beautiful thing and should be protected. That is what this bill is trying to do. It's trying to get rid of political agendas that are disguised as something else. It's trying to get rid of lies in campaigning. It's trying to get rid of political fraud, pure and simple.

Ads in newspapers that looks like feature articles are made that way to trick their readers. These are very devious tactics that are basically conning people into thinking that they are reading an unbiased article, when in fact they are reading a paid advertisement for whatever product is being sold. Where the money comes from to promote an opinion has (or at least should have) a very serious effect on the credibility and weight that one gives to that statement. When you go to buy a car, who are you going to trust more, your friend that owns the same model, or the car salesman at the lot?

Political campaigns that pay money to create blogs are doing so to try and trick their readers into thinking that they are reading the opinions of an individual citizen, not political spin backed by the candidate being promoted. Campaigns are realizing that blogs are very popular because people want to read about what real people think and not hear stories spun through many layers of mass media and corporate money. I think that this bill actually protects blogs because it lets people know the nature of what they are reading. Without this bill we would end up with the blog world saturated with loaded sites and nobody would trust what they were reading anymore.

You say this bill is limiting free speech but it does nothing of the sort. Campaigns are still free to say whatever they want through any venue they want, but they must disclose that they've spent money on these sites so you should take their gushing praise of the candidate with a grain of salt.

-z

Re:Let's see how...

[Bullfish]

So, we have to accept it? The proposed legislation stops no one from posting their thoughts about politicians. It just says that you have to say if you are a paid shill. Much like TV commercials that state they are a paid political advertisement.

This hurts free speech in no way, and it is a matter of being clear as to what is being presented to people.

Re:Let's see how...

[ManoMarks]

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more of these anti-liberal hate rants yet. But let's take a moment and breathe here. One Supervisor in a left-leaning town has proposed a law. Therefore SF will vote on it. It hasn't passed yet, there isn't yet a mass round-up of bloggers, they aren't yet burning the bible and killing babies in City Hall. Bad laws get proposed all the time, and most of the time they get voted down. Chill out.

Re:Let's see how...

[Bullfish]

While at first blush I find your reaction alarmist, I do see your point if you think this is the thin edge of the wedge in terms of stopping the ordinary citizen from voicing an opinion. As a means of identifying whether or not a blog is actually a paid political advertisement, I think the action is reasonable. No different than requiring political radio or TV ads revealing their sponsor. If it extends to curtailing Joe Citizen's attempt to speak on his own behalf, then I will join you in fighting it tooth and nail. I'll hold them and you smack them in the guts.

If you're worried about regulation on the net, we already have it and it is going to increase. We want phishers fined, spammers slammed and child pornographers busted. So we do invite some regulation. It is up to us to maintain vigilance as to how far they go and jump at them if they overstep their bounds. Requiring someone to say if their blog is a paid political statement isn't that onerous. I, for one, want to know who's talking to me.

That's all I want. It shouldn't scare anyone.

Re:Let's see how...

[mzieg]

Campaigns are realizing that blogs are very popular because people want to read about what real people think...

This is not entirely true. I say that with confidence, because it doesn't describe why I read blogs, and therefore is provably non-universal.

I don't read blogs because I'm "interested" in what "real people" think. I think most "real people" are uninteresting dorks. Rather, I'm interested in finding an articulate and well-expressed thought that differs from my own -- something that I couldn't have thought of, but is sufficiently well-backed that it just may be superior to my original position.

In that light, I don't care if the blogger is being paid. In fact, I don't care if the blogger actually believes what they wrote. Hell, I don't believe half of what I write (including this? not sayin!) Rather, I read good bloggers for the same reason I read any articulate writer (Noonan and Dowd, Sullivan and Will) -- because they are mighty word-smiths who can give any idea a powerful and compelling defense.

I want to read each idea framed by its most articulate sage. I want each idea to be expressed in its most effective and persuasive context. That way I feel assured that I've given it the fullest and most open audience; given each proposal "its best shot" as it were. Then I can either accept it or shoot it down with conviction that I acted in reasonably full knowledge.

Bloggers aren't meant to be "reporters." You worry that "nobody would trust what they were reading anymore," but good heavens, why would you trust any blogger in the first place? Placing trust in the blogger would be an implicit Appeal to Authority. Don't do it. Any blogger can be biased, bought, or simplest of all wrong.

You should be evaluating the ideas they defend, rather than the validating the credentials of the defender. If John Kerry or George Bush, Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Il, wanted to hire a top-flight writer to lucidly expound upon the best and finest merits of their platforms, then more power to them. If one function of the blogosphere is to provide an open market for ideas, then let us allow each idea the capitalist right to market itself as fluently as it may. Then we may most surely discern the defensible from the ribald, the emotive from the rational.

Re:Let's see how...

[NardofDoom]

The problem is that the Internet allows any kook with $75 a year to have a blog and a domain name. And if they're good they can seem quite reputable. It's not like TV where you need several thousand dollars just to run an ad. The New Media is presenting New Problems. Who is the press? What's the difference between a political activist and a shill for a party?

But the solution isn't to enact laws that limit free speech. The solution is to get people to think critically. Failing that, we need to have people who think critically pointing out the kooks.

Re:Let's see how...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Sure it hurts free speech. What happens if you dont register?

Political Advertisements are unique. They are on TV, a very limited broadcasting platform. Only the extremely wealthy can advertise on tv. In the world of blogging, anyone can. It's a much wider medium, accessable to all.

Re:Let's see how...

[DAldredge]

The A should be a capitol letter.

Re:Let's see how...

[Bullfish]

It doesn't hurt free speech. It only affects you if you are a paid shill using a blog to circumvent laws governing campaigning. As a private citizen you are free to spout your mouth off all you want. If that isn't the case, then they should be gone after, but that is how I read it.

Re:Let's see how...

[plague3106]

So is it the responsiblity of the government to force citizens to do thier job?

It seems that said reforms also hinder 3rd parties, to the extent that they may not be able to raise enough funding (since there might only be one liberatarian millionare, for example).

Outright lies I can understand (my opponent X is a baby killer), but other than that, I fail to see that this will help.

After all, if what you say is true, we have far greater problems than who's producing the ads...I've seen the ads, they say very little as to what the canditate intends to do.

Re:Let's see how...

[Frobnicator]

After all, if what you say is true, we have far greater problems than who's producing the ads...I've seen the ads, they say very little as to what the canditate intends to do.

Yes, we have far greater problems than who's producing the ads.

One of the bigger ones is called "public apathy".

Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[moofdaddy]

This is just the start of the wave of blog regulation. A recent appeals court ruling basically said that the internet should be viewed more as a broadcast medium then a print one. The short version of this means that you will start to see a lot of regulations of this kind coming forward. The last I heard there was a similiar issue in front of seattle's board of select man as well.

Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[gsfprez]

>Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?

what are you talking about?

the conservtives were 100% against Campaing Finance Reform. Esp. us libertarians.

Regulation of political speech is about as core to the left-wing of politics as the passing game was to USC last year.

Look at eveyr single socialist/communist state - every sing one, without fail, regulated speech and ensured that it was politically correct.

Saying things like nigger, kike, grabtastic faggot are protected by the libertarian document, the US Constitution in its 1st Amendment.

Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be.

call me a sexist, homophobic, racist right wing Christian pig - that's YOUR right.

but my right to think how I want and the right for you to think how YOU want is not in any way a liberal/left wing idea. never has been.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

Your absolutely right about the issue of broadcast. But I think these sorts of regulations will never stand because they are grossly unconstitutional when applied to the Internet. Political speach is highly protected, but regulation is allowed in broadcast media because the public does not have equal access. Those who own the broadcast medias, or are wealthy enough to buy access, have an unfair advantage, so they need to be regulated. But the on the Internet this is not really true because it is cheap and easy to get your views out (in fact that is what blogging is really about). So any regulation which could target the average person posting their policatal speach would never stand up in court.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There's just as much PC on the Right as on the Left, it's just that you're supposed to say (or not say) different things. Nobody in the mainstream media dares to say anything bad about the recently departed Pope, f'rinstance. (This is part of a general, long-running, PC-of-the-Right reverence for religion.) Extremists on both sides will always try to muzzle those with whom they disagree. You can keep believing otherwise if you like, of course ... right up until they take you to the camps.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[John Seminal]

This is just the start of the wave of blog regulation. A recent appeals court ruling basically said that the internet should be viewed more as a broadcast medium then a print one.

Does this mean maybe some of the porn will be taken down or the FCC will be able to apply decency standards?

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[gsfprez]

>Nobody in the mainstream media dares to say anything bad about the recently departed Pope, f'rinstance.

there's a difference between actively, with government help, SILENCEING people who say things against a political correctness, and simply not liking them.

There is a difference between the government using the force of law to silence someone with any number of 4th Amendment violations, and for the masses to simply be pissed as your ass.

f'rinstance.. "The Left" at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, a student was, by the government of the state of california, told to remove a flyer from a wall because it was offensive, told to write a letter of apology because he offended a couple of easily offendable black folk, and was threatened with expulsion and forfieture of his tuition. That is ACTUAL censorship. That is done by the government against the people with the force of law.

on "The Right" - when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them to lay siege to their house longer than it took to take over Baghdad and then light it on fire... we simply stopped listening to the Dixie Chicks and buying their CDs.

there's a big fscking difference there, my friend.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[bonch]

Actually, the "Left" came to like the Pope in the past few yearsfor speaking out against the Iraq war and various policies of the Bush Administration. He also made undeniable contributions to the advancement of freedom in some countries, which is more than the Left or the Right can say for themselves. I don't think it's a PC issue so much as respect for the recently departed. There will always be time for criticism.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?

Because the so-called liberals have been in control of the media while the positions of the current camps labeled "liberal" and "conservative" have become approximately the reverse of the historical meaning of the terms.

A major component of the so-called conservative position is the rule of laws, not men. That includes the bill of rights - the whole bill of rights - as intended by the people who wrote it.

A major component of the so-called liberal position is suppression of politically-incorrect speech - which includes any expression of a policital idea at odds with any of the so-called liberal positions.

This is reflected in campaign finance "reform" laws whose clear design (not just whose effect) is to suppress the political speech of grass-roots movements and organizations, leaving a handfull billionaires and primarily left-wing institutions (such as the broadcast and print media and the labor unions) with a virtual monopoly on campaigning.

Blogs have to go because they have been used by grass-roots groups to bypass the gatekeepers and swing elections. The latest example is the way the blogs exposed the forged documents behing the _60 minutes_ hit piece on Bush at the end of the last presidential election. But there are numerous previous examples.

Three I remember are the letter-writing campaigns, organized via blogging, that took out Roberti and Roos (California legislators famous for sponsoring the legislation to ban so-called assault weapons) and Tom Foley (the only Speaker of the House ever to be defeated for reelection).

Blogging to spread the word and organize voters and campaigns is effective. Therefore the establishment will ban it. "Liberals" - who have the most to lose, since it challenges a keystone of their power - write and pass the laws to ban it. "Conservatives" oppose it, but weakly. It sometimes works in their favor. But it is outside their control, enabling the citizens to pick their own candidates and swing party policy rather than being stuck voting for the people and policies picked in the party's back room deals.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[gsfprez]

>Extremists on both sides will always try to muzzle those with whom they disagree.

i can see that by the moderators this evening. ;-)

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[plague3106]

Hopefully there will be a smarter judge or an appeal of the case, because the WWW is not broadcast at all. You specificaly REQUEST documents (webservers will even tell you they can't understand your request if you send a bad one).

Clients tell a server they want something; servers only respond to a given request, rarely do servers broadcast to all nodes.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Been paying attention to the FCC lately? If you're not, you should.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[birge]

Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?

Modern "liberalism" is rife with such things, but it's not often it occurs to them to be bothered by it. For example everybody supports a women's right to choose to have an abortion, but nobody supports her right to defend herself with a weapon. Not a perfect analogy, but the point is far left liberals (who aren't really liberals anymore in the classic sense) generally only like freedom when it suits their controlling agenda.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[mcc]

there's a difference between actively, with government help, SILENCEING people who say things against a political correctness, and simply not liking them.

There certainly is. And the so-called "left" doesn't tend any more or less toward this than the so-called "right". Certain groups have at different times over the last sixty years been more likely to go with the latter thing you mention than the former. This hasn't had to do with where they lie on the supposed political spectrum. It has to do with who, at that moment in time, has held enough power to be able to abuse it.

However if you think political correctness, or wielding the government like a club to enforce political correctness, is something the "left" does and the "right" doesn't, this is just because you're a libertarian delusionally trying to convince yourself that the Republican party in some way speaks for you. It isn't backed by what happens in reality.

Respect for personal freedoms has nothing whatsoever to do with who you support in the class struggle, or what percentage of what Rush Limbaugh says you disagree with.

Oh, by the way, insofar as your seeming David Koresh reference there goes, it should probably be noted that hoarding unregistered weapons and shooting FBI agents are usually not considered constitutionally protected forms of expression.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[the gnat]

when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them

If "we" means the administration, yes, this is most certainly true, because even this administration recognizes the limits of executive power. However, I have been reading right-wing blogs and news sources for years, and I have consistently seen individual writers advocating, say, treason trials for anti-war protestors. As noxious as I find leftist attempts to ban "hate speech" and the like, on the left only the hardcore commies are advocating shooting people who say things they don't like.

Generally the Republican politicians themselves are more realistic, aside from the occasional accusation of treason. But it would be a gross exaggeration to state that the GOP rank-and-file supports unfettered free speech.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[cgenman]

Look at eveyr single socialist/communist state - every sing one, without fail, regulated speech and ensured that it was politically correct.

Look at every single socialist / communist state - every single one, without fail, had people paid to promote things they didn't believe to get money from rich people who wanted into power or who wanted to stay in power, and who greased their hands in return.

Paid speech isn't free. It costs more than just money.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[the gnat]

Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be.

Gee, how about when Bill Maher made some tasteless remark about the WTC attackers, and Ari Fleischer responded that "people need to be careful of what they say"? For that matter, the entire right wing has been telling the other half of the country that we're all traitors for not blindly supporting the president during war (that he started).

And FYI, I'm a libertarian and 1st Amendment absolutist, but cut the bullshit. The right wing never cared about free expression until it realized that leftists could be just as oppressive as they could. It's a defensive maneuver, not a matter of principle.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[rhysweatherley]

on "The Right" - when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them to lay siege to their house longer than it took to take over Baghdad and then light it on fire... we simply stopped listening to the Dixie Chicks and buying their CDs.

I guess I must have imagined all of those book burnings, removal of the teaching of evolution in schools in favour of creationism, fines against TV networks over Janet Jackson's breast, etc, etc, etc, ...

The idea that the Right doesn't do this is fanciful in the extreme. The Right is the primary practioner of censorship in the world right now, based on "moral values" that don't hold up to even minimal scrutiny.

The Left is not blameless, but it has come to terms with its extremist tendancies by putting checks and balances in place to prevent the worst abuses from recurring. The Right doesn't care one whit about checks and balances (witness the recent Shiavo mess).

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[pvc]

Yup, no criticism in the mainstream media at all.

pvc

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[JoshWurzel]

What are you talking about? "grabtastic" is not protected by the first amendment.

Fucking mexican jew lizard.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Manchot]

I find it ironic that though Bush recently called Pope John Paul II a "champion of freedom" after his death, a sizable portion of the Pope's message consisted of speaking out against Bush's policies. It's just another manipulative tactic that Bush uses to capture non-Democrat Catholics' approval (the largest tactic being Bush's "opposition" of abortion).

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[calidoscope]

There certainly is. And the so-called "left" doesn't tend any more or less toward this than the so-called "right". Certain groups have at different times over the last sixty years been more likely to go with the latter thing you mention than the former. This hasn't had to do with where they lie on the supposed political spectrum. It has to do with who, at that moment in time, has held enough power to be able to abuse it.

Last 60 years?? As if government sponsored censorship didn't exist in the US before 1945.

FDR thought it was perfectly OK to use the IRS to intimidate people who spoke out against him. To say nothing about the tens of thousands of US citizens who were sent off to internment camps just for being children of Japanese immigrants.

Go back to the period of 1917-1920... It was illegal under the Wilson administration to say anything negative about the war effort - even though the US involvement in WW1 was a much bigger mistake in the long run than the current mess in Iraq - the US and the world would have been a much better place if we stayed out.

David Koresh reference...hoarding unregistered weapons

Most jurisdictions in the US do not normally require weapons to be registered. If the FBI really wanted to arrest Koresh, they could have done so on one of his morning jogs.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[lakeland]

My feeling is that any criticism of dead people is very strongly frowned on. It doesn't matter if it is left wing, right wing, or if the person who died used to be an enemy (except for the straw-men enemies like saddam).

So, I'm not surprised that Bush came out saying nice things about him regardless of the papal eulogy was.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Brushfireb]

As a libertarian who certiainly ISNT jesus loving or bible reading, surely you must admit that the majority of christians dont follow libertarian political thought.

Rather, they believe that having the 10 commandments in court, school prayer, and the death penalty are fine and dandy but that gay marriage, abortion, or real independent freedom just isnt correct. In other words -- they want a government to not provide true personal freedoms, but rather, only the personal freedoms that are in line with their god and sacred texts.

Aside from all of that, its interesting to hear from a christian libertarian who seems half-sane. The only other christian libertarians i have met or spoken with are only "libertarian" so that they can work towards stockpiling weapons for "the reckoning"....

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Ashen]

Actually he called him a champion of freedom while he was still alive, and gave him the presidential medal of honor on the same day that the pope criticized his policies towards Iraq.

So I'm not sure what "irony" you think you've found here, but the Pope is widely recognized as being courageous for taking an open stance against the former Soviet Union that occupied his country.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[dangitman]

the conservtives were 100% against Campaing Finance Reform. Esp. us libertarians.

Then, why is John McCain one of the people whose name appears on the legislation?

Look at eveyr single socialist/communist state - every sing one, without fail, regulated speech and ensured that it was politically correct.

Look at every single conservative/republican state. Every one. without fail, regulates speech - especially in the areas of patriotism (can't speak ill of the troops or against war, flag burning frowned upon) and sexuality (can't be gay, or show boobies on TV, or make pornography) and religion (can't speak against the Church).

Saying things like nigger, kike, grabtastic faggot are protected by the libertarian document, the US Constitution in its 1st Amendment.

Since when was the Constitution a "libertarian" document?

Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be. call me a sexist, homophobic, racist right wing Christian pig - that's YOUR right.

Bzzzzt. Wrong. You are unAmerican if you dare question the leaders, or fail to speak in a politically correct, patriotic, right-wing way. You should be locked up in Guantanamo if you protest war. You should be fined millions if you show a boobie on TV or lose your job if you express left-wing ideas.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Monkelectric]

f'rinstance.. "The Left" at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, a student was, by the government of the state of california, told to remove a flyer from a wall because it was offensive, told to write a letter of apology because he offended a couple of easily offendable black folk, and was threatened with expulsion and forfieture of his tuition. That is ACTUAL censorship. That is done by the government against the people with the force of law.

Something similiar happened to a friend of mine at UCR a few years back. There were these *REALLY* radical lesbian types who had come to campus and been "preaching" all week -- you know the type, "I cant get a boyfriend, or I got raped, so all men are evil, lets eat pussy" kind of girls. They were male bashing on campus all week, so this frat went out and setup a table, and they each took giant cards to rate the women who passed by. They only took cards labeled 6 - 10 so nobody got rated lower then a 6. Long story short -- they were hauled before the vice dean at the complaint of the radical lesbians who had been male bashing all week, and were told they could attend a sexual harrasment workshop, OR, have their frat disbanded.. Funny thing was -- during the workshop they specifically mentioned that rating women was NOT sexual harrasment.

Another story at UCR -- happened to me personally, I got TOTALLY screwed out of a job. Now the university has an office that investigates unfair hiring practices, but ONLY as it applies to minorities. I was told since I was not a minority, woman, disabled, that they wouldnt investigate. So basically, the only group they DONT represent is -- white men.

Theres a lot of double standards out there, and im tired of being on the wrong end of em :)

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[mizhi]

Agree with your point about there being just as much PC on the right as on the left. People who toe ideological lines on either side of the aisle know there are certain things they can't say and continue to retain their credentials as a member of those groups. Most of the population exists in the middle shaking their heads.

I disagree about your comment about the Pope. This is just tact. He died yesterday! Give it a week. Then the coverage will be like with Reagan, good and bad.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[imkonen]

and as a matter of fact, yes, me and others like me are quite ready and prepared to be the first ones taken to the camps... We are already seeing the signs and are determined to not change our thoughts.

Oh get down from your cross. That's such a tired old line of crap. You're not living in ancient Rome being fed to lions...you're actually by far the most politically powerful religion in the U.S. Even fake reporters busted for running gay prostitution sites try that old line.

now, we'd be perfectly happy for you to hate Jesus and want to screw each other in the butt all day long if you'd just let us say we think its wrong.. but then, that would be hate speach, wouldn't it?

What a complete and utter lie! You do realize that not explicitly making gay marriage illegal won't result in YOU having to marry a gay guy, don't you? You're church can go on refusing to perform gay marriages. But when you want to make it illegal for everyone, that is far beyond merely wanting to "say we think it's wrong."

there is already legal precident in Canada stating that the Bible is hate speech...

The link points to a law making it illegal to advocate genocide. A search of the page shows no hits for the words "bible" or "jesus". If you really think the bible advocates genocide...well...you're the one who has to sleep at night knowing that's your religion.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

Your definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" do not match those in real-world use in American politics, and your argument concerning "liberals" is nothing more than a straw man to paint people whose political viewpoints you disagree with as holding opinions they do not and being spoken for by persons (such as the "mainstream media") who they are not.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[dangitman]

Something similiar happened to a friend of mine at UCR a few years back. There were these *REALLY* radical lesbian types who had come to campus and been "preaching" all week -- you know the type, "I cant get a boyfriend, or I got raped, so all men are evil, lets eat pussy" kind of girls.

Did to stop to think that they might just have a different sexuality? That they just might like Eating pussy? After all, there is no woman on earth that can't get a boyfriend. That's how desperate most men are. That is unlikely to be a motivation. As for being raped - don't you think that's an understandable motivation? Would you want to have sex with a man after being raped by one? You make it sound like there's something wrong with being a lesbian, and that you are entitled to heterosexual women. And what was the "male bashing" that they were doing? Can you give any specifics?

It sounds like you have a massive chip on your soldier, and are just bitter and twisted. Maybe if you stopped trying to blame others for everything, or to stop objectifying people, you would be happier and do better in life. It sounds like you have a huge entitlement complex - that people should just give you jobs and sex for no reason. Did you ever stop to think that maybe someone else was hired because they could do a better job or (more likely) work in a team better than you? Your attitude doesn't sound healthy, and perhaps that came through in a job interview?

Anyway - you don't give any specifics or reasoning - you are just ranting and raving about things you don't like. You must be a lot of fun to be around.

Theres a lot of double standards out there, and im tired of being on the wrong end of em :)

I doubt you would even notice when you were on the "right" end of them. After all - you had a place at a University. Most people aren't even that lucky. Seems you have a massive victim complex.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[amliebsch]

Look at every single conservative/republican state. Every one. without fail, regulates speech - especially in the areas of patriotism (can't speak ill of the troops or against war, flag burning frowned upon) and sexuality (can't be gay, or show boobies on TV, or make pornography) and religion (can't speak against the Church).

Show me one person successfully prosectued for any of these things (with the exception of boobs on TV, which is an FCC issue.)

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[issachar]

Now that's insightful. I don't have any mod points, unfortunately, and you posted as anonymous so you're starting at zero. :( Maybe someone will notice this and mod you up before I get downed for abusing my +2.

Someone mod the parent up!

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[BorgCopyeditor]

We are already seeing the signs and are determined to not change our thoughts.

Yeah, keep on truckin', brother. Just close your eyes tight, hold your hands up in the air, and pray real hard, like the folks in the Worship Together commercial. God has always rewarded craven, symbolic, and ineffectual behavior like that in the past. Why would He stop now?

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Mskpath3]

Your response to his post is extremely telling. Yes, he did in fact take a cheap shot at lesbians. However, this was about 4% of the content of his overall post.

If you read through the post (go ahead, do it) you'll find that not only did he "give any specifics", but he logically demonstrated a clearcut case of absurd censorship in the name of political correctness.

I might add, that you sir did nothing but reply with the usual fruit basket of PC indignation. Oh dear me - he insulted obnoxious, openly anti-male lesbians!

I'll say it again, just to be clear - you 100% dodged the actual point of his argument, and decided to fixate on his very un-PC comments in order to discredit. Goebbels would be proud.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Kohath]

I guess I must have imagined all of those book burnings

My memories of history only go back so far -- I'm 33 years old. I don't remember any book burnings but I remember lots of talk about them.

When were the book burnings you didn't imagine? What year? What branch of government was buring the books?

removal of the teaching of evolution in schools in favour of creationism

Removing evolution in favor of creationism is anti-free speech but removing creationism in favor of evolution is NOT anti-free speech? I don't understand. It's just one choice versus another choice. It's not a free-speech issue at all.

The Janet Jackson situation is a tougher call. Over-the-air broadcasts are regulated. I personally would remove all restrictions on TV. Within a year, everything would be done, and all taboos would be long gone. Viewership would drop like a rock. Not long after that, the industry would self-regulate, and Janet Jackson and all the rest of the TV "performers" would find themselves replaced by people with talent.

The Right is the primary practioner of censorship in the world right now, based on "moral values" that don't hold up to even minimal scrutiny.

That's not even remotely true. Just because you don't like morals or moral behavior (Why don't you? Were you harmed by moral behavior in the past?) doesn't mean censorship based on morals is any worse than censorship based on not offending minorities.

Aside from regulated over-the-air TV and radio broadcasts, can you come up with a single example of government censorship by the right? What publication? Which right-leaning branch of government stopped or punished the publication?

Neither side is perfect. We can disagree on whether the bad guys on the left are worse or more numerous than the bad guys on the right.

The important thing is that free speech should be absolute. That goes for all speech, even commercial speech. That goes double for campaign speech. That even goes for shouting fire in a crowded theater. Campaign-finance laws should all be repealed. Sexual harassment "hostile-workplace" laws should all be repealed. College campuses should be warned that if someone's speech offends, then the offendee has the option not to take offense, but the speaker is free to say what he wants.

Let's not play the left-right game. Let's restore free speech.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[xjerky]

Er, I think he knows that. Way to flame someone just for the hell of it.
But If Saddam DID die tomorrow, I don't think you'll find maky people praising him publicly. Except maybe Sean Penn....

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Jeremi]

... but nobody supports her right to defend herself with a weapon. Not a perfect analogy

It's not just an imperfect analogy, it's false and a straw man argument. There are plenty of liberals (like myself) who do support a woman's right to defend herself with a weapon. Where we differ from, say, the NRA, is in drawing the line at what weapons are reasonable to allow. The NRA thinks everyone should be allowed to carry fully automatic military assault rifles. I think military weapons should be restricted to the military -- for civilian self-defense, handguns are sufficient.

As far as the "liberal controlling agenda", I should note that a lot of the web sites I look at talk in equally heated tones about the "conservative controlling agenda". I strongly suspect that each side is no longer actually looking at the other side at all -- they are now both responding to their own internalized caricature of what they think the other side is and wants. Under these conditions, no constructive discussion is possible -- both sides can only talk past each other and fling accusations. I suggest that everyone take a deep breath, count to ten, and remember that just about everyone is at heart a decent human being who is trying to improve his society. Once that is remembered, some common ground can be established and we might get somewhere.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[kmac06]

However, I have been reading right-wing blogs and news sources for years, and I have consistently seen individual writers advocating, say, treason trials for anti-war protestors. OK. So there's a few wackos on the right. Big surprise. I didn't see any high profile conservatives supporting camapaign finance reform. But it would be a gross exaggeration to state that the GOP rank-and-file supports unfettered free speech. Uh....no it wouldn't. It would mean there are a few wackos who don't. It would be dead on to say that most GOP rank-and-files support free speech.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[rhysweatherley]

My memories of history only go back so far -- I'm 33 years old. I don't remember any book burnings but I remember lots of talk about them.When were the book burnings you didn't imagine? What year?

Start with the American Library Association, here

What branch of government was buring the books?

Office of Foreign Assets Control according to this news story.

I guess Google is just too hard to use these days.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[iocat]

Anyone who calls the left-wing fascists who run San Francisco "liberal" has a screw loose. They typically espouse left and far-left-wing views, as well as adhering religiously to popularly left-wing political values (pro-abortion, anti-religion, etc.), but in practice they are some of the most narrow-minded and conservative (in the sense that they're resistant to change and not afraid to use jack-boot tactics to repress it) politicians in the country.

Living here in the Bay Area is basically like living in some Bizaro version of a small town in the South -- any deviation from the rigidly defined social conventions ("white man always bad -- anti-government cause always good," etc.) is viewed as anti-social behavior of the most deviant order.

To call any of them "liberal," in the sense of being open to change, new ideas, etc. is just plain wrong. Their de jour classification may be liberal, but their de facto behavior is about as limited and rigid as the town elders in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery .

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Monkelectric]

But he is a frat boy so he sucks. Hypocritically bash on. :)

hehe, nah, I never joined a frat because I can get drunk and laid on my own :)

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[DunbarTheInept]

when Bill Maher made some tasteless remark about the WTC attackers

When did that happen? What really happened is that he made a truthful comment about the WTC attackers - the comment that people should stop calling them cowards because frankly, performing an act to further a cause when you know it will get you killed is not cowardice in the slightest. That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't justify it. But he pointed out that while there were many reasons that what they did was wrong, cowardice couldn't possible be one of them. And in fact it was wrong because the people involved had way too MUCH conviction and certainty. The point being that conviction and certainty and willingness to die for your cause are not the automatically good and wonderful things people claim they are. It varies depending on what cause it is that you have conviction toward. The 9/11 terrorists are the perfect example of why that is. Blind obedience with utter certainty is not a virtue, but it is not cowardice either.

That's not tasteless. It's right on the mark, and it's important to mention it at a time when people were using the terrorist attacks as an excuse to promote the attitude that more blind obedience to your country is a happy, happy, good goal to shoot for.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Narchie Troll]

What? I've never met a single leftist who would deny the right of another person to defend herself with a weapon.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[calidoscope]

The OP said nothing about "fully automatic" - and I really doubt that a Barrett light-50 would be controllable if modified for full-auto.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[penguinoid]

Yea, people should quit using the definitons for "liberal" and "conservative" as if they were definitions for "Liberal" and "Conseravative". And, of course, the real definitions, which are not necessarily in the dictionary.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Watts Martin]

It would also be dead on to say that most Democratic rank-and-files support free speech.

"Political correctness" is a bogeyman of conservatives, but the phrase has lost its original meaning -- tailoring your message to the audience in a way which they will find "correct." Most of the examples of attempts to suppress "offensive" speech tend to come from schools and universities, and this applies just as much to conservatives trying to force creationism curricula on students and trying to ban every book that offends them on religious grounds as it does to somebody trying to get rid of Tom Sawyer because it contains "the N-word."

Most Democrats tend to be extremely supportive of free speech. I'm not going to claim that they're more so than most Republicans, but I'm going to call bullshit on anyone who claims they're less so. Sorry, but if I don't get to say, "well, on our side it's just the easily-offended wackos, but on your side it's clearly most of you," then you don't, either. That kind of caricaturizing of your opponents is why political conversation in this country is so ridiculously vitriolic right now. Don't add to it.

And, if anyone would actually bother to read the ordinance here, it's clear that its intent is to require full disclosure when someone is paying you for political communication. There's a bit of that in the news right now, you might have noticed, about columnists being paid to promote government programs without acknowledging that they're essentially functioning as advertisers. One can debate whether transparency is a worthy goal of regulation (I think it's one of the few worthy goals for regulations to have, actually), but this is not about suppressing speech, political or otherwise.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Kohath]

I saw that first one. No government involvement.

And the only recent book burnings were to make a political point, not to censor. By the same token, the guys who burn the flag aren't trying to censor the flag, they're making a political statement. Neither burning books nor burning flags is a good idea -- both are, in fact, somewhat silly.

Also, buying a book and burning it doesn't violate anyone's free speech.

No books burned in the second one. The second one is a real example of something, but it seems like censorship isn't the goal of the government in that case. The idea it to sanction a country -- like the sanctions that were put on South Africa -- to get that country to change their policies. Exports of that country are sanctioned, which includes publications in this case. They're economic sanctions, they don't apply to ideas, they apply to money -- money from the sale of books in this case.

The US government has the option -- but not the responsibility -- to protect the free speech rights of people in other countries.

All that said, you're correct on the second one -- to a point. The government should be very careful to spell out rules that don't violate the publisher's free-speech rights.

---

Once again though, neither of these cases threatens free-speech in any significant way. They don't indicate that "the right" is out to censor, censor, censor everything. These aren't even indicative of a real problem.

The campaign-finance law is [a big part of] the problem. It needs to be repealed.

---

I guess Google is just too hard to use these days.

It just doesn't contain any recent examples of book burning for the purpose of censorship -- none that I could find anyway.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[the gnat]

There's a bit of that in the news right now, you might have noticed, about columnists being paid to promote government programs without acknowledging that they're essentially functioning as advertisers.

That's a separate issue. A campaign, although potentially subject to some regulation (at least on the local level), is primarily funded by private donations. The propagandists were being paid with tax dollars. There's a world of difference between the bloggers who were secretly paid to bash Daschle, and Armstrong Williams. Both are sleazy, but only the latter was a violation of public trust.

I'm not very pleased with these proposed regulations, although I don't much care for professional political operatives covertly pretending to be journalists. On the other hand, I favor full disclosure of anything like Armstrong Williams' gig, but that's for broader reasons. Government transparency (and accountability) are absolutely worthy targets for regulation.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[the gnat]

What really happened is that he made a truthful comment about the WTC attackers

I agreed with Maher's reasoning to a certain extent, but I still found the occasion and the delivery to be tasteless. Maher was applying a coolly rational analysis that really indicated he didn't give a shit and was thinking of it somewhat clinically.

At any rate, this is beside the point - lots of people were offended, but Maher had every right to say it, and the administration spokesgoon's response was even more tasteless.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Spectra72]

You just can't come to grips with the fact that some of the biggest opponents of the death penalty in the US are Christian groups can you?

Catholic Bishops of Texas for instance. TEXAS!!
The movie Dead Man Walking was based on the true story of Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic Nun.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has issued statements against the Death Penalty.

About the only mainstream Christian groups in the US that have vocally and publically supported the Death Penalty are the Southern Baptists and the Evangelicals (not the same as the Evangelical Lutheran Church mind you). You can throw the LDS in there as well. The Catholic Church and the ECLA have roughly 71 million members between them in the US, the Southern Baptists have 16 million...just to give an idea of where the actual number lie. This is not to say *all* Christians are either pro or anti anything, simply to show that there is severe disagreement on this issue, among others, in the US Christian community. (and hell, I'm not even Christian)

I think you are extrememly ignorant about what US "Christians" believe in and really are in no position to generalize a damn thing about them. It's amazing to see so many internet experts on Slashdot (and elsewhere) point out minute difference in Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim faiths, quote the Koran or the Bible ad nauseum to play tit-for-tat debating on theological points but yet be so WILLFULLY ignorant about the Christian faith in its many forms.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[amliebsch]

They want one particular creation myth taught in science class (complete with "evidence" that this nonscience should actually be believed), no evolution taught at all, and no other creation myths taught at all.

I think this is a straw man. Of the those who favor the teaching of creation theory, I don't believe any but a tiny minority also want to eliminate the teaching of evolution, nor do I think this has ever actually occurred in recent times.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[mark-t]

there is already legal precident in Canada stating that the Bible is hate speech...

Read your links more carefully. In article 319, subsection 3...

(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2)
...
(b) if, in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject;
...

Effectively exempting the bible itself (or any other religious texts) and any people that claim to believe in its teachings, insomuch as the subject is contained as an expression of an idea alone, and not actual action against the parties being spoken against.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[amliebsch]

What? I've never met a single leftist who would deny the right of another person to defend herself with a weapon.

I take it you haven't visited the UK recently...

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Kohath]

Everything you've said is about school cirricula. The folks in charge of a school cirriculum can teach or not teach what they want.

I guess I don't see the free-speech connection.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[DunbarTheInept]

rational analysis that really indicated he didn't give a shit
[...]lots of people were offended

I've heard this kind of claim before from other people and it offends me - I strongly disagree with the notion that one cannot be simultaneously rational and caring.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[mpe]

Something similiar happened to a friend of mine at UCR a few years back. There were these *REALLY* radical lesbian types who had come to campus

In other words these were visitors

and been "preaching" all week -- you know the type, "I cant get a boyfriend, or I got raped, so all men are evil, lets eat pussy" kind of girls. They were male bashing on campus all week, so this frat went out and setup a table, and they each took giant cards to rate the women who passed by. Long story short -- they were hauled before the vice dean at the complaint of the radical lesbians who had been male bashing all week

Sounds like a classic case of some bullies who got upset when people stood up to them.

Another story at UCR -- happened to me personally, I got TOTALLY screwed out of a job. Now the university has an office that investigates unfair hiring practices, but ONLY as it applies to minorities. I was told since I was not a minority, woman, disabled, that they wouldnt investigate. So basically, the only group they DONT represent is -- white men.

Who actually are a "minority".

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[beakburke]

Oh, I see, they had an "unfair advantage". The first ammendment doesn't say anything about fairnesss in free speech. And I guranatee you that speech was plenty unfair in those days. Who do you think controlled the press in the late 1700s? It was certainly an even more elite club than today.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[CrimsonAvenger]

It's not just an imperfect analogy, it's false and a straw man argument. There are plenty of liberals (like myself) who do support a woman's right to defend herself with a weapon. Where we differ from, say, the NRA, is in drawing the line at what weapons are reasonable to allow. The NRA thinks everyone should be allowed to carry fully automatic military assault rifles. I think military weapons should be restricted to the military -- for civilian self-defense, handguns are sufficient.

Umm, no. The NRA has not complained about the restrictions on ownership of fully automatic weapons in my lifetime.

It HAS complained about the restrictions on SALES of "assault weapons" (which are neither fully automatic nor military). Note that the "assault weapons" ban did NOT ban fully automatic weapons, or even restrict them. It only restricted the sales (not ownership) of semi-automatic look-alikes.

At home, I have three semi-automatic rifles, each firing the same cartridge. One of them was legally an "assault weapon". One was not mentioned at all in the Ban. The third was on the list of "exempt" weapons that were specified in the Ban as "NOT an assault weapon".

I bought all of those rifles because it amused me to own proof of the contradictions and essential idiocy of the "assault weapon ban". I didn't bother to buy a fully automatic weapon, not because such were illegal (they're not, and never have been), but because they cost more than I wanted to spend on a gun I had no use for.

Note further that, in spite of your belief that military weapons should be restricted to the military, the Second Amendment doesn't so restrict ownership of firearms. The Militia Act (written by the same Congress that gave us the Bill of Rights) specifically required every member of the militia (which was defined as every white male from 18-45, excluding government agents) to own a military weapon (the flintlock musket, at that time, was a purely military weapon - most civilian weapons of the day were too frail to meet military standards).

Finally, I am surprised to hear about a "liberal" that supports the right to own handguns. Handguns are the most regulated type of firearms in the USA, largely as a result of the Gun Control loons on the left who have been pushing for the banning of all firearms.

As far as the "liberal controlling agenda", I should note that a lot of the web sites I look at talk in equally heated tones about the "conservative controlling agenda". I strongly suspect that each side is no longer actually looking at the other side at all -- they are now both responding to their own internalized caricature of what they think the other side is and wants

No, they're responding to their own propoganda - it's not that they think the other side wants this, it's that they hope they can convince YOU that that's what the other side wants.

Under these conditions, no constructive discussion is possible

No argument there.

I suggest that everyone take a deep breath, count to ten, and remember that just about everyone is at heart a decent human being who is trying to improve his society. Once that is remembered, some common ground can be established and we might get somewhere.

Unlikely. Too many fundamental differences these days. Specifically, fundamental differences in the definition of "people" - the "right" has a more expansie definition of "people" than the "left" (for possibly the first time in history, I might add), and that particular issue won't be resolved trivially. If we're lucky, it might go as smoothly as the Civil Rights movement (which took decades to settle). If not, the Civil War is a good analogy (which only took a few years, but I know which one I'd prefer).

Yes, we all want to improve society. The problem is that for the most part, the things *I* think would be improvements would be considered absolute nightmares by most of the "left" (and a good portion of the "right"). And vice versa. I doubt seriously that you and I would disagree terribly much. But then I doubt most "liberals" would take kindly to you calling yourself one, either....

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[goof21]

Nobody in the mainstream media dares to say anything bad about the recently departed Pope, f'rinstance. (This is part of a general, long-running, PC-of-the-Right reverence for religion.)

Or could it more likely be the Left's "every religious/sexual culture/ethnic/racial group is worthy of respect (except WASPs)" attitude?

This could reasonably be argued either way. Not really a point.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[ccmay]

You're a hysterical idiot who has confused legitimate criticism with government oppression. Two different things, bucko. You've got a right to say anything you please, and I've got a right to call you an asshole for saying it.

-ccm

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Narchie Troll]

Who said anything about guns? A gun is a pretty lousy defense against a rapist in most situations.

A knife or a can of mace is much more useful.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[kmac06]

For many of the Democrat rank-and-files, I would agree with you. But there is a growing portion of the Democrat base that is the wacko tree-hugging PC crowd. Yes, there are the conservatives trying to force creationism, but they are a much smaller voice than the Democrat equivalent.

Also, the Democrat leaders do not support the sort of free speech we are talking about. Case and point: When Trent Lott was sucking up to Strom Thurmond on his birthday (which is what Congress does to each other on days like that), the Democrat leaders and many followers went nuts, and Lott ended up resigning.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[dangitman]

If you read through the post (go ahead, do it) you'll find that not only did he "give any specifics", but he logically demonstrated a clearcut case of absurd censorship in the name of political correctness.

No he didn't. He didn't provide any evidence of his claims. And his comments were hypocritical. He claims to be in favor of free speech - yet wants to stop the lesbians he doesn't like from speaking.

I might add, that you sir did nothing but reply with the usual fruit basket of PC indignation. Oh dear me - he insulted obnoxious, openly anti-male lesbians!

What does it have to do with Political Correctness? I just pointed out that he's bitter - and that his failures in life probably have littele to do with his being discriminated against. I also just pointed out that his rationalization of why people choose to become lesbians was bollocks. It's nothing but envy or jealousy. I don't care if he's un-PC. I just think he needs to get a grip.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[dangitman]

Besides, the gp wasn't the person who was advertising all over campus trying to convert others now was he.

He provided no substance to his claims. He just ranted about how he hates lesbians, and objects to them speaking on campus. He provided no details of the "male bashing." More than likely, it's a hallucination of his feverish "persecuted" mind.

But he is a frat boy so he sucks. Hypocritically bash on. :)

I don't give a shit about whether he is a frat boy or not. I was just calling him on his hypocrisy and asking him to provide more details of what the terrible "male bashing" was.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Brushfireb]

Its interesting to see how you can be so defensive and rude while missing the entire point of my post. I can only assume you are some form of religious study undergraduate (or, gasp, masters) degree candidate. Please forgive those of us with more important things to spend our time on than religious statistics.

Dont worry, I will help you to focus in, since you seems to be more concerned with the exact numbers of southern baptists who tie their shoes with one hand (or some equally as important statistic).

The point was not to debate what christians believe in as a mass group, but rather relating christians to libertarian school of thought. I was curiously discussing whether the core values held by most libertarians line up with typical christian values.

Next time I will try to be more clear for those slashdot readers, who like you, are overly defensive about others posting personal comments and opinions.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Mskpath3]

He claims to be in favor of free speech - yet wants to stop the lesbians he doesn't like from speaking.

Nowhere in his post does he say this. Nowhere . Read it again. In fact, not only did he not say this, he simply pointed out a case where a bunch of guys simply counter-protested in a sarcastic way, and they were the ones who got shut down. Not just shut down, but threatened with having their entire frat shut down. That's a huge huge huge infraction of their right to say whatever the hell they want.

Again, I point out your selective recall of what was actually said. He said absolutely nothing to the effect of "those darn lesbians should STFU, and I will see to it that they will through official channels!". No, instead he showed a bunch of guys who counter-protested in their own way. But you - you cry censorship where none exists. And you do it in the face of a guy who's saying "look, here's some guys who were shutdown in X, Y, Z manner!".

Frankly, your ability to spin things is nothing short of astonishing.

Finally, let's examine your analysis of the original poster. Yes, he made some crude comments about the lesbians, based on his likely limited understanding of things. But lo and behold! You come back with your analysis of him with basically the exact same level of credibility. He's "bitter" and it's his "failures in life" which caused him to say such things. My friend, this is absolute brilliant hypocrisy.

And let me just say, I'm saving the entire contents of this thread - it is a beautiful example of liberal doublethink. Un-frickin-real.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Mskpath3]

He just ranted about how he hates lesbians, and objects to them speaking on campus

He absolutely did not say any such thing . What the hell is wrong with you lefties - are you incapable of comprehending English? He simply said a bunch of guys setup a silly counter-protest to a bunch of radical lesbians. How exactly is this him censoring anyone? I see all kinds of protests I "object to". But I don't try to stop them - I have no right to do so. Doesn't mean I can't stage a "you're a fucking idiot" counter-protest for the very same reasons they staged a protest in the first place.

Realize : your right to free speech does not preclude my right to free speech. If you can go ahead and spout off stuff I disagree with, I can darn well go ahead and spout off that you're an idiot.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[wcbarksdale]

Aside from regulated over-the-air TV and radio broadcasts, can you come up with a single example of government censorship by the right? What publication? Which right-leaning branch of government stopped or punished the publication?

The most famous example would probably be the Pentagon Papers. The Justice Department attempted to sue to prevent their publication by either the New York Times or the Washington Post. Eventually, the Supreme Court overturned the restraining order.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Jeremi]

You demonstrate my point by suggesting that it's ok to own a handgun but not an "assault" rifle

Here's a proposal for you: US citizens should be allowed to carry suitcase nukes whenever and wherever they want. Nukes are arms, and the 2nd amendment guarantees us the right to bear arms, correct?

Well, no. I think that most people would agree that the proposal above is absurd and unworkable. So assuming you agree with that, then we agree that there must be some limit on the destructive power that civilians are allowed to wield. Therefore it's just a matter of deciding where to draw the line. And "people like me" have every bit as much right to an opinion on where to draw that line as "people like you" do.

My personal opinion is that since the generally accepted rationale for carrying weapons these days is self defense(*), then a reasonable place to draw the line be at weapons that are primarily intended for killing large numbers of people. i.e. "assault weapons" (I'm using the phrase again on purpose, just to annoy you ;^)). Anyone who thinks they need to shoot dozens of bullets a second for self-defense (or hunting) is either kidding themselves, lying, or a really lousy shot.

(*) yeah, yeah, I know, the other reason would be to violently resist/overthrow the government if the need arises. But I don't buy that one, since even disregarding the practicalities of violently overthrowing a government that has the world's largest arsenal of nukes and everything else military... violent overthrow of the government is illegal. So expecting support for that contingency from the law is contradictory.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Rick BigNail]

"typical christian values." But that's stretching, isn't it? There may not be typical christian values, unles you count anti-abortion as anti-women choice.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Jeremi]

If someone doesn't care about murder laws, why the heck would they care about gun laws? [...] The kids at Columbine broke dozens.

Agreed that someone who is willing to murder isn't going to care about gun laws. What they will care about is how easy/difficult it is to do the actual murder. Many crimes (including, perhaps, Columbine) are crimes of opportunity and/or crimes of passion -- that is, they are committed in the heat of the moment, or because they are relatively easy to commit. If the means to commit the crime were not so readily available, the crime very likely would not have occurred, since the would-be criminal would find some other (less destructive) means to vent his frustration.

That said, I agree that it is debatable to what degree current gun control laws can make guns less accessible to unstable individuals. I do think think that mandatory gun-training classes, licensing, criminal background checks, and/or psychological stability tests are all potentially useful means of keeping destructive weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. We license cars for safety reasons, I don't see any good reason why guns shouldn't have something similar.

Finally, the whole overthrow the government thing is still valid! You don't need to be able to win, you just need to be able to resist with enough force to make it not worth it.

I wonder, how much force would it take to make it not worth it? I would think a fairly impressive amount (i.e. tanks, or tens of thousands of people with machine guns)

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[realityfighter]

But- but- fear is the mind killer! You can't think and feel at the same time. That's like what girls do.

Seriously, though, it bugs me too. There was a time when we lionized people like doctors (and even firemen, the great heroes of 9/11) because they were able to do exactly that. Now it seems that if you don't go nuts when things get rough, you don't care enough to show that you're on the right side of the fence. It's really demoralizing for those who expect more of themselves to be told, "We don't want your help. We just want your tears."

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[dangitman]

Nowhere in his post does he say this. Nowhere .

Then why does he complain about them so loudly? Why does he complain that they are "allowed" to speak on campus?

Read it again. In fact, not only did he not say this, he simply pointed out a case where a bunch of guys simply counter-protested in a sarcastic way, and they were the ones who got shut down. Not just shut down, but threatened with having their entire frat shut down.

1. Counter-protest? What does being shut down for the "holding up scorecards" prank have to do with the lesbians? how is it a counter-protest to anything? He has never even said what it was that they were saying. One thing has nothing to do with another. I doubt that if he were shut down, it was the lesbians doing the shutting down.

2. He didn't provide any evidence that this was true. I'm highly skeptical - because his entrie description of the event does not appear to be based in reality. he claims they were spewing "male hating" propaganda, but doesn't even say what it was they were saying, etc.

That's a huge huge huge infraction of their right to say whatever the hell they want.

If it's true, then sort of. But I doubt the truth of his statements. Anyway - you can say whatever the hell you want - but Universities and other places have rules and etiquette, and are free to use their property in whatever ways they want.

Again, I point out your selective recall of what was actually said. He said absolutely nothing to the effect of "those darn lesbians should STFU,

Yes he did. not in so many words, but he was outraged that there were lesbians on campus expressing their opinion. Why is he angry at the lesbians for speaking, rather than the people who (supposedly) censored him?

But you - you cry censorship where none exists.

Where did I cry censorship? I think it's fairly obvious that he doesn't really want to hear from the lesbians, and he questions their right to have their own sexuality. But I never said he was censoring anyone. Just that he is full of hate and spite.

And you do it in the face of a guy who's saying "look, here's some guys who were shutdown in X, Y, Z manner!".

He can say antyhing he wants - doesn't make it true. If this was such a big deal to him - then why doesn't he have links documenting the incident?

He's "bitter" and it's his "failures in life" which caused him to say such things. My friend, this is absolute brilliant hypocrisy.

No, I said that's what it sounds like. I could be wrong. I was just trying to get him to think a little bit, to try and help improve his situation. Because it sounds like he has emoptional issues, which are more likely the reasons for him not getting along with others or getting jobs, than any kind of anti-male persecution.

And let me just say, I'm saving the entire contents of this thread - it is a beautiful example of liberal doublethink. Un-frickin-real.

What the fuck makes you think I'm a liberal?

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[dangitman]

He absolutely did not say any such thing . What the hell is wrong with you lefties - are you incapable of comprehending English?

I'm a lefty???? News to me.

Doesn't mean I can't stage a "you're a fucking idiot" counter-protest for the very same reasons they staged a protest in the first place.

But he did no such thing. He held up scorecards for the attractiveness of women passing by. How is that a "you're a fucking idiot" counter-protest? Where are they rebutting what the lesbians said?

Sounds to me like he's just using the lesbians as an excuse to look at women and try to be funny.

Realize : your right to free speech does not preclude my right to free speech. If you can go ahead and spout off stuff I disagree with, I can darn well go ahead and spout off that you're an idiot.

I agree completely. When did I ever say otherwise? I never said that he should have been censored. He can say whatever the fuck he wants. But I'm perfectly free to point out that he's being obnoxious, and doesn't understand the first thing he's talking about. I don't want to silence him. Where the hell did you get that idea from?

Amazing how many people these days hallucinate "lefties" and "censorship" every time they hear something they don't agree with.

What's a blog?

[JeffTL]

How do you define a blog, and how does it differ from a frequently-updated website?

It'd be more easily enforcable (i.e. less loopholes) to apply such a regulation to all mass media, especially if preventing political bribery is your goal.

Re:What's a blog?

[usefool]

Maybe they don't want mass public participation in a particular political discussion?

Websites don't usually allow active discussion on a certain topic, but blogs are encouraging that.

Re:What's a blog?

[wankledot]

This is an excellent question. I remember back in the day when there was this thing called a "home page" that you "updated." You might have had a "news" section or a "what's new" part that had pictures of your cat. Maybe even a "guestbook."

I still haven't been able to tell what makes a blog any different. I guess if it's whiney and useless enough, it qualifies as a blog.

Re:What's a blog?

[anocross]

Someone enlighten me. Why exactly does San Francisco want to regulate blogging? What harm comes from it?

Re:What's a blog?

[Glonoinha]

It has to do with campaign contribution laws, if I had to guess. An individual is limited to how much $$$ he can contribute to a particular candidate. If it costs $5,000 a year to run your blog and you spend every day raving about how great a particular candidate is ... have you, in effect, contributed $5,000 to his campaign?

I think $2,000 is one of the magic limits, but I'm not entirely sure how that works.

Re:What's a blog?

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> if it's whiney and useless enough, it qualifies as a blog.

Off I go to edit wikipedia's entry for 'blog'

muhahaha

Re:What's a blog?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly why campaign finance reform is dangerous and wrong in America. It limits free speech and now we are reaping what has been sown. How many more first amendment rights are going to be taken away from people?

Any why is such a "progressive and liberal" city such as SanFran who is doing such an "evil and conservitive" thing like this?

Re:What's a blog?

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

What I want to know is on what authority a municipality thinks it has the right to limit political speech. Only congress can do that.

Re:What's a blog?

[aussie_a]

So turn all blogs into forums. Sounds simple enough to me.

Re:What's a blog?

[Lehk228]

actually IIRC there is a document called the "constitution" which even forbids the congress from regulating political speech.

Re:What's a blog?

[baldass_newbie]

I still haven't been able to tell what makes a blog any different. I guess if it's whiney and useless enough, it qualifies as a blog.

Some blogs have not only discovered and reported news, they have also reported news on mainstream media outlets *cough* CBS *cough* making up news.
Some people think that might count for something.

Re:What's a blog?

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

IIRC the supreme court interprets said document, and has allowed for the regulation of political speech.

Re:What's a blog?

[grozzie2]

How many more first amendment rights are going to be taken away from people?

Not many, the majority of them are gone already...

Re:What's a blog?

[wankledot]

My point was that a "blog" is nothing more than a website. A good old fashioned website, same thing that's been around long before the word 'blog' existed.

Re:What's a blog?

[Grand Facade]

"preventing political bribery"

This will not prevent bribery, it just cuts the little guy out of the loop the big boys want to protect.

Re:What's a blog?

[baldass_newbie]

Fair enough, but a book, magazine, newspaper and pamphlet are all 'printed matter'. What's the difference there?

What's the difference between a 'story' and a Journal entry here on /.?

On an abstract level they are all the same. On a functional level, they are dramatically different.

Some people break these difference down into 'strategic' and 'operational'.

Mixed blessing...

[argent]

and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.

Sounds like a tax deduction to me. :)

Move to another jurisdiction

[ciurana]

Greetings.

I live in San Francisco. I can't believe that this is happening, but since it is, I have a simple solution: move to another jurisdiction. No, I don't mean "pack your bags and go". I mean that, in this age of interconnected servers throughout the world, hosting your 'blog in another jurisdiction isn't hard to do.

I've ran a couple of servers from a neutral, European country for years. Whenever I want to post something that might piss someone off locally I just post it out of one of those machines and under a pseudonym. While this isn't untraceable by any stretch of the imagination, it makes things hard enough for idiots chasing the poster to give up.

That's the beauty of the Internet/cyberspace. "Here" is simply wherever you want it to be.

Cheers,

E

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[jimmy page]

Sure why not move.. there are many reasons including... the proposed $.14 tax on every bag you use at the grocery store...the >$700k median home price... the increased parking tickets minimum of >$50...etc..etc..etc....

I know this is off topic, but it makes me think that you may have more rights in Bezerkly.

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[pwnage]

Well, the inherit problem with this is that you are forced to be untracable and/or anonymous.

What if I don't want to blog anonymously? Perhaps I'm an attention whore looking to get on MSNBC with another San Francisco blowhard, Chris Matthews, but now I'm forced to choose between proactively regulating my speech as a real citizen or obfuscating my true identity.

This just isn't right.

The intent of the law isn't too odious, ie: let's make sure that there is no shilling disguised as "news" on the behalf of any one candidate, but if we're going to take that step we're going to need to apply it to all forms of speech as well -- including print and broadcast.

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[Bananatree3]

Why, I know just your solution: Digital Migration! Migrate to a Candian server!

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[Anonymous Luddite]

What if I don't want to blog anonymously? Perhaps I'm an attention whore looking to get on MSNBC

I think the anonymous/public dynamic is what really confuses me here

1 - If you blog anonymously and host your blog somewhere else they can't enforce compliance, making the law useless

2 - If you are a local and public, people can investigate your connections and motivations to their heart's content... making the disclosure of little use at best

where is the benefit in this law?

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[Lehk228]

where is the benefit in this law?

clamping down on unwanted political participation which makes those in power look bad.

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnt work that way. If you host in another country you still are in the SF jurisdiction. You mention that it is "not impossible" to trace back, so if they see you were in a way trying to hide your identity, well, they can track you down. Do you know what happens in these situations? The judge and prosectors get reall pissed and will come down on you twice as hard.
ITs like possession of a machinegun in the US: you can be in california and you can have your machinegun buried in the arizona desert. The governemt would still consider you in posession of the machine gun because 1. you know where it is and 2. you have control over it (i.e can go drive out and dig it up)
Enjoy California. You people deserve everything you get.

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[Anonymous Coward]

If this legislation surprises you must not have been paying attention to the board of superivors. A group not known for legislative restraint. I am a unsympathetic non-smoker but I think their park smoking ban is their classic example of overreach. I see no end to their intrusion because they appear to know how everyone should live their lives. Did you read the accounting requirements, what is the fine if you fail to get the payee's zip code?

Re:Move to another jurisdiction

[sabit666]

So what happens when the US threatens those free countries by means of comments like "If you are not with us, you are with them"?

News for news

[jfengel]

Has anybody got a link to an actual newspaper article on the subject? While bloggers and advocacy sites can break news stories, they're also full of innuendo, rumor, and things blown way out of proportion.

I prefer to get my news from some organization without an axe to grind.

Re:News for news

[ABeowulfCluster]

Correct. It's not real news until a real news site picks it up. Until then, it's a bunch of social outcasts rambling from their mothers basements.

Re:News for news

[great_flaming_foo]

I prefer to get my news from some organization without an axe to grind.

You must be new here...

Re:News for news

[lakeland]

An 'actual newspaper' press doesn't have an axe to grind about blogging? Yeah, right.

Re:News for news

[themusicgod1]

"I prefer to get my news from some organization without an axe to grind."
...And this news organiztion would be...?

Re:News for news

[penguinoid]

I (like you?) preffer to get my news from a source which is indifferent to the question I seek to answer. In most cases, though, I am forced to try to average out two opposing viewpoints, and the more sources I have, the better. I also apperciate that blogs can be set up by anyone and does not need to stay in anyone's favor in order to survive. If one is taken down, it can be replaced by someone else. Effectively, you just can't threaten blogs to remove their content because if it is important someone in another country will replace it. While I do not myself read blogs, I think they are an important source if you absolutely must know all the facts (and more!) about something.

Oh, and do you really preffer organizations without an ax to grind? Some people find it offensive when their viewpoint is not represented.

Click whore

[michaelmalak]

(Second time I've posted it in the past week.)

I discovered this issue 18 months ago.

Virginia blogs barred from mentioning local candidates

Re:Click whore

[utlemming]

Wow...as a Virginian that is down right offensive. The internet is the only medium where the small guy can have his voice heard, and the only place that the average joe can afford to publish his voice and then change it whenever he wants. I would like to see it challeneged in court on the ideas of free speech issues. Are newspapers required to have a "sponsored by:" and be registered? No. They are free to endorse candidates and slam the others. Out of any attempt to regulate free speech, trying to regulate political speech is the worst, and the most tyrannical. The founders of this country wanted free speech. And if you happen to say something unpopular with a politician on a website, and you are fined for not registering, then that is a form of censorship and a regulation on free speech. I think that these laws, when challenged will be struck down as gross affronts to the Constitution. Period.

Read the damn legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that slashdot members can't seem to read articles before posting their uninformed two bits? This legislation only applies to communications that are paid for by a PAC. I am a San Francisco resident and I often blog about politics, but I would be unaffected (despite several hundred hits at a time) by the legislation.

They are regulating the communications of lobbists - not individuals - an action that slashdotters have seemingly always been for. For instance, this would keep microsoft on the level if they wanted to buy a candidate in SF office.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[mcc]

So now the government has the right to regulate speech so long as the person performing that speech receives some sort of monetary restitution for this?

Perhaps there are better ways to create fair campaign finance regulations than this.

As for me, I'm frankly unsure to what extent I can prevent this from affecting me. I will probably be creating a politics-related website within the near future which will eventually explicitly cover elections and such, but I am starting to fear I will be unable to run it off of a donation model since apparently if the wrong person clicks that paypal "support this site" link I suddenly mutate from being a free citizen exercising my right to operate a free private press into... well, something else. I wonder, is it possible to be infected with the you're-a-PAC-now virus if your hosting-bill funding comes from selling t-shirts?

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[LMariachi]

They're not regulating speech. They're regulating financial transactions related to political campaigns. (Which is why another poster's idea to host the content elsewhere is irrelevant.) You can say whatever you want, endorse whomever you want. You can even get paid by a campaign or PAC, you just have to disclose it.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[DAldredge]

What law did he break?

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

So now the government has the right to regulate speech so long as the person performing that speech receives some sort of monetary restitution for this?

No. Did you read the ordinance? If a political candidate or party is *paying* a blogger to write something about them, it has to be reported. The government isn't saying what people should and should not write. Just that if money and a political candidate is involved, the government wants to know about it. Remind me why this is a bad thing? Slashdot could, in theory, be considered a blog. Wouldn't you want to know, if, say, one of the editors was in fact being paid by Bill Gates to post pro-Microsoft stories (not that they'd ever get posted here, but you get the idea).

As for me, I'm frankly unsure to what extent I can prevent this from affecting me.

You're kidding, right? Don't accept money from a political party/candidate for your blog. Problem solved.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[YrWrstNtmr]

You're kidding, right? Don't accept money from a political party/candidate for your blog. Problem solved.

With a PayPal link, how do you prevent a particular individual from donating? "If you are a candidate, or a paid or volunteer worker for a political party, please do not donate any money. Thanks."

That could even be used in a reverse sting. An opposing candidate donates to the blog, via PayPal. A week before the election, it is 'leaked' that the popular website www.HisBlog.com has been accepting donations from a political party, and has not declared those donations. Hilarity ensues.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[mcc]

Did you read the ordinance?

Yes, but this ordinance isn't particularly what concerns me, since I don't live in the CIty of San Francisco now and will very probably not in future either. (The situation there as regards housing costs and transportation is just not nice.)

What concerns me is that these kinds of laws are showing up a lot, and I don't know what the ones that might appear in future, or in places where I do live, might mean or say.

Don't accept money from a political party/candidate for your blog

Well I'm certainly not planning on soliciting money from political parties or candidates for my website. And in the unlikely scenario some candidate's political campaign came to me and said "hi, I'm with such and such campaign, we want to help sponsor your website", I would say "thanks, but I must decline as that would create a conflict of interest".

But what worries me is, if I just have one single "donate here" button on the front of the website, and I'm getting my money from what appear to me to just be paypal accounts, how do I determine exactly where that money is coming from? Is it my responsibility to find out? Is it my responsibility legally if I fail to find out? Since we now have this idea floating around that money from certain kinds of sources, or accepted for certain kinds of purposes, is Bad, it seems the only options I have in order to avoid accidental violation of some hypothetical future law is to either decline to accept general donations at all when operating a political speech website, or scrupulously follow the passage and letter of new campaign finance laws to ensure I'm not doing anything in my funding or speech that might qualify as campaign finance ungood. Well, I'm certainly not willing to do the latter.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[amliebsch]

He would be breaking campaign finance laws, if he were not specifically exempted and thus above the law. In other words, he would be breaking the campaign finance laws that you and I would be breaking if we did the same thing.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[amliebsch]

Wouldn't you want to know, if, say, one of the editors was in fact being paid by Bill Gates to post pro-Microsoft stories (not that they'd ever get posted here, but you get the idea).

Your voyeuristic proclivities do not make it right, or ethical, or legal. If it was any other information that the government really wanted to know, like what books you were buying, or where you were shopping, or what doctor you went to, would you feel the same cavalier attitude? It's MY speech - WTF business is it of anyone's WHY I say what I say?

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[CPgrower]

Hmmm. "Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.

Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney."
That is a exact quote from the article. Tell me...where is it exactly that it is stated that the regulation is aimed at the communications of lobbists and not individuals? One might say that is a safe assumption. But it does not say that.

Anonymous Coward,

May I suggest you read the proposed legislation. It begins on page 11 under "Amendments to Current Law". The article you cited, San Francisco May Regulate Blogging, sounds like nothing more than FUD.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[mbaciarello]

... if the wrong person clicks that paypal "support this site" link I suddenly mutate from being a free citizen exercising my right to operate a free private press into... well, something else.

Well, I guess if SF mayor hopeful John Smith donates you money via PayPal with his Hotmail account iluv_49ers@hotmail.com without specifying any more personal information, you can't be expected to know who that money comes from.

That, I hope, also applies when Colombian drug cartel member [random first name] Escobar gives you $100 coming from his latest submarine run to Florida, using his snowhite789@yahoo.com account... Just because he likes your blog, that is...

Even better, a notice along the lines of "If you're directly participating as a candidate in the election, or if you are actively employed in a candidate's campaign, you are prohibited from donating" should do.

I hope SF authorities still have to show evidence when they charge you with violating the law...

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[noidentity]

Why is it that slashdot members can't seem to read articles before posting their uninformed two bits?

Because they're Slashdotted of course!

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[dwpro]

Is speech "free" if you are being paid to say it? I know, not free as in beer, but the targeted(paid) bloggers are most likely in a verbal contract to perform a function. In essence it is commerce, and the goverment does have the right to regulate commerce, correct?

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[kokoloko]

You have it backwards. It's John Smith's responsibility under the law to report the $1000, not yours.

If I'm saying things, it's speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I am saying things about an election, it's journalism.

This is the case regardless of the medium on which I say things. The appearance of the "internet" does not mysteriously grant the government power to regulate speech, or the press.

If they want me to register, or pay money, or do any damn thing they say because I am privately acting as a member of the press, then they can fuck off because they aren't getting anything out of me no matter what the law says. They don't have the power or authority to either make or enforce such laws.

Re:If I'm saying things, it's speech.

[dangitman]

If I am saying things about an election, it's journalism.

Not always. You can say things about the election without being a journalist. For example, candidates on the campaign trail say lots of things about the election, but they aren't journlists, they are politicians. Lobbyists say a lot about elections, but aren't journalists, too.

This is the case regardless of the medium on which I say things.

Actually, it's not. If you are a running a broadcast TV station, then there are definite restrictions on what you can say. "Public Decency" and all, don't you know?

The appearance of the "internet" does not mysteriously grant the government power to regulate speech, or the press.

The government has been regulating the press long before the appearance of the internet.

If they want me to register, or pay money, or do any damn thing they say because I am privately acting as a member of the press,

Again, you seem to want to be called a journalist, but not live under the restrictions that journalists and the press do. The established press has many restrictions placed on it.

I don't agree with most of those restrictions - but you can't argue they don't exist. Because they do. At least try to be factual in your objections.

Re:If I'm saying things, it's speech.

[penguinoid]

I think the government has the power to do just about anything they want, but not the authority to do so. That's why some of us are scared.

Re:If I'm saying things, it's speech.

[amliebsch]

The established press has many restrictions placed on it.Outside the broadcasters, I totally disagree. What media restrictions do newspapers, for example, operate under?

Re:If I'm saying things, it's speech.

[dangitman]

Outside the broadcasters, I totally disagree. What media restrictions do newspapers, for example, operate under?

1. Why would you exclude broadcasters from "the press"?

2. Newspapers are restricted by libel and slander laws, and countless other laws about not publishing illegal things.

3. There are (were?) media ownership laws restricting how much of the media you can own.

Say "Thanks" to moveon.org

[gsfprez]

seeing as how over $25M was given by a single contributor (Geogre Soros) to a obviously Kerry campaign media outlet, how could you assume that anything else would happen?

you know the worst part? Rush Limbaugh, as tired as he is, was 100% right on this one. (i agree with Rush ~50% of the time - I'm libertarian)

Get ready for "See, i told you so" from Rush Limbaugh... he was on George Soros' side on this one - but NOOOOO you had to follow McCain down the road of fscking the 1st Amendment.

nice job.

Re:Say "Thanks" to moveon.org

[Anonymous Coward]

So, did you agree or disagree with him when he said of Jesse Jackson "the Kerry campaign has finally gotten a chocolate chip"?

He said he agreed with Rush ~50% of the time. Taking every other word, "Kerry has gotten chocolate" would seem to be a reasonable statement.

The fairness doctrine

[bsandersen]

The end of the fairness doctrine during the Regan administration has blown the lid off of most any effort to have accountability on the airwaves and elsewhere. Instead of politicians speaking directly, their message is usually delivered by proxies. The Republicans have been masterful at this, deferring to talk radio hosts much of their message. Since the Right(tm) nearly owns all of the AM dial and all of the FM talk dial not associated with Public Radio, this has been an very effective conduit for them.

Even if some wrong-headed blog-managing rules were put into place by SF, CA or the US, proxies would appear quickly and funnel the same information to those who might listen, with the source one-level-removed.

Attempting to regulate speech is problematic, as I'm sure those behind this effort will discover.

Re:The fairness doctrine

[assassinator42]

Where do you get the idea that "the right" owns all of the FM dial and most of the AM? How can you tell they are on "the right"? Someone observed that liberals think the media is too conservative and conservatives think the media is too liberal. I see that all the time. So, it seems the media is probably fairer than most people think.

Re:The fairness doctrine

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you haven't noticed, nearly every radio station is owned by one organization.

Re:The fairness doctrine

[deanj]

Whoa Whoa whoa.... "accountability on the airwaves"?

By who?

What ever happened to freedom of speech?

People might not like it, but everyone has the ability to turn the dial. Don't like the New York Times? Don't read it. Don't like Fox? Switch 'em off. Trying to shut down commentary because you don't like what they're saying.... not in my country thank you. Those SF dorks can go jump.

You know, I can't help but think if the world were reversed and if the newspapers and the MSM were slanted to the right, and the AM dial was slanted left, those folks in SF would be calling for accountability of newspapers and the rest of the MSM.

People, people, people.... You can't choose to single out those you disagree with for accountability. You have to do it universally.
And that means keep the editorial CRAP out of straight news reporting, unless you're a pundit of some sort. If you're a pundit, then say what you want, and expect...no DEMAND... that people hold you responsible for what you're saying. If you're proven wrong, own up to it and try and do better next time.

Anything else and people will just blow off your efforts for what they are, just political balthering.

Re:The fairness doctrine

[bluGill]

No, it is the right wing that has mastered the AM dial. The republicans are a different group, and while mostly members of one are members of the other, there are differences. The right wing does disagree with the republicans on some issues (though not often, they are after all mostly the same group).

Re:The fairness doctrine

[argStyopa]

Since the Right(tm) nearly owns all of the AM dial and all of the FM talk dial not associated with Public Radio, this has been an very effective conduit for them.
Of course, that shrinks by comparison to the Left-Owned ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NYT, Reuters, BBC, NPR, etc... (shrug).

The President and Ashcroft have been widely heralded as "jackbooted thugs trampling democracy" yet it's in the most leftist city in the country, in the People's Republic of Kalifornia where this becomes legislation. Would you like a touch of environmentally friendly, organically-grown non-refined sugar in your Irony this morning?

SF politics

[sfcat]

I somehow doubt that this will fly in SF. Her district includes SOMA (I think, it is hard to figure it out from the map) and most of the areas of the city that protest the most. It includes a lot of bloggers and political active members. But I think this is really an attempt to restrict the amount of politics sludge coming from some bloggers. At least require them to register so they can't slander and run. I don't know if this is necessary but something needs to be done about 527s and bloggers who slander and run so we don't have a repeat of the swift boat affair.

Re:SF politics

[Jeffrey Baker]

Her district included none of SoMA and all of Hunter's Point, Bayview, and Potrero Hill.

There is a movement by the residents of her district (almost uniformly impoverished working-class or unemployed people) to recall Sup. Maxwell. She's probably just trying to undercut the ability of the grassroots to organize.

Re:SF politics

[wavedeform]

Her district looks like it's mostly Bayview Hunters Point. If I'm reading the map properly her district starts at about SBC park, and heads south through Hunters Point.

Bad News for people...

[Bananatree3]

This has a VERY saddening side effect: what if a local San Francisco poltician is doing screwy things and you try exposing them while their running? or how about your good ol' political critiqueing? This will in effect stomp out those who try to attack politicians for their fopaws. This is VERY serious issue, and should go to the courts.

Re:Bad News for people...

[Mahou]

faux pas*?

Uh RTFO?...

[Momoru]

Did the person that wrote the article (personaldemocracy.com) RTFO? The city ordinance does not specifically mention blogging as they seem to imply. It simply says that anyone participating in electioneering for a specific candidate, and spending more then $1000 needs to register. This covers print, internet (where they derive the blogging inference) etc. Your average blogger doesn't spend $10, let alone $1,000, and most political blogs are not for one specific SF candidate.

Re:Uh RTFO?...

[bsandersen]

> Your average blogger doesn't spend $10, let alone > $1,000, and most political blogs are not for one specific > SF candidate. If they rent space in a NOC, the rack, power, and packets could very easily be over $80 a month, which brings you very close to that magic $1000 for a year's efforts. -- Scott

Re:Uh RTFO?...

[cgenman]

Link to the PDF.

It's a general ordinance referring to "electioneering communication." Essentially, if you spend over 1,000 dollars specifically trying to promote a single candidate, in any media, you have to register this for sake of tracking election funding. And that's it. The bill defines "electioneering communication" as any communication to broadcast, cable, radio, internet, or telephone, or mailings, flyers, doorhangers, pamphlets, brochures, cards, signs, billboards, facsimiles, or printed advertisements that: refers to a clearly identified candidate for City elective office or a City elective officer who is the subject of a recall election; and is distrubuted within 90 days to an election for the City elective office sought by the candidate or a recall election regarding the City elective officer to 500 or more individuals who are registered to vote or eligible to register to vote in the election or recall election. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that any broadcast, cable, satellite, or radio communication and any sign, billboard or printed advertisement is distributed to 500 or more individuals who are eligible to vote...

This is a minor piece of campaign finance accountability. You can't buy thousands of dollars of airtime for a candidate without registering that with the city. It mentions the internet in passing, once, and no where else.

And to be eligible, you have to have spent 1,000 dollars in the 3 months prior to get a candidate elected. How much of your blog is devoted to getting a candidate elected? Is your blog costing you 4,000 dollars a year?

The ordinance makes explicit exceptions for spoken communication, news stories, communications to all members of a specific subgroup, communications during a debate, anything on bumper stickers, pins, stickers, hat bands, badges, ribbons, or other memorobelia, etc. While the 1,000 dollar threshold generally rules out having to register to be a blogger, if people were really worried about it, they could add such a thing here.

Re:Uh RTFO?...

[Money for Nothin']

Your average blogger doesn't spend $10, let alone $1,000, and most political blogs are not for one specific SF candidate.

What difference does it make if it's $1, $10, $1000, or $100,000,000? Yours is an argument of scale.

But it's all free speech on the net. Any regulation of that speech would (normally, if McCain-Feingold wasn't upheld in the Supreme Court) be a violation of the 1st Amendment.

It doesn't matter how flashy or cool your website is or how much money you poured into it: if people ignore it, your site is worthless. Scale doesn't matter, quality content and the links to your site resulting from it do.

With that in mind, higher dollar amounts can certainly go to increased "research" (partisan studies) to post on the site, true, but politics has always been like that, and still is; McCain-Feingold doesn't change that.

Excerpts from ordinance

[UlfGabe]

here are a couple paraphrased for my convienience

"all elections communicaitons shall reveal/identify who paid for them" ie this was paid by ________

dont try and hide who paid for the communication

people paying for elections communications must detail their bills and send them over to the city if they go over 1000 bucks in aggregate per year.

money contributions over 100 dollars which were intented to offset elections communications costs must be documented.

that 500 person distribution limit for internet, radio,billboard, pamphlet, ectera of elections communications.

that 500 person limit seems fairly stupid, who cares about if 500 or 500 million people hear about stuff, it makes them better educated to vote.

unless this is a money thing, and then i could see it making sense. (huge money=huge advertising.)

I've got no problem with it

[John Seminal]

report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate

I can't imagine having more than $1000 in blog-related costs. This rule will have zero impact on the avarage blogger.

The People have a right to know who is funding candidates, and all this requirement does is record who is paying the bills. Unlike the avarage blogger, these bloggers who market candidates have an agenda. Money is flowing, and we should know from where and to whom.

I think what will piss people off is they will have to rethink what they are. Are they just talking about their political idea's, or are they acting like a marketing firm?? How much are they giving to a candidate, in time, in advertising? These are all valid questions.

It is like P2P, where taking a copy of a tape to a friends house would never get you in trouble, but the moment someone shared it on the internet they were breaking the law.

The part I worry about is, what can the city (or state) do if they object to a blog? Can they force it to be shut down. What are the penalties?

I guess what we are doing here is examining how to apply current principles of law on technologies that did not exsist when the law was made. Maybe this will start an intelligent public debate, or maybe it will just be more 10 second soundbytes. who knows.

Re:I've got no problem with it

[amliebsch]

I can't imagine having more than $1000 in blog-related costs.

Are you including the value of your time and labor? Because that usually counts for campaign-finance-related purposes.

Re:I've got no problem with it

[dangitman]

I can't imagine having more than $1000 in blog-related costs. This rule will have zero impact on the avarage blogger.

Indeed. And this may have a positive side effect - less tax fraud, such as bloggers overestimating the cost of their blog, either to gain tax exemptions, or to appeal to "my rising blog costs" to justify a subscription fee or a PayPal link.

Note also, that it is $1,000 in a three-month period, not $1,000 per year. Still, I don't think I support the legislation, even if it does have positive side effects.

Maybe this will start an intelligent public debate, or maybe it will just be more 10 second soundbytes. who knows.

Of course, I'm sure I will be denounced by both sides for not subscribing to the current extremist political climate. Analyzing facts and ambiguities is not popular. You'll do much better if you start screaming from one "side" or the other and exaggerating for political points. What ever happened to the middle? I think both sides love their enemies on the other side, more than they do the troublesome moderates. Intelligent debate? That's not allowed. "Fair and Balanced" screaming at one another? That's great! It gets ratings.

I don't like having too many laws around.

[rice_burners_suck]

The only campaign finance reform that needs to take place is to completely get rid of all campaign finance laws put into place from day one of this country's existance. Allow people to finance campaigns in any way they see fit.

However, only one law will be put into place that does make sense: Every candidate must create a report, written in plain English, that explains what that candidate intends to do during his term in office, if he gets elected. A panel of ten people or so, appointed by the government, will review these documents in advance and have the candidate correct anything that doesn't make sense. That way, there's no legalese and it won't be written in a way that nobody can understand; also, it will be short enough that people will actually make time to read it.

These documents, once finalized, will be published, by the government, into a book format, and distributed to bookstores all over the country, in much the same way that books like the September 11 report were distributed and sold to the general public. Free copies will be available at all libraries, on the Internet, to first-time voter registrants, poor people, and to whatever other groups the government deems necessary.

The availability of this information will do two very important things:

First, it will allow people to see past the bullshit of traditional campaign advertising, which generally doesn't tell anybody anything, much less serve any purpose other than making people remember someone's name, and that this person's opponent is a piece of lying, cheating rubbish. The advertising and the garbage can go on in the background, but reasonable people will buy the books, read them, and make an educated decision.

Secondly, people will be able to keep these books, and two, four, six, or however many years later, they'll be able to look at them and say, "Did this candidate for whom I voted actually do any of the things he promised, past his first day in office?" This will be great for making re-election decisions, when unsure.

Yes, there will be abuses, but in politics, everything is bullshit. Besides, it'll be great for the economy, with all the advertising moneys running all over the place by various organizations that want to screw over various other organizations.

Certainly, this means that people with less money will probably get less advertising, but did the lack of money stop things like open source software from making Microsoft scared shitless?

I say, the less laws, the better off we'll all be in every respect. And to that end, I think there should be some sort of fund set up with a nonprofit organization of lawyers, kind of like Groklaw, but for pointless, unnecessary laws. This group would dig up all kinds of laws that don't make sense anymore, or shouldn't be on the books, and it will lobby Congress to rethink these laws, remove them, modify them, etc., providing suggestions for something better. Such an organization, if well funded, would help the entire country get over a lot of crap that's on the books and probably will be forever, as we accumulate more and more and more and more and more laws.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[cranos]

Umm nope, the only campaign finance reform that makes sense is to ban all forms of campaign finance except that allocated by an independant Electoral Commission based on a per vote basis.

You remove all laws regarding the financing of political campaigns and you are going to have much worse than just the mega corps buying your senators, how about the senator for North Korea or the Congress Man for China?

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[khallow]

We already have this. Politicians and some non-profit groups go to considerable expense to make and propagate this literature. This information isn't sufficient since you still have to determine whether the politician kept their "promises".

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[khallow]

Umm nope, the only campaign finance reform that makes sense is to ban all forms of campaign finance except that allocated by an independant Electoral Commission based on a per vote basis.

How would this work? Seems like the campaign would be financed after the fact.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[Sheepdot]

Congratulations, you summed up the Libertarian platform on campagin finance quite well.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[rice_burners_suck]

the only campaign finance reform that makes sense is to ban all forms of campaign finance except that allocated by an independant Electoral Commission based on a per vote basis

And how are you doing to define what is campaign finance? Money that changes hands? Money someone gives to someone who is running for office? What if that person has an organization that does all his campaign stuff? Do you have to ban giving money to any organizations owned by someone running for office? What if that person owns a nonprofit that feeds hungry children? Is it illegal to give money to that organization? What if the organization that does the campaign stuff isn't owned at all by the person who is running for office? What if the party with which he is affiliated owns that organization? Then is it illegal to give money to organizations owned by the party with which a candidate is affiliated? Then what if those organizations are nonprofit charities that help abused children and have nothing to do with marketing an election? How do you define having "nothing to do" with an election? What if some other organization wants to state something positive or negative about a candidate? What if that organization is a business that makes inkjet printers and the candidate wants to outlaw printers, and they want to tell the public about it? How do you define, legally, who is involved with an election, with a candidate, with marketing a candidate, with funding election marketing, etc., etc., etc., etc...?

Any kind of law you make up about campaigning is going to get so complicated that it will wipe freedom of speech right off the books. The simpler thing is to get rid of all this crap. Ok, so you want to make sure North Korea won't advertise in favor of Bush because your family lives in North Korea and you're afraid they'll get liberated because then your in-laws will want to come over? The way I see it, people are generally smart enough to see past bullshit like that. Observe the previous election. Bush-bashers galore, and yet Bush won. It's because the other candidate (who was it again?) was a blooming idiot.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[rice_burners_suck]

Congratulations, you summed up the Libertarian platform on campagin finance quite well. Funny... I am a Republican. But I agree with several Libertarian ideas.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[Sheepdot]

Libertarians are principled, much like Republicans. However they are ardent defenders of both economic and personal rights, whereas Republicans only argue for economic rights and would like to keep junkies from their drugs, and keep gays from having a legal union.

I think a lot of issues between Libertarians and Republicans could be resolved by seperating church and morals from party planks. As a Christian myself, I think the idea of making sins illegal cheapens Christianity. If lying, adultery, and other "sins" are illegal, then the whole idea of accepting Christianity is for naught. We're supposed to be given free choice and then choose correctly; not be given the choice of jail or freedom.

Compelling people to be without sin is a whole lot different from giving them the choice.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[zippthorne]

You're right. we should only be allowed to vote for incumbants. Organizations with millions of members, the AARP for instance, should not be allowed to field or fund candidates for office.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[Jeremi]

The way I see it, people are generally smart enough to see past bullshit like that. Observe the previous election. Bush-bashers galore, and yet Bush won.

Funny, to me the fact that Bush won proves precisely the opposite. Now tell me again where all those WMDs are? We've spent several hundred billion dollars and killed tens of thousands of people to find them, and nobody (literally: not one person) has been fired for incompetence yet... so they must be around somewhere?

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[dangitman]

Congratulations, you summed up the Libertarian platform on campagin finance quite well.

There isn't really any such thing as "The Libertarian Platform" - there are many different types of Libertarians, who often disagree with each other. Considering that Libertarianism is often considered to be about individual rights - then isn't it offensive to the idea of individual rights to have particular Libertarians speaking for the whole group?

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[DunbarTheInept]

There's one huge problem with your proposal (there's lots, but I'll just mention the really Big One) - The events that occur when leading a country opver a period of 4 years are not predictable at the start of those four years.

It's the same thing that was flawed with the Soviet's "Five year plans" - you can't centrally drive things that far in advance, even in a place where the government has as much control as it did in the USSR - it's even less possible in a country like the USA.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[penguinoid]

I say, the less laws, the better off we'll all be in every respect.

Myself, I like quite a few laws. Especially the ones that forbid people from walking into my house and taking all my money. Although I must admit that the vast majority of laws are utter bullshit.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[Kafir]

...the only campaign finance reform that makes sense is to ban all forms of campaign finance except that allocated by an independant Electoral Commission based on a per vote basis.

If I had spent a few dollars to print pamphlets, or put up a website, saying what I thought was wrong with G.W. Bush, would I have been financing the Kerry campaign? What if the website also said what I liked about Kerry? And how about if a few friends and I - or a few hundred like-minded individuals - pooled our money for the printing/hosting costs?

If those things are campaign finance, then banning campaign finance would mean the end of free political speech, and the effective repeal of the First Amendment. And if they are not campaign finance, then all your campaign finance laws will accomplish is to reroute the megacorp/Chinese money through dummy organizations - as has happened with 527 groups since McCain-Feingold passed.

Campaign finance laws won't accomplish much but to keep incumbents in office and put the government in the business of deciding who can say what about politics. I don't think either of those is a generally desirable outcome.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[amliebsch]

nobody (literally: not one person) has been fired for incompetence yet

I don't think that Tenet's "resignation" was a coincidence; do you?

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[rice_burners_suck]

Hussein trucked them to Syria. The gov't just isn't talking too much about it. Wait until things stabilize a bit, and if the weapons don't come under U.S. control quietly, Syria will be the next one "liberated"...

Bush didn't lie. Everyone in the middle east knows that Hussein had and used those weapons.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[Sheepdot]

lol. Go to a state convention, you'll love it I swear. At least in my state we relish in our bitter arguments towards each other.

What is my page?

[FunWithHeadlines]

I also remember the old "home page" days, and wonder what makes a blog a blog. I've had people tell me about my headlines site, "I like your blog." Uh, thanks, but how is it a blog? I don't post my own thoughts, or talk about myself in any way. In that, it's not even a home page. It's a joke page, but people think about blogs so much that every page becomes a blog.

You keep using that word

[mcc]

I guess I might as well make an attempt to make a comment like this near the top of the discussion, since the discussion below seems already to be devolving into "you're a liberal" "omfg no YOU'RE a liberal" high-school clique bickering.

There is no such thing as a "liberal"

There is no such thing as a "conservative"

Anyone who uses either of these words-- ever-- is just trying to set up some kind of straw man argument

If someone tries to use these words on you, don't try to argue with them, don't let them troll you, just ignore them and walk away.

Re:You keep using that word

[b17bmbr]

actually, there are legitmate liberal and conservative labels. taken in the classical sense, a liberal seeks change, while a conservative seeks the status quo. now, how do you define liberal and conservative. we often make the mistake in America of labeling secularists and traditionalists with the lib/cons labels. and there is a huge difference. in fact, secularists could be quite conservative, and traditionalists quite liberal, as per above definition.

today's lib/cons debate tends to break down along three areas, 1) role of government, 2) property rights, 3) individual liberty

liberals generally want more government (higher taxes, more spending), less property rights (gun control, environmental laws) and more liberty (abortion). conservatives generally want less gov., more prop rights, and less liberty, or at least less nihilism.

now, bush is no conservative. he wants a big government, massive spending, and has a federal solution for everything. his foreign policy (save for all the ignorance around here) is very liberal, in a wilsonian/rooseveltian manner. he has eschewed the republicans favored Realpolitik and stability (so Bismarckian) for a proactive policy of change. (and no the war wasn't about oil, or even wmd's. sorry excuse for what will historically be a great policy.) guys like dean really aren't as liberal as secular. bush's soc sec. plan is actualyl quite liberal, while the opponents are quite conservative.

where does that leave the debate, it's really a left vs. right debate, which ahs nothing to do with lib/cons labels. leftism has a decidely deterministic (marx, hegel) outlook, whereas rightism sees history as mutable and the result of great ideas and people (the classical, aristotelian approach. i.e. thucydides, herodotus). it's really more a way of looking at the world. for example, those who see the iraqi war as for oil, believe in the deterministic view, that external forces (class oppression) thus it's an evil venture. whereas those who see the history as shaped by events (thus democracy can reshape the middle east) are usually in favor of the war.

there's of course other factors, as those "conservatives" opposed to the war, i.e. pat buchanan, are influenced by outside forces (anti-semitism, the church, etc.) and thus are more traditionalist leftists. (his opposition to abortion and free trade)

yes, i do teach this stuff. this is a brief summary, but it's more accurate to define left vs. right, which is a substantive debate.

Re:You keep using that word

[mcc]

I'm sure that's what the textbook or dictionary or whatnot says those words mean. I'm sure that's how you explain those words to your class. I'm even sure there must be somewhere mediums for formal debate where those words hold those meanings and are possibly even useful for expression.

Unfortunately, outside of a classroom or maybe a handful of political journals, language is defined by use, not authority. Which means academia isn't the one who gets to decide what "liberal" and "conservative" mean. The television is the one who gets to decide.

And unfortunately what the television says right now is that "left" means "liberal", "right" means "conservative", and that both of these words simultaneously hold so many different contradictory meanings that they cease to have any meaningful definition whatsoever.

At least insofar as slashdot discussions go.

Re:You keep using that word

[soft_guy]

The television is the one who gets to decide.

Not at my house it doesn't.

Re:You keep using that word

[mizhi]

At least insofar as slashdot discussions go.

Heh. "slashdot discussions."

Re:You keep using that word

[nathanh]

taken in the classical sense, a liberal seeks change, while a conservative seeks the status quo.

Uhhh, from Wikipedia...

Liberal: a political party associated with ideals of individual freedom, greater intellectual liberty, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives, such as the U.S. Constitution.

That the general public (ie, you) now perceives that "liberal = change" is very disturbing. Individual freedom and intellectual liberty should be your status quo, and change should not be necessary to achieve either. If change is actually required then your country is fubar.

yes, i do teach this stuff. this is a brief summary, but it's more accurate to define left vs. right, which is a substantive debate.

I would be very concerned if I was in a class where the teacher felt the need to simplify all politics into "left vs right".

Re:You keep using that word

[b17bmbr]

one, I hardly consider wikipedia to be an authority on a subject. there is a Liberal party in canada, and other places, though not in the US. and would you call those who promote speech codes on campuses "liberals"? the constitution is more than abortion and gay marriage. what about property rights. what about gun control. what that really is is not liberalism, but libertarianism. an idea i find somewhat attarctive.

i don't "preceive" liberalism as change. if you'd bother to read what i wrote, you;d understand that the liberal view, historically, has been one of change. for instance, liberalism meant more democratic governments, whereas conservativism meant monarchies. however, compare the US revolution with the french civil war (no, it wasn't a revolution). the big difference was the french experieince was wholly secular and more about retribution (modern day marxists, which oddly enough look alot like the french revo civil war), ours was far more faith based, or traditional. thus ours survived 230+ years, their became a terrorist state then dictatorship in a decade. we had a far more rightist outlook on people, more aristotelian, not the leftist platonic view.

i simplified to keep the post within reason. however, the "left vs. right" debate is not only valid, but a wholly substantive one, the notion of determinism in history. it's what's marxism based on. also fascism. but then again, you'd have to do more than quote wikipedia to know that. be concerned, fine. be more concerned that most high school history teachers don't have a clue about history.

Re:You keep using that word

[amRadioHed]

Not at my house it doesn't.

That's good, I agree that television watching is generally a huge waste of time. However, you can't ignore the fact that the majority of the population gets most of their information and entertainment from tv. Because of that I would guess that television is the single biggest influence on American thought.

Re:You keep using that word

[naoursla]

whereas conservativism meant monarchies

Sometimes I get the feeling that conservativism still means monarchy.

Re:You keep using that word

[MoneyT]

There is no other argument in the political spectrum except "us vs them".

You have to understand that as much as politics is about compromise, it's about winning too. All the people you side with, even if you don't agree 100% is "us" and everyone you just can't seem to get through to is "them". Politics is all about making "us" the winners and marginalizing "them". Then once that battle is over, it's a new battle between those that were "us" dividing once again into another "us vs them" argument whether over a different issues or the specifics of the terms of being an "us".

Re:You keep using that word

[DunbarTheInept]

Why do you try to set up terms such that "secularist" and "traditional" are opposed? Secularism dates back to the founding of the country.

Re:You keep using that word

[DrFalkyn]

(and no the war wasn't about oil, or even wmd's. sorry excuse for what will historically be a great policy.)

Then what do you think it was about? Spreading democracy? The U.S. isn't interested in democracy, unless it works to their advantage. See U.S. support for Pakistan(bitter enemy of democratic India and known supporter of terrorism) , Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Indonesia. Not to mention historical opposition to "democracy" in any meaningful sense in Vietnam,
Chile, and Iran.

Besides, even it was about democracy, do you think that invading a country is the way to accomplish this? Why didn't they just arm opposition groups so they could overthrow the government themselves? Any government, especially a democracy, will inevitably have to be

Re:You keep using that word

[RobotRunAmok]

I would be very concerned if I was in a class where the teacher felt the need to simplify all politics into "left vs right".

I woul be very concerned if I was in a class where the students were citing Wikipedia.

Seriously. If you're trying to make any kind of credible argument outside of the slashdot/kuro5hin parallel universes, you need some references more legit than the wiki.

Re:You keep using that word

[nathanh]

Seriously. If you're trying to make any kind of credible argument outside of the slashdot/kuro5hin parallel universes, you need some references more legit than the wiki.

If you have an issue with the quoted definition then state the problem. Ignoring the definition because it came from "the wiki" isn't logical. You need a better argument than that.

Re:You keep using that word

[Visigoth21]

Reading this string I note that these responses are attacks with no intellectual meat. The writer offers no actual argument and insists on flogging the original author with distain for his teaching ability and English skills. The original poster is not writing a dissertation just a post he no doubt lacks the time that an unemployed intellect has to attack actual thoughts with frivolous bashing. As do I.

Re:You keep using that word

[chris_martin]

You purposefully confuse the French Revolution with the US Civil War.

He made no mention of the US Civil war

You claim that "faith" is somehow necessary for the stability of democracy. You claim that secularism leads to terrorism and dictatorships.

He made no such claim.
He stated, rightly so, that the US REVOLUTION was primarily faith based. You know, freedom from religious persecution. That was one of the kickers as I recall.
US REVOLUTION, not CIVIL WAR.
He also stated that the french civil war was secular. Which it was. It was all about who had the money and who ruled. The result of which, in the end, was a dictatorship. Napoleon took over and crowned himself Emperor. I would think that his point was more along the lines that the french civil war simply didn't stick and did not lead to more power for the people, it didn't have teeth, nothing to empower the people, therefore was easily destroyed by Napoleon. Nothing brings people together like faith, just look at the US (230 years of democracy), the people flocking to Vatican City now, the homicide bombers willing to blow themselves up for their faith. (well, I guess that brings them apart, but you get the idea, I'm sure)

You write bizarre turns of phrase like "leftist platonic view" and "rightist outlook... more aristotelian". You continue to

I would assume that "leftist platonic" would go to his view of the french civil war having a marxist lean.

confuse liberal politics with secularism; you apparently still don't

I see very much secular (definition meaning non-faith) ideals in liberal politics.

Re:You keep using that word

[marcosdumay]

They donesn't have the sense you intend also.

Liberal is a person who seeks freedom. This include smaller taxes and government, more property rights. Extreme liberals are anarchists. The "liberal" word was created (on a political context) by the iluminists, that wanted to get ride of the absolutist powers by the time of the French Revolution.

Conservative is a person that doesn't want changes. That you got right. As you see, liberal and conservatives aren't even oposite words.

You got it right when you said that it is a left x right issue. But left and right aren't also exactly what you think they are. Leftism (and also rightism) aren't deterministic as you said. The fact that today the left is concentrated on socialist ideals don't make that the definition of left, that changes drasticaly over time.

Re:You keep using that word

[twem2]

*sighs*
I suppose that this is an american centred board but Liberal doesn't seem to have that meaning anywhere else.
Liberalism elsewhere breaks down into 3 main areas:
1) Political liberalism - small government, freedom to do what you like within the boundary that you do not harm another or impinge on their liberty and right to expect that your liberty is not infringed by another or the state.
Also democratisation at the lowest level and a small government is a key aim. Decisions should be democratically made by those closest to the level they affect, ideally by the people themselves.

2) Economic liberalism - Free Trade (truly free trade, not the protectionism promulgated by the west under the guise of free trade), no protectionism.

3) Social liberalism - Best summarised by Lloyd George (British Liberal Prime Minister) - "Those who have liberty still need to live". Liberty is worthless if you cannot afford to feed yourself, and worthless if it is only enjoyed by those above a certain level of wealth. So the state has a responsibility to aid those who need it.
This does not mean the state supporting people, but the state helping to educate people and ensuring adequate health care is available to all who need it and giving help to get back on your feet. Provision should of course be done in such a way as it is in line with the previous two forms of liberalism meaning no state monopoly or central control and market forces harnessed wherever...

So in a system where this has been acheived, a liberal would defend the status quo. The liberal's urge for change is not change for change's sake (a dangerous thing in my opinion) but change to make the world a better place (so they believe)

What you describe as Liberalism is closer to forms of Socialism and even forms of Conservatism.

So for a lot of the world, Liberalism is not left or right... economically it is more to the right (ie low state interference in economics, largely capitalistic) socially, it varies.
The closest thing I see in the US is the Libertarians...

Liberals are often secularists due to their belief that you should not restrict another's liberty based upon your beliefs. Hence the legalisation of suicide and homosexuality were liberal moves because the basis upon which they were illegal were religious. You can be a devout Christian (or Mulsim, or Jew, or Hindu or...) and be a liberal but you don't force your beliefs on others.

The liberal reason for gun control and environmental laws are that these are things which effect others...
Guns are designed to kill so there needs to be some control over them as they will be used against other people. Gun ownership is not a right, it is a privaledge, just like owning a car.
Environmental controls: they are necessary as the world is plunged deeper into ecological crisis. The biggest misconception by many people is that environmentalism and business are opposite sides of a coin. This is simply not true. There are many opportunities for business to save and make money through environmental measures and environmental controls based upon market systems would offer even more opportunity.

On taxes: Liberals do not like to raise or cut taxes per-se. They prefer to tax those with more money (ie those who it would hurt less) more than those with little money (who are substantially harmed by taxation), but would ideally seek a simple, clear taxation system based on a person's ability to pay and with overall taxation as low as possible whilst still protecting the people of the country.

The war in Iraq is decidedly non-liberal. It is seeking to impose your values and order on another country. On others. It is also based around some suspect theory over the democratisation of arabs meaning secularisation in the manner of Attaturk in Turkey and the removal of Islam, but that's another debate.

On the philosophical outlook: Liberalism takes a less deterministic view, but tends to take a very positive view of humanity.

This of co

Re:You keep using that word

[nathanh]

He stated, rightly so, that the US REVOLUTION was primarily faith based. You know, freedom from religious persecution.

The problem with you Americans is that you believe your own propaganda. The primary cause of the US REVOLUTION was excessive taxation by the British. Only afterwards do you push this morally superior cause by claiming that the revolution was for Truth, Justice, and the Faith-Based American Way.

He also stated that the french civil war was secular. Which it was.

The French Revolution had a significant number of causes, but the primary causes were excessive taxation, widespread famine among the proletariat, and resentment towards the well fed nobility. You might notice those are similar causes that led to the US Civil War.

Nothing brings people together like faith, just look at the US (230 years of democracy),

Once again, pushing this idea that faith is necessary for stability of democracy. Of course, it is easily argued that the US hasn't had a representative democracy in the past 100 years. Rather you have an economically driven nobility with allusions to fascism. Take consideration of the fact that two Bush's have held presidential office. What are the odds of that happening with 300 million people if the democracy is truly representative? Not bloody likely. No, your "democracy" is founded on wealth and bloodlines Virtually indistinguishable from the traditional concept of monarchy.

I would assume that "leftist platonic" would go to his view of the french civil war having a marxist lean.

A nonsensical string of buzzwords. You are as incoherent as the OP.

I see very much secular (definition meaning non-faith) ideals in liberal politics.

Americans don't even have a significant liberal political party, nor any party that pushes truly liberal politics, so I can't imagine how you'd know.

Re:You keep using that word

[soft_guy]

However, you can't ignore the fact that the majority of the population gets most of their information and entertainment from tv.

I can try to ignore it.

I would guess that television is the single biggest influence on American thought.

So that explains all the idiocy!

Seriously, I got rid of TV about a year ago. Don't miss it a bit. I get my news from NPR, Slashdot, and Salon magazine.

Re:You keep using that word

[Rick BigNail]

You need to justify the definition. Not him.

Re:You keep using that word

[nathanh]

You need to tell me what you think is wrong with it.

Re:You keep using that word

[Discoflamingo13]

Politics is neither theater nor football. Politics is about responsible governance, and passing laws and regulations in the interest of the politican's constituency. The game that you are referring to that masquerades as politics is just a dangerous diversion that distracts people from the original role they were supposed to play in the political arena.

Re:You keep using that word

[MoneyT]

Yes, and the only way one goes about being able to pass laws and regulations in the interests of your constituency is to be able to compromise. This includes deciding who is on your side of the fence (or mostly) and who isn't.

You can not pass laws that benefit your constituents without compromise.

You can not compromise if you don't have a side to stand on.

You can't have sides if you don't have a "them"

Re:You keep using that word

[Rick BigNail]

Nothing. Just there is more than one definition of the word. He likes the newer definition. What could you do?

At the minimum you should show him where liberalism comes from (JS Mill, etc.)

this is just the beginning....

[headrock]

this is a direct result of mccain-feingold. the moment you decide to define 'legitimate media', for purposes of granting their political speech exception, you effectively create regulation of all media. once Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court decided that some citizens, based upon their full-time employment, enjoy free speech rights separate from everyone else, how else would you imagine that those speech restrictions be enforced?

the blogosphere cannot become complacent about intrusions like this -- its actually what MSM and our representatives prefer, largely because it enhances their own power and/or kills open source journalism. so there will be no MSM outrage over this -- they want to hold onto their roles as gatekeepers.

Re:this is just the beginning....

[Lehk228]

once Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court decided that some citizens, based upon their full-time employment, enjoy free speech rights separate from everyone else, how else would you imagine that those speech restrictions be enforced?

when the first man or woman is jailed for participating in politics without "registering" the revolution must begin, it must be fast. Those intent on destroying america have a lot of power but they are slow to mobilize the populus can move quickly and can shut this country down if need be.

Re:this is just the beginning....

[wse7k]

here goes any chances of a job with security clearance after I graduate...

I am in. I guess I ought to get an assault rifle soon.

Re:this is just the beginning....

[grozzie2]

the blogosphere cannot become complacent about intrusions like this

Gotta love that 'blogsphere' comment. One almost gets the impression that its an important, or even meaningful, thing. It's amazing how bloggers get so full of themselves they end up with the impression that blogs are the single most important thing on this planet.

If you wanna be a reporter, got get a job as a reporter. Those who can, will, those who cant, blog...

Re:this is just the beginning....

[Lehk228]

no need for an assault rifle. the revolution cannot be won like that and will only end up with people dead, what we need is people willing to slow down infrastructure, having cars "stall" on major bridges and tunnels, mobs of protestors in the streets of washington. stuff like that, trying to go head to head with the police and military would be suicide.

Re:this is just the beginning....

[CrimsonAvenger]

trying to go head to head with the police and military would be suicide.

Umm, no. You are assuming that all (or even most) of the polive and military would be on the other side. It's as likely that the majority of the military and police would be in the rebellious faction as not.

Re:this is just the beginning....

[Lehk228]

if the revolution was a traditional revolution those involved would be made to look like terrorists and there would be very little support of the revolution from the military.

Re:this is just the beginning....

[CrimsonAvenger]

If the revolution were the "traditional" revolution, those involved would BE terrorists.

No revolution has any chance of success without a substantial popular support. Not a majority, mind, since the majority will always choose apathy, but at least a significant minority of the minority that cares.

If I were guessing, I'd say you need at least 10% of the general populace behind you. Which gives you upwards of 25,000,000 rebels. And if you can't win against the "loyalist" faction of the military with 25,000,000 shooters, you don't deserve to win.

Conservative?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?

Conservative? Conservatives are for the smallest possible amount of government involvement in peoples' lives and a belief that the status quo usually represents an acceptable equilibrium. Thought Police are the domain of the Liberal/Progressive (see also political correctness). When taken to the extreme we call it Fascism. Some Progressives like to call fascists "ultra-right-wing" but that's just silly, Fascism is about as opposite Conservatism as one can get. Some definitions (per google):

fascism: An extreme form of nationalism that played on fears of communism and rejected individual freedom, liberal individualism, democracy, and limitations on the state.

conservatism: A political ideology generally characterized by a belief in individualism and minimal government intervention in the economy and society; also a belief in the virtue of the status quo and general acceptance of traditional morality.

Now you might see some Bible-thumpers claiming to be conservatives while trying to restrain your individualism through government largess, but if they claim they are also purple cows you shouldn't believe that either.

Re:Conservative?

[plague3106]

I think your defintions are a bit off.

Conservates want to make things like they used to be (or keep them as they are). Liberals want change.

Re:Conservative?

[gnuman99]

Too bad they merged into one in the form of Republicans. DeLay already vowed to take revenge on the court system because it didn't rollover when he said so. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A197 93-2005Apr1.html

Oh, and Republicans call themselves conservatives.

Re:Conservative?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Well, if you want to have a link pissing match, here's where Google got those definitions from (scroll to conservatism and fascism).

Your definitions oversimplify the reality of what conservatives and Liberals (modern definition) stand for. For instance they completely ignore the question of how big government should be and how much it should interfere in individuals' lives, fundamental tenants of both positions. A typical conservative would not pass the legislation of this topic - it's big-government and interference with individuals rights. A typical Liberal does not mind those problem as long as they feel it's for the greater good.

It's like the saying goes, a Conservative thinks a Liberal is a good person with some bad ideas - a Liberal thinks a Conservative is a bad person.

If you want to ascribe politics to the situation at hand, the Blogosphere is currently providing a political advantage to the Republicans over the Democrats. I'm assuming the people trying to pass this are Democrats, but haven't checked so please post if that's incorrect.

Re:Conservative?

[jabster42]

Conservates want to make things like they used to be (or keep them as they are). Liberals want change.

So according to you, Bush and the Republicans are liberals. And all the Democrats in Congress are conservatives.

Welfare? Social Security? Confront communism head-on. Confront radical Islam and terrorism head-on.

All things that changed (or desire to change) due to "conservatives."

"Conservatively" speaking, the Soviet Union would still be around, because no one would have wanted to change the status quo.

You may be technically correct, but those definitions have no relevance to politics.

-john

Re:Conservative?

[bill_mcgonigle]

DeLay already vowed to take revenge on the court system because it didn't rollover when he said so.

You could also say a member of Judicial branch flipped off the entire Legislative and Executive branches by refusing to honor their request (i.e. law) for a de novo review. Cheques and Balances used to mean something as did the Representative nature of the federal government.

Oh, and Republicans call themselves conservatives.

As I said, if they called themselves Purple Cows would you believe them?

Re:Conservative?

[dangitman]

Now you might see some Bible-thumpers claiming to be conservatives while trying to restrain your individualism through government largess, but if they claim they are also purple cows you shouldn't believe that either.

Riiiight. So, if you say you're a conservative, but express non-conservative (in your opinion) views - then you aren't a "Real Conservative."

But anyone even remotely associated with liberalism, is a liberal? "Real Liberals" believe in freedom of speech and individual rights. So, why can't we just say that those people who want to restrict freedom of speech, but fall on the "liberal side" aren't actually "Real Liberals"?

Interesting how you've framed your argument so that anyone who doesn't agree with you is not eleible to be called a real conservative - but everyone else gets lumped into liberalism - even if they have nothing to do with the founding beliefs of liberalism.

The fact is, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are obsolete and have no relevance in 2005. So why are we still calling people by these labels? Why don't we use something more descriptive of people's actual beliefs in the modern era? Conservatism has been co-opted by liberals, and liberalism has been co-opted by conservatives.

Re:Conservative?

[Jeremi]

You could also say a member of Judicial branch flipped off the entire Legislative and Executive branches by refusing to honor their request (i.e. law) for a de novo review.

You can phrase it that way if you want to, but in that case the Legislature and Executive branches were very much in need of being flipped off. They were passing unconstitutional bills of attainder and trying to override the independent judgement of the courts (who had ruled consistently on this case over a dozen times). Separation of Powers is a principle that is very much worth defending.

Re:Conservative?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Riiiight. So, if you say you're a conservative, but express non-conservative (in your opinion) views - then you aren't a "Real Conservative."

If the basis for your political philosophy is diametrically opposed to the basis of the political philosophy with which you label yourself, then, yes, you're a Fake.

Re:Conservative?

[bill_mcgonigle]

They were passing unconstitutional bills of attainder and trying to override the independent judgement of the courts

That's their job, should it be necessary. Cheques and Balances.

It took a century, but the Legislature finally overode the Judiciary's Dred Scott decision.

Re:Conservative?

[dvdeug]

Thought Police are the domain of the Liberal/Progressive (see also political correctness).

So all the people who are burning people at the stake for holding the wrong religion are liberal progressives? The most common form of thought police is religious, and they are usually all for the "status quo" and "traditional morality".

So when all those people were fired in Hollywood and elsewhere for being communists, it was by liberal progressives? Or were the people firing them, as commonly believed, conservatives?

A political ideology generally characterized by a belief in individualism and minimal government intervention in the economy and society; also a belief in the virtue of the status quo and general acceptance of traditional morality.

That's contradictory; if they're characterized by their belief in the status quo and acceptance of traditional morality, then they usually believe in government intervention to support the status quo and traditional morality. A group that was for limited government and individualism would unite individuals of all religious and moralities.

Re:Conservative?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So all the people who are burning people at the stake for holding the wrong religion are liberal progressives?

Why isn't CNN covering this? What state does this occur in? Which century are you talking about?

So when all those people were fired in Hollywood and elsewhere for being communists

That was 50 years ago - it was called the Red Scare. It has nothing to do with current politics.

That's contradictory; if they're characterized by their belief in the status quo and acceptance of traditional morality, then they usually believe in government intervention to support the status quo and traditional morality.

You're intentionally leaving out individualism and limited government to try to prop up your argument. You know, people can have multiple priorities and give certain ones preference. Not everything is black and white in this world.

A group that was for limited government and individualism would unite individuals of all religious and moralities.

That's exactly what the United States was setup to do and the Constitution makes that pretty clear.

However, some moralities are antisocial and destructive - a conservative will weigh the destructive detriments of such extremists as being too far outside the accepted morality and put a limit on individualism at that point. When you have 299 million people on one side of an issue and NAMBLA on another, it's a good bet to go with the status-quo.

Re:Conservative?

[uhlume]

Cheques

You know, I'm all for using British word spellings in an attempt to sound erudite and upper-crust, I really am. I routinely spell theatre with an 're', and occasionally neighbour with an 'ou', though I've never been able to bring myself to substitute '-ise' for '-ize'.

But please, for the love of Bob, realize that while the American 'check' has at least seven distinct meanings, its British homophone 'cheque' has only one -- and unless you're alluding to some transfer of funds between branches of government, the one does not apply here...

Re:Conservative?

[dvdeug]

What state does this occur in? [...] That was 50 years ago - it was called the Red Scare. It has nothing to do with current politics.

Funny; you brought up fascism, but suddenly when history is turned against you, we're limited to the here and now.

You're intentionally leaving out individualism and limited government to try to prop up your argument. You know, people can have multiple priorities and give certain ones preference. Not everything is black and white in this world.

If they've given individualism and limited government a priority, then why mention the status quo and traditional morality? How exactly do they manifest? In my experience, they manifest exactly as I mentioned.

It's not possible to have a group with consistently ordered multiple priorities. There's too many competing viewpoints; subtlities get drowned out. Worse yet, you're mapping it to right and left; where's the bisexual polygamous libertarian and Baptist preacher who wants traditional morality enforced and athiests in prison go?

a conservative will weigh the destructive detriments of such extremists as being too far outside the accepted morality and put a limit on individualism at that point. When you have 299 million people on one side of an issue and NAMBLA on another, it's a good bet to go with the status-quo.

Lovely strawman. Given that there's 299 million people on one side, perhaps not only conservatives agree with your strawman?

What is at the extremes of what a conservative will permit? Should gays be permitted to teach children? What about communists, or liberals? Can the local S&M club parade down Main street (not showing any skin, but with whips and all)? Those are the questions that reveal how strong that belief in individuality and limited government go, not silly strawmans about NAMBLA.

Re:Conservative?

[dvdeug]

They were passing unconstitutional bills of attainder

That's their job, should it be necessary

It's their job to do things that are specifically prohibited by the Constitution?

Re:Conservative?

[Jeremi]

That's their job, should it be necessary. Cheques and Balances.

If Congress feels that it is in their constituents' interests to pass legislation repealing the existing right-to-die laws, then it is their right to do so. Passing legislation to change the law for just one particular case, on the other hand, is improper and unconstitutional. A basic value of our legal system is that justice should be blind -- the law should be applied consistently to everyone. Allowing Congress intervene in the courts on a case-by-case basis makes a mockery of that value.

Re:Conservative?

[DunbarTheInept]

Let me clear up your confusion: "conservative" and "liberal" have completely different meanings depending on the subject matter. If you're talking about doling out material, conservative means doling out a minimal amount, and liberal means doling out a really big amount. (i.e. a "I ate a liberal helping of pasta, but you nibbled at yours conservitively." In the area of finances, this translates into "conservative" means "spend very little" and "liberal" means "spend a lot". But when it comes to individual freedom, "conservative" means "hold things back" and liberal means "let them run free". This means that the Political groups that use those names are using them in ways at odds with their non-political meanings, leading to all sorts of dishonest false equivocation fallacies in politics.

Re:Conservative?

[DunbarTheInept]

Both of the big parties lie about what their position is on having a Big Brother government. They'll push for Big Brother = Good when their party is in charge, and Big Brother = Bad when the opposing party is in charge.

Re:Conservative?

[amliebsch]

They were passing unconstitutional bills of attainder and trying to override the independent judgement of the courts (who had ruled consistently on this case over a dozen times).

Wrong on both counts. A bill of attainder is a legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial. No such thing existed here. And the act that Congress passed simply created a new jurisdiction for the federal courts, something it explicitly has the power to do under Article III, Section 1.

Re:Conservative?

[Kohath]

Those definitions are about 50 years out of date.

Social Security reform is a good example. One side wants to change it, and the other doesn't. Using your definitions, which side wants to change it?

Re:Conservative?

[dangitman]

If the basis for your political philosophy is diametrically opposed to the basis of the political philosophy with which you label yourself, then, yes, you're a Fake.

Well then - tell me how McCain is diamatrically opposed to conservatism, please. I don't see it. He is very conservative in all but a couple of areas.

Does this also apply to liberals? After all liberal philosophy supports freedom of speech. Yet that hasn't stopped people screaming about liberals restricting speech - even though it is diametrically opposed to liberal philosophy. So why don't you call those people "fake liberals"? Why is it that only conservatives get to pick and choose who counts as a conservative - while at the same time, lumping everyone else into the "liberal" camp?

Most of the time, when people say "liberal" in America, they mean "Democrat." The Democrats are definitely not liberals, most of them are borderline conservative. In any case, it's all such bullshit. Modern politicans don't give a crap about philosophy. They are all opportunists. Framing things in terms of philosophy is missing the point, and will distort your view of reality.

Re:Conservative?

[plague3106]

Well, thats what the terms mean. The political machine took the terms and then twisted them.

Maybe at one point republicans were conservative and democrats liberal, but certainly not anymore. Even some values within each are inconsitant with the labels. So using those terms to define 'small government, individual freedom' does nothing to clear the air, it in fact clouds things.

Seems to me the current trend is to call someone that agrees with you a conservative (a 'good' thing) and someone that doesn't agree a liberal (a 'bad' thing). The name calling of course ignores any issues at hand.

As far as the regulation goes, its not clear what party might be behind it (maybe both are?), as the members drafting it are 'elected by each district on a non-partisan basis.' So, take from that what you will.

Re:Conservative?

[plague3106]

The republicans, since they want the change. The problem is (and this is really my whole point) is that at one time republicans didn't want much change and thus were labeled conservative. It stuck, but their ideals have changed such that conservative no longer really fits. I'd just as soon call Republicans Republicans, and Democrats Democrats.

Re:Conservative?

[ArtStone]

So therefore, if Repulicans want to change Social Security, then they are Liberals!

Or even more accurately, since Republicans view changes to Social Security as Progress, Republicans are the true Progressives! :)

Now to work on deconstructing Noam Chomsky...

Re:Conservative?

[dangitman]

One more thing - do you consider George Bush a conservative? because he is opposed to conservativism in many forms:

1. he supports fighting expensive wars in other countries. traditionally conservatives are against needless foreign wars, and are more isolationist.

2. Fiscal responsibility. Bush doesn't seem to mind wasting money and piling up debt.

3. Small government. Bush wants to massively expand government, and intrude on private affairs. he's not for the traditionally conservative "small government"

4. Interference with other branches of government and state rights. This is very well illustrated in the recent Schiavo case. Rather than being for the Constitution and the Rule of Law, Bush wants to poke his nose into private legal affairs and individual court cases.

5. Separation of Church and State, which Bush is interfering with.

So, is George Bush a Fake Republican or a Fake Conservative? He is very radical, and I don't see how he could be described as conservative in any meaningful sense of the word.

The real reason?

[Dante333]

Is is cause all of those "People's Republic of San Francisco" jokes?

It is for the elected official themselves!

[tungwaiyip]

I haven't fully comprehend the proposed ordinance. But I think you guy pull the trigger too quick. I think what proposed amendment is target for elected officials, not your average citizens. The whole thing is probably spawn the supervisor Chris Daly's blog and they feel there is need to clarify the the guideline for themselves.

Daly starts blog on city Web site District 6 supervisor first official to keep diary on city's site

Same thing in BC

[dan of the north]

There is a provincial election in BC on May 17, 2005.

Elections BC has said that blogs, sites etc must register if their advertising value exceeds $500. http://www.strategicthoughts.com/record2005/EBC033 005.pdf

Read more here: http://www.strategicthoughts.com/record2005/freesp eechonSTV.html

Re:Same thing in BC

[gnuman99]

This is to the gov't so they don't make more stupid laws: http://forums.craigslist.org/?act=Q&ID=23504566

Re:Same thing in BC

[issachar]

great... so we're as foolish as they are in SF...

Grossly Misleading Histrionics

[LMariachi]

From a somewhat cursory examination of the legislation being proposed, it looks like the summary is substantially misrepresenting it. It says that any person who spends over $1000 on "electioneering communications" has to file a statement with the Ethics Commission detailing where that money was spent and if they received any payments from anyone for the purpose of that electioneering. Furthermore, there's a list of exemptions which includes "news stories, commentaries, or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio, television station, or other recognized news medium" which certainly might include a web page.

The purpose of this legislation is not to "regulate blogging," as the submitter so breathlessly exclaims, it's to provide transparency in election financing. No one's being prevented from saying anything, or even from taking money to say a certain thing, but if anyone, whether blogger or billboard company or bumpersticker printer, receives money from a campaign or PAC to advocate that campaign or that PAC's issue, it's in the public's interest to know that fact. This is no different than the Federal laws that require political ads to identify the source of their funding ("This message has been brought to you by Citizens For Financial Obfuscation," that sort of thing.)

Bloggers are understandably defensive at the moment, since the serious political commentators and newsgathering blogs are frequently lumped in with the likes of Free Republic and teenagers' LiveJournals, but misrepresenting the issues at hand to turn everything into "the mainstream media/government/alien overlord is threatened by blogging!" is not a worthy strategy.

Re:Grossly Misleading Histrionics

[penguinoid]

I've heard at least one person mention that he recieves donations to keep his blog up. If this guy recieves a donation from a candidate, is this law suddenly applicable to him?

Re:Grossly Misleading Histrionics

[LMariachi]

Candidates don't make "donations," they pay for services. But either way, yes, that guy has to report income he gets from a campaign. He has to report all his other income too. Doesn't infringe his right to free speech at all.

The Jeff Gannon Center for Ethics in Media?

[infonography]

I wonder if they will require Slashdot to open their log files.

Pssst, hey guys! /dev/null.....

Re:The Jeff Gannon Center for Ethics in Media?

[infonography]

by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03, @08:43PM (#12130684)

This is Slashdot. You should realise that everything goes from /dev/urandom --> /. --> /dev/null, in that order. Thus, the spelling errors are not at all a result of sloppiness, merely a poisoned banana being given to one of the infinite number of typewriter monkeys.

----

I really have to wonder why someone would not be willing to put their name to this? It's a good post.

Business opportunity!

[JanneM]

I see a great business opportunity for Europeans and others with good English skills. Set up your blog with a com adress and get paid by American pressure groups to blog about an American candidate, or against the opponent. And of course, since none of the blog - not the servers, ISP or blogger - has any connection to the US, this legislation doesn't apply to them.

So US-based bloggers become limited as to how much they can work for an election, whereas European bloggers (generally leaning less conservative) have no such limits. Sounds good to me.

Re:Not suprising at all

[Jeffrey Baker]

Well Mr. John Morris of DeRidder, Louisiana, as much as we in San Francisco love to include alternative viewpoints, you can, quite frankly, stick your ignorant backwater opinion right back up your asshole from whence it came.

Pop quiz: which of these people is a Republican:

• McCain
• Feingold

If you answered "McCain", congratulations! You have enough political knowledge to come out on the winning side of a 50/50 chance! Your "crowd of Democrats" appears to include equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.

Quiz number 2: Which of the following Soviet dictators signed the McCain-Feingold act into law:

• Lenin
• Stalin
• Khrushchev
• Brezhnev
• Chernenko
• Gorbachev
• George W. Bush

If you selected "George W. Bush", you're right again! Beloved Father of America Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Free Speech Destruction Act into law, thereby acheiving for the Republican Party what Soviet Russia could never do: limiting political speech in America.

Final question, regarding tolerance of other viewpoints: which of the following prominent politicians issued a threat on Thursday against any federal judge who dared oppose his wishes?

• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas

See if you can pick the right answer.

No internet or blog mention in the whole ordinance

[anglete]

Ok. First things first. Download the proposed ordinace and read it.

If not read it, at least search for the word blog, internet, web, or anything else internet related. You wont find it.

You will find that anything journalistic related is excluded. Now, as we know here at slashdot, blogs may or may not be journalism. If they are considered journalism, they are excluded. If they are considered personal conversations, they are also excluded.

Note that this ordinance has not passed, and probably wont pass. Regardless, it seems to state some specific guidlines on advertisment funding disclosure for city officials. Thats about it.

Also, if you decide not to disclose information at all, your charged a whopping $10 a day until you disclose. Woo Hoo! Lunch money!

So, you publish your slam campaign on TV (because there is no internet issue covered at all) and pay $10 retroactively after election day till you either win or lose!

Have a nice day!

The article is summed up in the title of the post.

[merpal]

"San Francisco Attempts to Regulate Blogging"

Enough said.

This is like the UN trying to regulate the entire Internet. (April Fool's post)

My Reply To Maxwell

[Ralph Spoilsport]

What part of the first amendment do you not understand?

I live in SF and I write a blog. It's not very political, but when it is, it is a very liberal blog. And if you continue on this path supporting this foolishness, and if it actually passes, I will do everything in my power to make sure you, and any supervisor who votes for this INSANE idea, are not re-elected.

This is Simply Wrong.

Rawls: Unfair, unjust, and unreasonable. Look it up.

It is unfair, because it singles out a form of free expression as a form of speech that requires regulation. Pure Hate Speech and shouting fire in a theatre are regulated free expression. Blogs have no business being regulated like that.

It is unjust, because it would treat all blogs the same. IF the blogger says "Bush is the Spawn of Satan", or "Liberals are the rotting core of Evil in the Universe" or "Go out and vote - it's important" it's all the same: political statements. This would clearly be an injustice.

and it is unreasonable, as a blog can be about a million things, and often are. Politics is often a central theme, but it is not the only. Therefore, it is unreasonable to paint semi-political yet popular blogs the same as some fire breathing partisan blog.

This legislation is also completely and utterly STUPID. Why? Because someone might live somewhere, but the blog could be hosted in FINLAND. Now: try and regulate political speech in Finland from San Francisco. Guess what: It Isn't Going To Happen. Ever.

The internet is international. Get used to it.

Worse, you have single handedly made San Francisco an international laughing stock, and more over: They Are Laughing At You.

Smooth move Maxwell.

I've always known you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this latest embarrassment is really over the top.

I will not register. Furthermore, I will cheerfully join a class action lawsuit to fight this, right to the Supreme Court, if necessary. If that fails, then me and my family will take our leave of this city. We moved here many years ago, because it was a city of free spirits. Then the dotcom idiots did their dead level best to ruin the place, and now incompetent politicians such as yourself are putting the final touches on it final implosion.

I hope you're proud.

RS

what i find interesting....

[to_kallon]

especially on /. is that, given the predictable percentage of replies on how "unfair" and "outrageous" this is, no one is using one of my favorite words: unconstitutional. the issue at hand here is not whether they should do this or not. nor is the issue that for the proposed legislation the majority of bloggers would be unaffected. the issue instead is that it is not within the legal restrictions of the government to impose this ordinance. since it is, however, restricted to campaign related blogs, there are laws which stipulate, at least in certain media i know, that you have to give each candidate, given certain criteria, equal time/space. while i still think this is superfluous, it is a damn sight better than restricting free speech. yes, i understand that they're not trying to keep people from blogging, or restrict what they blog about with this piece of legislation. but, honestly, how long will it take for similar laws to get pushed in other states? and no, not all of them will pass, but the point is that once a majority of the nation does something one way, the majority of congress will mirror it because they're from those states. this scares me in a way that i normally reserver for senator orrin hatch, but i guess he's got some competition now. i guess we'll have to see how this pans out, but i must admit i'm alarmed by a number of the articles i read now, politically speaking.

Re:what i find interesting....

[amliebsch]

at least in certain media i know

This only applies to broadcast media, on the theory that the broadcasters do not own the electromagnetic spectrum; they are licensing its use from the FCC and have to agree to essentially a EULA under which they waive some of their First Amendment rights.

Re:In other news...

[Lehk228]

I think taco dropped a bag of Mod crack and they found it before he did.

Thanks, Senator McCain

[lseltzer]

If it was fair for McCain-Feingold to create the limits on speech that it creates then these offensive rules are fair as well. This is what we've come to.

Re:Thanks, Senator McCain

[tsotha]

Yup. What people don't realize about McCain Feingold (and let's not forget Russ Feingold here), is the real purpose of the bill was to shift power back to established media after years of PACs being able to get the message out through paid advertising. How would people know what to think if big media's message gets diluted with all that paid stuff?

The blogs present a new problem, since the little people are now able to say what they think and get the message out to as many people as they can convince to read the blog. Look for more and more regulation of blogs in the future, since piling on restrictions and forms will discourage people from legitimate political speech, even if they are allowed to make it technically.

For the sake of argument...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Let's say that slashdot was hosted/incorporated in SanFran.

-Expenses over $1000/year?
Check

-Poitical section of their site?
Check

-Hosted direct statements and opinions from candidates?
Check

-Has discussed San Francisco City elections?
Probably.

exemptions which includes "news stories, commentaries, or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio, television station, or other recognized news medium" which certainly might include a web page.
Or it might not. Does this let all 'web pages' off the hook? Certainly not.

So...would they have to file IAW this ruling? It would appear so.

Re:For the sake of argument...

[LMariachi]

The way I read it, Slashdot would have to spend at least $1000 specifically on supporting a local SF candidate. Then they'd have to file a statement, unless they were considered a "recognized news source."

But so what? Filing a one-page financial statement is not a barrier to the free speech you just spent a thousand bucks on. Speechify all you want for free, no odious bureaucratic hoops to jump through whatsoever. But when you might be trying to circumvent campaign finance laws by spending substantial amounts out-of-pocket on campaign expenses rather than writing a check to the campaign and letting them disburse it on the books, you can expect to be scrutinized. You can quibble about the merit of campaign finance regulations all you want, but at the moment we've decided we want them, and that we want them to be effective. All this does is close a loophole.

Re:For the sake of argument...

[Qubit]

DNS registration - $10/year

Collecting political information to put on your blog - $250/year for newspapers, etc...

Hosting costs - about $1000/year

Hosting your website outside of SanFran and telling the City Council they can f*** off - Priceless.

Re:For the sake of argument...

[CrimsonAvenger]

Filing a one-page financial statement is not a barrier to the free speech you just spent a thousand bucks on

It isn't? Hmm, if you spent $999 you don't need to register, one dollar more, you do. So you need to keep accurate records of your expenditures if you are at all marginal. Including labour costs (your own, if no other).

The requirement that you keep detailed records of expenditures (if only to prove that you did NOT violate the law) will have a chilling effect on political speech. A chilling effect is a barrier to free speech, at least according to the Supremes....

does slashdot count as a blog?

[the-build-chicken]

...because no one here ever presents political opinions and I'm sure many would blow over $1000 worth of man hours here a year?

Re:Not suprising given the recent court r [winhat]

[winhat4]

There's just as much pc on the right as on the right as on the wrong side of the shallow. Alexander graham bell was a great hail out of heaven every stone about the recently departed pope, f'rinstance.There's just as much pc on the right as on the right as on the wrong side of the deaf in boston. Perhaps you should just try to muzzle those with whom they disagree.

Because i'm on the right as on the right as on the right as on the tip of my very best intentions.

So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Conservatives are for the smallest possible amount of government involvement in peoples' lives and a belief that the status quo usually represents an acceptable equilibrium

Except when it comes to gay marriage, dying with dignity, smoking marijuana, playing D&D in the community center, or a thousand other personal issues. Then it's regulation hell.

People who call themselves Conservatives just *say* they want to give the government off your back. That doesn't actually *mean* they want the government off your back.

Now you might see some Bible-thumpers claiming

Don't water it down by claiming there are only "some" Bible-thumpers trying to tell us what to do. These Bible-pushers have become the most powerful force in the Republican party, and are only too happy to ask the government to regulate my personal activities.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[bill_mcgonigle]

People who call themselves Conservatives just *say* they want to give the government off your back. That doesn't actually *mean* they want the government off your back.

Then they're not Conservatives. See also my claim about Purple Cows.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Hobbex]

Then they're not Conservatives. See also my claim about Purple Cows.

Because you decided that? To be a conservative means that you resist change in society. The only reasonable way that being a conservative means "wanting government off your back" is if you come from a country with a tradition of having government off your back. And in this day, that isn't really true anywhere.

Actually though, there is a word for somebody who wants a small government and who wants to maximize individual freedom. The word is: liberal. Look it up. // oskar

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Look it up.

Why would someone want to "look it up" to get the wrong answer?

To be a conservative means that you resist change in society.

There's a debate in the US now about changes to the Social Security program. One side wants to leave it the way it is. The other side wants to change it. Apply your definition now, which side wants to change it?

Wrong. The conservatives want to change it. The liberals want to leave it the way it is.

Actually though, there is a word for somebody who wants a small government and who wants to maximize individual freedom. The word is: liberal.

Perhaps. But your definition describes the people on the conservative side.

Stop getting your political insight from the writer of your dictionary. He probably died 75 years ago and has little insight on modern politics.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Except when it comes to gay marriage,

Individual "gays" can marry the same as individual straight folks. There are no more or fewer restrictions on them. A marriage is between a man and a woman -- always has been. Gay men are welcome to marry women and gay women are welcome to marry men. It's equal rights for all individuals.

dying with dignity,

Only if you want to.

smoking marijuana,

Agree. Should be legalized.

playing D&D in the community center,

The community center is a big government boondoggle. It's controlled by the government. Politics decides what the goverment does. Politics decides what the government allows in the community center. Don't like it? Then privatize the community center (or tear it down and build a Wal-Mart, or whatever). Play whatever game you want on someone's private property. And stop building the damn big government centers so we can stop listening to people whine when the politics doesn't go their way.

or a thousand other personal issues. Then it's regulation hell.

In general, no. In general, the conservative side wants fewer regulations. How many conservatives have to tell you they want fewer regulations and smaller government before you'll belive that at least some conservatives want smaller government and fewer regulations?

Don't water it down by claiming there are only "some" Bible-thumpers trying to tell us what to do. These Bible-pushers have become the most powerful force in the Republican party, and are only too happy to ask the government to regulate my personal activities.

Who are these people you're talking about? If they're so powerful and they're such a danger to your personal freedom, then you ought to be able to name a few things you used to be able to do 20 years ago that these people have succeeded in outlawing.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[ndogg]

Individual "gays" can marry the same as individual straight folks. There are no more or fewer restrictions on them. A marriage is between a man and a woman -- always has been. Gay men are welcome to marry women and gay women are welcome to marry men. It's equal rights for all individuals.

Why do conservatives keep putting up this straw man? Why is the state forcing their definition of "marriage" unto the people? Why not let individuals decide for themselves what the meaning of marriage is? Allowing individuals to see words with different meanings is also a part of speech. Marriage should be defined by individuals.

I've seen some people run to "God" to define marriage. Well, I don't believe in "God," so that shouldn't affect me. I'll define marriage as I wish, thank you very much.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Why is the state forcing their definition of "marriage" unto the people? Why not let individuals decide for themselves what the meaning of marriage is?

If 2 people (or 3 people, or whatever) want to say they're married, that's their own business.

What you want is for the state to acknowledge the marriage. Whether they do or not becomes the state's business. If you don't want them involved, don't involve them.

The choice of what "marriages" are acknowledged by the state should be based on the preference of the electorate in that state.

I'll define marriage as I wish, thank you very much.

Go ahead. No one's stopping you.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Cro Magnon]

Actually though, there is a word for somebody who wants a small government and who wants to maximize individual freedom. The word is: liberal

And yet, the alleged "liberal" party has always advocated bigger and bigger government, and poking their noses where they weren't wanted. The alleged "liberals" have never cared about individual freedom, they only want freedom for left-wing values.

To be fair, the alleged "conservatives" are no better. They wanted small government only when they weren't in power. Now that they are, they're expanding an already dangerously large government even bigger.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[mizhi]

Except when it comes to gay marriage, dying with dignity, smoking marijuana, playing D&D in the community center, or a thousand other personal issues. Then it's regulation hell.

People who call themselves Conservatives just *say* they want to give the government off your back. That doesn't actually *mean* they want the government off your back.

Don't confuse "conservative" with "right wing."

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[ndogg]

The choice of what "marriages" are acknowledged by the state should be based on the preference of the electorate in that state.

So what happens to the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution? What happens when two states' definitions of marriage conflict? There is also the question of the federal government's definition as well. It's important for things like taxes.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Individual "gays" can marry the same as individual straight folks. There are no more or fewer restrictions on them.

But there are numerous government incentives for straight folks to marry-- Tax benefits, inheritance rights, adoption rights, the list goes on and on.

These are a government-sanctioned privledges which are restricted to one class of people.

dying with dignity,

Only if you want to.

Considering the big Conservative reaction to Terri Schiavo's death, they don't believe this.

It's a personal choice, not a place for Jeb Bush to force his religious views on us, nor is it a place for Congressional Republicans or President Bush to push through special legislation and request that the supreme court hear this case.

Who are these people you're talking about?

Give me a fucking break. You're head is in the sand. "There is no problem! There is no problem!"

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Don't confuse "conservative" with "right wing."

With so many "right wingers" calling themselves "conservative" and attempting to restrict my activities, it's hard not too.

Plus "Right wing" is just another label... none of these are exact definitions...

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

But there are numerous government incentives for straight folks to marry-- Tax benefits, inheritance rights, adoption rights, the list goes on and on.

These are a government-sanctioned privledges which are restricted to one class of people.

You apparently didn't read what I wrote. A gay man has exactly the same right to marry and exactly the same benefits from marriage as a straight man. He also has exactly the same set of partners to choose from -- partners of the opposite sex (women). A gay man has the equal right to marry a woman that a straight man has.

Give me a fucking break. You're head is in the sand. "There is no problem! There is no problem!"

It's just a question. Please define the scope of the problem in specific terms. I honestly don't understand the rationale behind your fear of the "Bible thumpers".

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[mizhi]

With so many "right wingers" calling themselves "conservative" and attempting to restrict my activities, it's hard not too.

Plus "Right wing" is just another label... none of these are exact definitions...

Agreed definitions are not exact, but there are salient differences between true conservatism and the perversion offered by the right wingers. Their vile attempts at sneaking religious morality into government are completely antithetical to true conservative ideals. I, and most other conservatives, do not wish to be associated with right wingers anymore than a socialist wishes to be associated with communism.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Guppy06]

"Individual "gays" can marry the same as individual straight folks. There are no more or fewer restrictions on them."

Only if you ignore the concept of romantic love. Heterosexual people can marry people they love, homosexuals can't. With your argument, what you've done is reduced the concept of marriage back to the classical definition of a business arrangement, and is this really the kind of atmosphere you want as the holy graile of raising children in?

It's also a violation of a person's right to associate with who they want, how they want. Whether or not someone can wave their hands enough to make it look OK in the eyes of the Fourteenth Amendment, there are other parts of the United States Constitution.

"It's equal rights for all individuals."

Equal, hm? Folks in North Korea also have equal rights for all (namely, none), does that make it OK? For being a self-proclaimed bastion of conservative political dogma, you sure don't seem to be familiar with the writings of Tocqueville, especially on his views of equality versus liberty.

I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret. But for equality, their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Only if you ignore the concept of romantic love. Heterosexual people can marry people they love, homosexuals can't.

The rights are, nevertheless, equal. If the electorate wants to add more rights, that's up to the democratic process.

It's also a violation of a person's right to associate with who they want, how they want.

No it isn't. Associate with who you want. Call yourselves a couple. Call yourselves a married couple if you want. Be in love if that works out for you.

But government-recognized marriage arrangements are between a man and a woman. If the voters decide to change it, that's their choice. If not, that's also their choice.

Every situation doesn't always work out the way you want.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Guppy06]

"If the electorate wants to add more rights,"

I'm sorry, I was operating under the assumption that you thought you were a self-styled conservative yourself. The people have rights, they don't grant or take them away from each other, only to and from the government.

You'll note in our constitution that all rights not explicitly granted to the national government "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The reason it's not left with "the people" entirely is because "the people" are known for riding roughshod over the rights of the individual (which is what you promote by claiming that either the state or the people are the source of rights). Having the states and the people fight it out with each other was a mechanism to have the two groups too distracted in their struggles against each other that neither would be in a position to violate the rights of the individual (the true source of all rights). The whole point of conservative philosophy is that those regulations you want to avoid represent threats to these individual rights.

(Ultimatley, the main difference between "liberal" and "conservative" is that the liberal fears the state violating the rights of the individual while the conservative fears the people violating those same rights. Both philosophies obviously have their blind spots.)

"But government-recognized marriage arrangements are between a man and a woman."

"Congress shall make no law recognizing an establishment of religion." The only possible explaination for the requirement of one man and one woman is that the legisature is ignoring this requirement.

How does maintaining a government regulation that each married couple must consist of one man and one woman fit with your "the conservative side wants fewer regulations" statement?

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[dvdeug]

A marriage is between a man and a woman -- always has been.

Not in all cultures. In many cultures, men can sometimes marry men.

How many conservatives have to tell you they want fewer regulations and smaller government before you'll belive that at least some conservatives want smaller government and fewer regulations?

Duh. Some foo want small government and fewer regulations, for pretty much any value of foo. And in the meantime, after Carter, 6 trillion dollars of debt got added to the budget (and not during Clinton's administration, either). Isn't a balanced budget part of small government? What about a small military focused on defense? Isn't that part of a small government? If whenever the conservatives got in power, I saw smaller government and fewer regulations, I might believe it.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Not in all cultures. In many cultures, men can sometimes marry men.

I pay attention to anthropology. Please site one historical culture where men marry other men. I'm aware of a huge number of different sexual practices and living conditions in different cultures, but I've never seen an example of men marrying other men before the modern western version of it.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

"If the electorate wants to add more rights,"

I'm sorry, I was operating under the assumption that you thought you were a self-styled conservative yourself. The people have rights, they don't grant or take them away from each other, only to and from the government.

privledges then. Or rather if the government wants to change its rules. Don't get too distracted by the wording.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Guppy06]

"privledges then."

Then these "privileges" or "rules," by placing restrictions on who qualifies to be recognized by the state as a married couple, granting special favors to one group of people and denying them to a another, interferes with the right of free association in much the same way as laws against interracial marriage. The current state of marriage serves to promote one type of couple at the expense of another and the denial of marital advantages to a particular couple is then a violation of their right to assemble as they see fit.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Every individual has the same options/rights/privledges/etc.

The state only recognizes certain arrangements of certain combinations of those individuals, but each individual has and equal opportunity to combine into one of those arrangements.

Equal rights and equal protection are for individuals. It doesn't mean "anything goes". That's why you can't get married to your 3 year old sister, for example. But neither your rights nor hers are infringed by the various restrictions there.

There are no "couples rights" -- even to equal protection. Only individual rights.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Guppy06]

"Every individual has the same options/rights/privledges/etc.",

As I tried to point out with my earlier Tocqueville quote, simply because everyone's rights have been equally violated does not mean that no rights have been violated.

"There are no "couples rights" -- even to equal protection. Only individual rights."

Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peacably to assemble.

Closing the stable door?

[bigsteve@dstc]

The best way to deal with "trojan bloggers" or "trojan talking heads on tv" is to simply investigate them secretly and expose them, and assasinate them publically based on the facts of their doings. If someone has taken money, then expose them the old fashioned way.

In practice, it is likely to take weeks, months or years to track the affilitions of a "trojan" (as you put it). By the time you have untangled the web of obfuscation, the election will be well and truly over. And the "trojan" typically won't care that his/her reputation is blown.

By requiring the connections to be disclosed upfront (on pain of legal penalties), you reduce the "trojan"s influence on the election outcome. For me, the real question is whether the disclosure of just financial links would be enough to make a difference.

Re:Closing the stable door?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

In practice, it is likely to take weeks, months or years to track the affilitions of a "trojan" (as you put it). By the time you have untangled the web of obfuscation, the election will be well and truly over. And the "trojan" typically won't care that his/her reputation is blown.

By requiring the connections to be disclosed upfront (on pain of legal penalties), you reduce the "trojan"s influence on the election outcome. For me, the real question is whether the disclosure of just financial links would be enough to make a difference.

I understand the reasoning. I just dont see it as possible. Everyone can blog. Anyone can stand on their street corner talking to random people. Anyone can knock on your door with a peice of paper advertising their political view.

How do we regulate everyone politically?

If i say "I grew up with Bush, and i once saw him hang a black person and fuck a chicken... and i have photos" Must i have a financial background check first?

Of course the example is silly but the point is... In a political season, people get political. What is the standard ? How many listeners you have?

I have X amount of audience members, so i must be federally regulated because my voice is too powerfull?

Even if we expose trojan's during or before an election, will i thave an effect? Did Dan rather effect the election? How do we know the republicans didnt stuff Dan Rather bad info, just to expose him on some blog?

I'm pretty sure you can inject bullshit into any part of the chain before it enters the blogs, newspapers etc.

All it takes is one sneaky politician to leak bullshit info to some info hungry blogger. is the blogger at fault?

This is nothing new folks. We've had newspapers for years. Anon sources for years have leaked bullshit aimed at altering our country.

It's really not preventable. We just need to punish those who do it, severely :)

RTFO -- thanks for the FUD slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

read the fucking ordinance. this is about electioneering and lobbyist/PAC disclosure. im sorry but the so-called blogosphere can be as ridiculous as the left as it is on the right. and its usage of FUD does nothing for its image--it's like the digital bobby fisher imho. and slashdot should be ashamed for posting this without a direct link to the law -- do you repost microsoft FUD verbatim??

Anyway, the ordinance, in not very well worded language, should not affect individual, non-affiliated sites... and the SF Ethics commission certainly isn't going to be doing any invasive auditing. Perhaps the wording is vague because this is standard disclosure form updates for a new medium -- _within_ electioneering and lobbyist codes/regulations.

disclaimer: I'm in school for my MPA and know people on the ethics commission. so i may be mildly biased. especially since i WISH someone would regulate chris daly out of existence.

Re:Not suprising at all

[jmorris42]

> Pop quiz: which of these people is a Republican:
>
> * McCain
> * Feingold

Sen Feingold is a Democrat and Sen McCain is whatis known as a RINO (republican In Name Only) who was the preferred candidate of the mainstream (read that as Democratic Party aparatus) press during the 2000 primary Republican Primaries.

> Quiz number 2: Which of the following Soviet dictators signed the
> McCain-Feingold act into law:

Yes and we conservatives are pissed about Bush signing it. But to give him a little slack he did have fairly sound tactical reasons for it. He reasoned correctly that a veto would be hung around his neck like an albatross for sis being a 'tool of special interests' while signing it was safe since it is patently in violation of the 1st Amendment. His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.

> Final question, regarding tolerance of other viewpoints: which of the
> following prominent politicians issued a threat on Thursday against
> any federal judge who dared oppose his wishes?

Kinda twisting his words more than a bit aren't you? But at any rate I have no problem with making a public anouncement that the legislative branch is mad as hell and ready to make judges pay a price for usurping the lawmaking powers that are NOT the province of judges. Regardless how you believe on a lot of issues, the courts were NOT where laws regarding them should have issued from.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[bigsteve@dstc]

This is Simply Wrong.

Your knee is jerking badly, IMO.

What is the problem with registering? What is the problem with disclosing that a someone is funded to be someone else's mouthpiece? Surely, if a blogger can register (on pain of penalty) that he is NOT funded by some scumbag, then that only increases the credibility of his viewpoint.

Free speech

[katorga]

"Its only applicable to blogs that mention candidates"

Ummm. The First Ammendment's entire purpose is to protect political speech.

No candidate or elected official should ever be shielded from the voice of the people. The 60 day moratorium on political speech by the public prior to an election is one of the most nefarious laws I have ever seen passed in the USA.

The entire purpose of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights is to define the limits of government to act against the people. The campaign finance law has this all turned around.

And notice that it did not seem to actually work. The last election was awash in money.

Re:Free speech

[Guppy06]

"The First Ammendment's entire purpose is to protect political speech."

You are part of the problem. You are why my telephone rings off the hook with automated messages when election time rolls around (because the political "speech" is held to different standards from other forms of marketing, for whom such canned messages are flat-out illegal). There is no clause in the constitution making any sort of speech "more equal" than any other sort, and IMO, by classifying political speech as being more equal itself is an abridgment of the freedom of speech by specifying what can/should be talked about.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[amliebsch]

Exactly! If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to hide!

Right?

Re:No internet or blog mention in the whole ordina

[notque]

Also, if you decide not to disclose information at all, your charged a whopping $10 a day until you disclose. Woo Hoo! Lunch money!

I wish I had 10 dollars a day for lunch.

That's the problem with those of us that oppose Bush. We are poor.

Shut up!

[gestapo4you]

If you're not repeating the "official" version of reality, you are a potential terrorist and will be dealt with accordingly.

If you don't like it then move somewhere else!

Sincerely,

The Two Party System Security Dispatch

Ps. If you don't shut up you will face the consequences:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.h tm

Only applies to the person who *pays you* to blog

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual this sensational piece completely misrepresents the proposed change in regulation. The rules apply to those who *pay* someone else at least $1000 to say things about a candidate during an election.

Get the facts by reading the actual proposal (31MB PDF):

http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/c ommittees/materials/041489.pdf

Please read the Ordinance !!

[fluffy99]

So campaign finance disclosure is now a bad thing?

Once again, it is apparent that /. authors and readers don't bother checking facts and blindy believe any piece of misleading drivel they find on the internet. This is yet another BS article blowing things out of proportion and trying to stir up controversy (and maybe slashdot readership?). If I want to readed misleading, inflammatory, blown out of proportion crap then I would just head down to the supermarket and open the Enquirer!

For those of you who didn't bother to actually read the ordinance before spouting off an opinion, The SF ordinance applies to people actually campaigning and doesn't specifically mention blogging. It says that if you are running for SF political office you have to disclose your expenditures. Standard policy. If you follow the editting marks in the ordinance, you'll see that it previously only referred to "expenditures". The revision added a lot of verbage to include "electioneering communications". Presumably that includes newspaper ads, radio spots, billboards, spam emails, a web site, setting up internet blogs, etc. I would be upset if a city didn't require candidates to disclose their expenditures.

The ordinance does not apply to the average Joe on the street. It does not apply to newspaper articles and blogs not commisioned by the campaigner.

Re:Please read the Ordinance !!

[Dr Damage I]

For those of you who didn't bother to actually read the ordinance before spouting off an opinion, The SF ordinance applies to people actually campaigning and doesn't specifically mention blogging. It says that if you are running for SF political office you have to disclose your expenditures

Well, no. This comes down to the definition of an "electioneering communication". The ordinance (in the definitions section) defines an electioneering communication as one that

refers to a candidate in an election and

is distributed to >500 people during the 90 days prior to an election
(yes, I've significantly abbreviated this. A link to the ordnance is available in TFA)

Although There are certain exclusions, unless I missed it completely (I invite anyone to point out where it is and hope to god that someone can find it) there is no requirement that an electioneering communication be made by an actual candidate for office.

Although print, broadcast media and "other recognised news medium" are specifically excluded from coverage by the ordinance, this leaves it up to the judiciary to decide if a blog is "recognised news medium". Hardly an ideal situation for the poor sucker who is the first to be tried for failure to register.

Re:Please read the Ordinance !!

[fluffy99]

The link in the article was an amendment to the SF Campaign and Governance Conduct Code. The complete code can be found at amlegal.com . That and the definitions within the referenced California Political Reform Act say this applies to the candidates, anyone endorsed or controlled by the candidate, and political committees (commissioned or independant). Doesn't sound like an average blogger to me.

So this isn't a SF-specific issue. It's really California law and SF chose to add language to their local ordinances that specifically defines campaigning to include "electioneering communications". It was in response to a media blitz endorsed by a candidate that used blogs, which were not previously clearly defined as falling campaign finance rules.

I stand by my assertion that this doesn't apply to the average blogger. Just those people under control of the candidate or anyone part of an independant committee as already defined in CA law.

Re:Not suprising at all

[learn fast]

which of the following prominent politicians issued a threat on Thursday against any federal judge who dared oppose his wishes?

Issuing threats is for pansies. I think you'll agree that real men write laws. Wouldn't it be cool if we could make it a crime for any federal judge to not "acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty and government"?

S.520
Constitution Restoration Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal judicial code to prohibit the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal district courts from exercising jurisdiction over any matter in which relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government or an officer or agent of such government concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.

Prohibits a court of the United States from relying upon any law, policy, or other action of a foreign state or international organization in interpreting and applying the Constitution, other than English constitutional and common law up to the time of adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
Provides that any Federal court decision relating to an issue removed from Federal jurisdiction by this Act is not binding precedent on State courts.

Provides that any Supreme Court justice or Federal court judge who exceeds the jurisdictional limitations of this Act shall be deemed to have committed an offense for which the justice or judge may be removed, and to have violated the standard of good behavior required of Article III judges by the Constitution.

Sponsors:
Sen Shelby, Richard C.
Sen Brownback, Sam
Sen Burr, Richard
Sen Craig, Larry E.
Sen Lott, Trent

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN005 20:@@@L&summ2=m&

I especially am delighted with the title of the bill-- the "Constitution Restoration" Act. It's really annoying that the courts get to interpret the law and the Constitution, not the legislative branch. That should be made illegal. Only way to "restore" the Constitution. Sounds like another April Fool's joke that's not.

This, my friends, is what theocracy looks like. We have the advantage of watching it unfold before out very eyes.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[LMariachi]

Maybe before clicking "send" on that letter you should read the actual ordinance instead of taking the highly inaccurate summary as gospel. Blogs are not being singled out. They're not even mentioned. The legislation has to do with political contributions, not speech.

This shall not be allowed

[samantha]

Surely the people will not allow the very freedom to communicate and do so widely and instaneously that my generation of geeks worked hard to produce - this generation and ours shall not suffer this great gift to be shut down because it worries those in power. They have reason to be worried because they have done evil things. Now they have even more to be worried about because they are threaetenig to silence the people. They act as if the Net and the Web is their property. They are not. They are the property of the people.

I never thougt to see in my time this awful mixture of great evil from politicians and the people making excuses as to why removing their freedom is just fine. Is their no level of political evil and spitting malice from our supposed servants that will cause us to stand up in masse for freedom, for justice, for our lives, for anything? Are we rotten and empty to the core?

Re:You knew this was coming...

[LMariachi]

Why don't you specifiy what "abuse" is taking place here? Whose rights to do what are being curtailed? Whose free speech is being restricted?

Re:Not suprising at all

[learn fast]

make judges pay a price for usurping the lawmaking powers that are NOT the province of judges.

Judges cannot write laws. They never could.

So what's happening?

The GOP talking points now dictate that what used to be called "judicial review" or "separation of powers" should now be called "judicial activism" or "legislating from the bench."

It's really an homage to the power of words. All you have to do is call it "legislating" and people actually think that judges are out there writing laws. It's fucking absurd, pardon my french.

Judges have not "usurped" lawmaking powers. This is an absurdity. Judges have not and cannot write laws. All that's happened is some Republican media mouthpieces started calling Constitutionally-denoted judicial review lawmaking. That's the only thing that's changed. Judges have done not adopted any new practices of extra-constitutionally writing laws. Let's not even mention that the executive branch would also have to be extra-constitutionally enforcing these pseudo-laws -- Funny how this "separation of powers" stuff works.

See, the problem is that separation of powers gets in the way of real power -- power that the Constitution incidentally forbids. Three branches of government, checks and balances and whatnot. Apparently that all means nothing if a few propagandists changed their wording slightly.

But, let's forget all of that. What I really want to know is what exactly you mean by making judges "pay a price". What are you going to to, kick their ass? Arrest them? What?

Please fill me in. I eagerly await further enlightenment.

Re:No internet or blog mention in the whole ordina

[FeloniousPunk]

I wish I had 10 dollars a day for lunch.

That's the problem with those of us that oppose Bush. We are poor.

Mmmhmmm. I'm sure it has a lot to do with how the Democrats raised about as much money as the Republicans in this election.

And that's not even counting 527 money, which the Democrats raised more of than the Republicans by a factor of about 10.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[bigsteve@dstc]

Right?

In this context, a blogger's right to privacy is trumped by the public's right to know if a political statement made in the context of an election is genuine. Without this, it is just too easy for some scumbag to subvert the democratic process by making outrageous claims in a blog a few days before the polls.

Re:Just goes to show...

[tohmeiphun]

Actually, Massachusetts isn't very liberal anymore. It's more like there are very strong liberal "pockets", mostly around the major cities. The majority of the state is conservitive.

Re:Not suprising at all

[grylnsmn]

Try rereading that bill that you quoted.

It doesn't say that it would be a crime to not acknowledge God. It says that the courts are blocked from having jurisdiction over matters concerning a government entity or representative expressing that view (that God is the source of our laws and/or rights, something that is at least partially expressed in the Declaration of Independence).

Similarly, the title of the bill is appropriate for the rest of the contents. Look at it again. It instructs the courts that they cannot look to foreign rulings, treaties, etc. The only exception to that is to look to our own legal historical tradition (i.e. US legal rulings back to the founding of the US, and English rulings predating that).

Any other source of interpretation would be extra-jurisdictional. That actually makes sense. Why? If you want to know what a law means in Virginia, you don't look to the laws in California. You look to the history of Virginia to see the context in which it was passed, and what the language was understood to mean.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[dangitman]

It is unfair, because it singles out a form of free expression as a form of speech that requires regulation.

Please tell me where the actual proposed legislation singles out blogs.

Re:You knew this was coming...

[Lord Kano]

Why don't you specifiy what "abuse" is taking place here? Whose rights to do what are being curtailed? Whose free speech is being restricted?

The people who are now required to "register" to exercise their right to free speech.

LK

Regulate what?

[Tablizer]

At first i read it as "SF wants to regulate nagging", and i was about to cheer my ass off

Re:You knew this was coming...

[dangitman]

Conservatives were screaming from the rooftops about how "Campaign Finance Reform", specifically McCain-Feingold.

Hang on, isn't McCain both a Republican and a conservative? He was trying to get the bill passed. It's even named after him. He wasn't shouting from the rooftops against it. He was shouting for it. Is someone only a conservative if you decide they are?

Re:Not suprising at all

[dangitman]

Sen Feingold is a Democrat and Sen McCain is whatis known as a RINO (republican In Name Only)

Are you seriously suggesting McCain is not a conservative? In fact, he is considered by many, a truer conservative than the current bunch of neoconservative radicals like Wolfowitz.

Would you grant the opposing side the same liberties? I am sure you are happy to scream about so-called "liberal" candidates who do stupid shit, but aren't actually "true" conservatives. So, who decides who is a "real" conservative or liberal?

And, if McCain is not really a true conservative, then why don't the Republicans kick him out already? You don't think it might have something to do with opportunism, and the number of votes he gets for Republicans, do you?

You also easily excuse Bush from agreeing to this as being pragmatic. Would you cut a "liberal" the same slack, or is this just a double-standard?

Re:You knew this was coming...

[Lord Kano]

McCain is a Republican, but he's no conservative.

At least he's not a social conservative. He's "pro choice" and in favor of gun control.

He's a RINO. (Republican In Name Only)

LK

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[Ralph Spoilsport]

What is the problem with registering?

Because I do not feel one should have to register with the government to engage in personal political speech acts.

An organisation, such as a union or coporation is a "fictional" entity, who's entire existence is tightly wrapped up with the state. I am not a fictional entity. My existential fact as a human precedes whatever I do as a human being. A corporation or a union does not exist prior to what it does.

Therefore, it falls outside the circle of human consideration and can therefore be regulated as much as we choose. utterances by people, however, are quite different. If someone says something and is in the pay of a corporation or union, this has no bearing on their right to express their political view.

It's like the KKK - they can say "White People Rule" etc, but when they go advocating bodily harm etc., the ycross the line, both as an organisation and as private citizens.

Free Speech matters.

RS

Re:You knew this was coming...

[LMariachi]

The people who are now required to "register" to exercise their right to free speech.

Which is exactly no one.

Re:Not suprising at all

[NatteringNabob]

>His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.

Are we talking about George 'I love the Constitution so much I lock people up for 3 years without charges and without access to an attorney' W. Bush? Here is what those wacko ultra-liberal Democrats (NOT!) at the Cato Insitute have to say about it http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-21-03.html/

Are are we talking about the George W. 'I love free speech so much I have the secret service arrest people that try to ruin my photo opportunities' Bush? http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/bursey-ds c-d95.html/

Or are we talking about the guy that wanted to ammend the Consitution to prohibit one particular form of free speech, not so much because he actually cared (because deep down in side, he cares about nothing) but because he wanted to pander to the anti-liberty wing of the Republican party http://www.patridiots.com/000875.html/

Or are we talking about the George W. 'Pass the religious Bigotry and Homophobia act of 2005 and my signature will be on it tomorrow' http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/24/elec04.p rez.bush.marriage/ Bush?

Whatever else he is, W. is no fan of the Consitution as it is today, and certainly no fan of liberty. But hey, that's OK, he has a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle. Nobody in the last 100 years has proposed an Amendment to give people more freedom, we only seem to get amendments to take freedom away.

in communist san francisco...

[torrents]

freaks can do whatever they want... but "normal people" with opinions need to fill out disclosure forms...

somebody call the governator!!!

That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Julian Morrison]

The 1st amendment is about freedom of speech, which congress may not abridge, period. Any damn thing you want to say, no ifs ands or buts. So, all the crap about commercial and political speech has basically been tacked on illegally afterward, by a politically compliant judiciary, to allow the FedGov to "regulate" far beyond its defined remit.

BTW, free speech isn't a right because of the constitution - it's in the constitution because it's a right! (Oh, and guns likewise, might as well mention while I'm already up on the soapbox ;-)

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[MillionthMonkey]

The 1st amendment is about freedom of speech, which congress may not abridge, period. Any damn thing you want to say, no ifs ands or buts.

This is an absolutist view of "free speech" that is actually common on Slashdot, but doesn't make much sense in the real world. Think about what you're saying- any damn thing you want to say, no ifs and or buts. Such an interpretation would permit death threats. It would grant Constitutional protection to bribery and scams. It would undermine verbal contracts. It would prohibit laws against slander and libel. And it would grant Constitutional protection to spam- those idiots who post First Amendment arguments in every spam thread would have a point.

Which is ironic- such an absolutist definition of free speech is ahistorical for the US, to say the least.

So, all the crap about commercial and political speech has basically been tacked on illegally afterward, by a politically compliant judiciary, to allow the FedGov to "regulate" far beyond its defined remit.

This really part of a larger discussion about the two competing views of the Constitution: as a "living document" or a "dead document". The debate concerns how much to rely on "strict constructionism", which ostensibly relies on the original intent of the poeple who actually wrote the Constitution, versus relying on an understanding based on evolving values and meanings, as applied by case law. The "living document" view has prevailed over most of the past 200 years, but recently the "dead document" position has come into vogue, advanced principally by Scalia, and vigorously promoted by many who praise it for consistency- but who may in fact be aiming to remove power from the judiciary, the only remaining branch of government still not under their influence.

The US Constitution is a Case-Law Constitution. That gives it the advantage of flexibility. It is also a very brief Constitution. Its brevity is one of its greatest weaknesses, as well as a source of strength. For example it is the oldest Constitution for its age in the world. But the brevity requires significant interpretation. Courts are put in the position, for example, of having to determine whether the First Amendment protects nudie bar dancing. If you feel that a right should not exist unless it is specifically mentioned in the Constitution, or if you get upset about "liberal activist judges", you are probably sympathetic to the "dead document" interpretation. Nudie bars are mentioned nowhere on the actual parchment.

This view has certain advantages. First of all there is consistency. It removes discretion from individual judges, by forbidding the very function that Article III mandates that they do- interpret the Constitution. (Effectively, Congress would unofficially take over this job.)

However, it has the disadvantage of being false on its face. The mechanism for the citizenry to amend the Constitution is written right into it. As can be seen in contemporaneous writings, it was obvious that members of the Convention expected, and even hoped, that the Constitution would not be a static document, but that it would be amended by the people through legal means, sometimes as Constitutional amendments, and often as the result of judicial challenges (to refute the concept of "activist judges"). For example many members of the convention would obviously have been thrilled to see that there is no longer slavery in the US. This despite language in the Constitution explicitly discussing the international sale of slaves.

BTW, free speech isn't a right because of the constitution - it's in the constitution because it's a right!

Truer words never spoken.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[mmeister]

Silly rabbit -- the interpretation of the Constitution that says you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater or that you can't say "Kill the " to incite a riot is not "illegal". It could, maybe, be viewed as unconstitutional.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The amendment does not say "Congress shall make no law abridging speech", just the "freedom of speech".

So is requiring a disclosure of who paid for your "opinion" an abridgment of freedom of speech? I don't think so. It doesn't dictate what you can and cannot say. I think it benefits the American people to know.

Otherwise, you could have some radical right-wing political element create a news channel and claim it is "fair and balanced" and deem everyone who doesn't agree with them a "liberal". We wouldn't want that sort of thing to happen in this country.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Muad'Dave]

...whether the First Amendment protects nudie bar dancing.

You seem quite well-read on the history of things Constitutional. Perhaps you can give me a little history on how "Freedom of Speech" became "Freedom of Expression". I lean toward "dead document" interpretation, and it chafes me greatly every time I hear someone scream about their non-existent right of "freedom of expression". My guess is one of the aforementioned activist judges decided that speech wasn't just spoken words, but anything else they wanted it to mean.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[mzieg]

> > Such an interpretation would permit death threats.
>
> Wrong.
>
> [snip]
>
> Any judge who tries to make a distinction needs to be killed.

Ah-hmm. I can see why you feel such antipathy for people who exercise "judgment" to make "distinctions" :-)

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Darby]

I lean toward "dead document" interpretation, and it chafes me greatly every time I hear someone scream about their non-existent right of "freedom of expression".

Then you clearly do not understand a damn thing about the issue.

You do have a right to free expression. The constitution doesn't grant rights. It limits government powers.
The rights in the Bill of Rights were tacked on as an afterthought because a few people (who were considered paranoid at the time) pushed for them because they predicted that there would be people like you.
Most of the framers didn't think it would be necessary to explicitly spell them out since the power to deny those rights was never granted to the government.

This should be clear to a dead document type as well (since it is explicitly spelled out), had you actually ever read it instead of repeating some moronic crap you heard somewhere.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[MillionthMonkey]

Sending e-mails advertising a product is free speech. Flooding e-mail servers is akin to vandalism.

Free speech and vandalism are not mutually exclusive. Graffiti may carry a Constitutionally protected message, but the paint on the wall makes it vandalism no matter what the graffiti says.

I just had to repost this at +2:

Amendment I makes no distinction between political and commercial speech, and back when it was written, there was plenty of commercial speech.

Any judge who tries to make a distinction needs to be killed.

For supporting laws banning false or misleading advertising? This was a precedent set in 1942.

Even on Slashdot, these people are now getting so emboldened as to openly call for the assassination of judges.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Jim Logajan]

The heart of the matter, in my very humble opinion, is whether someone is victimized by the speech - deprived of life, or property, for example. If that can be answered in the affirmative, then the law is probably constitutional. If it can't, then it isn't constitutional. Does refusing to disclose the source of who paid for some political "speech" create a victim? Not by any standard I would consider reasonable. But if non-disclosure leads to fines or jail time - then said persons are being punished for certain forms of speech. The most telling reason to suspect campaign finance laws as bad law is to ask whether the U.S. was able to exist without them. And history says YES!

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Muad'Dave]

You do have a right to free expression. The constitution doesn't grant rights. It limits government powers.

I understand that concept fully. The only power of the government in this context that is limited is the restriction of "Speech". The government can therefore limit other forms of expression as it sees fit. (Public nudity, etc). According to google, there are 2,010,000 hits for "freedom of expression" and 2,410,000 hits for "freedom of speech". Clearly it is a oft-repeated tag line.

Again I ask, when did the 1st amendment begin to be applied to forms of expression other than speech?

It appears that the US Supreme Court now calls it "Freedom of Expression". The earliest citation I could find was from a 1921 Supreme Court case.

Any insightful comments on how the expression and concept of "freedom of expression" crept into our legal lexicon?

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Darby]

Again I ask, when did the 1st amendment begin to be applied to forms of expression other than speech?

You're missing the point.
The first amendment doesn't really mean anything.
It was just put in as an afterthought because some people figured that even with it clearly spelled out that the extent of the powers of the government were those specifically granted in the constitution.

The fact is that you have freedom of speech, freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and pretty much every other right or freedom you care to make up provided it doesn't infringe on those of others.

You seem to think that the purpose of the constitution is to grant you rights, and that is completely wrong.

You already have those rights.
The Bill of Rights are merely those that were seen as so important that they needed to be explicitly listed.

As to why First Amendment defenses are used in cases where people were doing something besides just talking in words, my guess would be that the point of freedom of speech is to allow people to *express* ideas.

Speech is just one form of expression. If you took this too literally, then writing, sign language, or anything except talking wouldn't be covered.
Again, it is really beside the point in an ideal situation, snce nothing gives the government the right to limit any of those things or any other form of expression in the first place.

The situation is far from ideal however, as demonstrated by the fact that there are so many cases that even have to mention any of the amendments.

Were our government made up of people who were anything but scum, then it never would have happened because they wouldn't make any flat out treasonous (IMHO) laws that even come close to going against the Bill of Rights.

It seems like you feel that they have the right to restrict anything that they want unless it's specifically denied them in the Bill of Rights. That sounds really odd coming from somebody who claims to be a strict constructionist, so maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

It won't pass, or if it does, it won't last

[Aqua OS X]

As a resident, I'm not betting on this ordinance passing or lasting. I know the "conservative" slashdoters are getting their kicks in by making fun of our seemingly "oppressive" city. But stuff like this rarely passes or hangs around for very long.

Like every major city, stupid city ordinances get proposed. But the public learns about them, and they are remedied. You can't have 3/4 of a million people living in one place and expect EVERY proposed city ordinance to be pure gold.

Some crazy computer-less hippy probably proposed this. He will be dealt with accordingly. Go about your business.

Re:Loyalty Fee? +5 funny! mod up!

[mizhi]

The difference is that blogs (taken as a whole) are self-correcting because there are so many eyes on. Old media isn't.

unfounded assumptions

[idlake]

People who support these types of laws must remember they are a double edge sword that can and will cut both ways. Your particular political opinions may be supported for the time being with such laws and those you disagree with suppressed.

That's a load of unfounded assumptions. Where is there any indication that this law "suppresses" any speech, let alone speech of any particular kind?

What this appears to attempt to do is to get people to disclose what amounts to political advertising in blogs. That seems perfectly reasonable: we have such disclosures for other kinds of political advertising as well. Requiring disclosure of astroturfing would be particularly important; it's too bad that this law probably won't have enough teeth to achieve that.

If you have any support for your assertion that this selectively restricts free speech, please share it with us. Otherwise, your rant is just unfounded.

Re:unfounded assumptions

[aztracker1]

not using mod points on this.. however, it isn't that it suppresses any speech, note I haven't read the legislation, but my understanding is that blogging services which blog about political things, are required to disclose funding to/for the site (like the site exists as a campaign gift or something).. does that mean that if say CBS does a friendly story on say Senator Clinton, they have to disclose their ad revenues for that show, as "campaign spending"? that is seriously in question here...

I'm not saying that this particular piece of legislation does that or not... but, imho there are already laws regarding slander/libel, that could protect a person from the other side... if what is being reported is the truth, then it is protected speach.. if it is opinion, and their opinion, and stated as such.. it is protected speech.. plain and simple.

Requiring someone who wants to print some fliers that express their views, and pass them out somewhere to "register" and potentially "PAY" for that registration, and going a step further, making any money spend to be considered campaign spending for views/parties supported by the flier author's opinions, is obsurd.

Re:Electoral college and more

[Anonymous Coward]

They were not scared of the "average person", they were scared of the majority. Those are not the same thing. Many average people, in the intelligence/political savvy sense, fall outside the majority. This was also not the primary reason for the electoral college... it was an easy way to get appropriate representation, including representation for non-voters and states per se as significant entitities.

The rest is roughly true if you are a consequentialist about politics. If you take a principled approach, however, then you aren't basing your political opinions on what you think will accomplish the kind of society you want. Government becomes an oppressor the minute it goes beyond protection of individual rights. Therefore, what society is like is no business of government.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[amliebsch]

Without this, it is just too easy for some scumbag to subvert the democratic process by making outrageous claims in a blog a few days before the polls.

You can take away my human right to make outrageous claims when you pry my keyboard from my cold, dead, hands.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[bigsteve@dstc]

You can take away my human right to make outrageous claims when you pry my keyboard from my cold, dead, hands.

Actually ... I was planning to stun you with a brilliant riposte, then reach through your screen to wrench your keyboard from your twitching fingers and beat you to death with it :-).

Slashdot Telephone Game

[ortcutt]

This story was obviously put through the Slashdot Telephone Game. Someone proposes a City Ordinance. Someone misunderstands what is proposed and posts an inflammatory article. Someone sees this article and posts it to Slashdot without bothering to read the original proposed City Ordinance. Then a lot of people who also didn't read the proposed City Ordinance have a fight about the merits of proposals which have never been proposed. Par for the course for this place. Thank you, learn fast, I'm glad that there are some people who actually read the relevant stuff before posting. Has the internet made people so lazy that they can't click on a link and read the freakin' proposal?

Re:Slashdot Telephone Game

[mzieg]

Then a lot of people who also didn't read the proposed City Ordinance have a fight about the merits of proposals which have never been proposed. Par for the course for this place.

Point taken, but I don't see this as an entirely bad thing.

People post about what is close to their heart. The proposal touched on some issues which are very dear to some people. They're taking this opportunity to make plain to all those politicians who read Slashdot (hah) -- or rather, the bloggers and commentators who do read Slashdot -- the depth and intensity of their convictions.

It's a way of saying, "Hey, you're getting mighty close to my personal space; how about backin' off a few paces?" It's good to sound off and sound the depths of the waters you're navigating. Maybe this particular proposal is still in the shallows, but it's veering uncomfortably close to dark chasms where we really don't want to go.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[bigsteve@dstc]

If someone says something and is in the pay of a corporation or union, this has no bearing on their right to express their political view.

And the proposed regulation does not take this right away from you!! What it tries to do is to force you to reveal whether or not you are in the pay of someone else. The public has a right to know this. In the same way that the public has a right to know when an supposedly independent research report on smoking has been secretly funded by the tobacco industry.

God, sex, and corporations.

[cfalcon]

I like the posts that say "Oh, this doesn't matter much, it'll only effect you if you mention a candidate running for local office.".

Oh, ok. It's only regulateable speech if it's about something that matters. You can say "flowers are pretty" all day long!

I don't see how this doesn't violate free speech in unspeakable ways. Scream people, this is *worse* than the DMCA.

I think what bugs me the most is that the way speech used be "regulated" here in the US is that you couldn't talk about sex except with innuendo, and you couldn't talk about God unless you had something nice to say. Now those two aren't nearly as taboo, but the Supreme Court checked off the ability to regulate political speech, technical speech is regulateable under patents and the DMCA (recall that software is inherently speech), and people are really leery of mentioning brand names in ways that haven't been vetted by a team of lawyers.

Hence corporations: the new gods. Want to say "Wal*Mart sucks?" Sure, you'll have a case if they attack you. And they almost certainly won't. But, they can conceivably attack you- that's the problem.

Scientology sort of proves the point, with many of their amazing lawsuits.

Re:You knew this was coming...

[Lord Kano]

You are correct. The vote has not yet been taken. The fact that it was even discussed is mind boggling to me.

LK

Re:You knew this was coming...

[LMariachi]

Even should this ordinance become law, there will still be no one who is required to register in order to exercise their right to free speech.

After solving all other problems...

[t_allardyce]

So when is someone going to fix the real election issue - ie when entire companies, their employees and their employees kids all **donate** the maximum $1000 each? what about pushing that limit down to $1 and see if political parties can just get their message across without some stupid dumbed down air-time, is politics ever going to be about the issues instead of about knee-jerk reactions and stupid catch-phrases like 'flip-flopping' and 'desertion'

Ah never mind, im sure this will work great too!

Re:After solving all other problems...

[tomstdenis]

"is politics ever going to be about the issues instead of about knee-jerk reactions"...

Them's fightin words!

The truth of the matter is people look for status quo. Mostly civil servants are the ones who make anything "government related" work. It's not the senators/governors/etc...

So given that politicians don't really do any work [of substance] and are so devoid of conviction they're just going to say whatever they can do get elected.

What they really should do is make a law where commercials/print ads must

1. Have links to sources that are legible [e.g. people, phone numbers, email, urls, etc]

2. ACTUALLY BE LITERALLY TRUE.

I dunno how many times there was a "truth" and then the implications were not brought up.

So maybe there should be a third

3. If you're going to say something give context.

Tom

Re:Not suprising at all

[Kohath]

The other guy pointed out that you misread the law. All it says is that acknowledgement of God is OK and the courts can't say otherwise.

What do you have against God anyway? Did he make all the bristles fall out of your toothbrush or something?

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[Kohath]

It is unfair, because it singles out a form of free expression as a form of speech that requires regulation. Pure Hate Speech and shouting fire in a theatre are regulated free expression. Blogs have no business being regulated like that.

"Pure Hate Speech and shouting fire in a theatre" have no business being regulated either. Free speech is either free or it isn't.

Also, "unfair"? Since when is anything fair? For me, things stopped being fair when I was about 10 years old. I've long maintained that the difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives grew up. Save the "but it's not faaaaair!" stuff for the 3rd grade, ok?

I feel the same way about gun rights

[ccmay]

Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.

Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.

None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.

Right you are.

And the same goes for the right to keep and bear arms. Pass any law you want. I would kill, or die, to defend my right to be armed, and that outweighs any worthless piece of paper.

The survival of freedom depends entirely on the willingness of people to resist their government, preferably non-violently, but with armed violence if necessary.

-ccm

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Anonymous Coward]

It should. That attitude is why you don't speak German.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Joe U]

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Reads to me like you have the right to join a well regulated militia. Not the right for any yahoo to amass a stockpile of weapons and go on a shooting spree.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[tgrigsby]

I would kill, or die, to defend my right to be armed, and that outweighs any worthless piece of paper.

Ok, I pick "die."

You don't have a right to be armed. You have a right to protect yourself. Weapons are, in this context, a tool to that end. But the "right to bear arms" Amendment had to do with militias, not individuals. And while you are busy preparing to resist your government violently, ask yourself this: how many times have we had to overthrow our government since the United States' inception?

Once.

The Civil War was such a war, and it wasn't waged by individuals. It was waged by states, as any serious attempt would be to throw off the shackles of oppression, real or imagined.

In the mean time, how many times a DAY do those same weapons get turned against the general population in the commission of crimes? Dozens? Hundreds? Yeah, something like that. So tell me again what right was secured, because I'm just not seeing it.

You assume that because you have a gun you are safer. But you would have to carry that gun around day to day, in your hand, at the ready to shoot whatever threat came your way, and -- news flash -- this isn't the Old West. Even the west isn't the Old West anymore.

I've got some good friends that believe fervently that they have a right to purchase weaponry ad nauseum, and a couple of them do, but not one has convinced me they are safer for having made that investment. What they have convinced me of is that they don't like the government telling them what they can and can't do. I have some other friends that feel just as deeply about legalizing drugs. The arguments are similar and boil down to self-determination.

But don't wave the Second Amendment around as your battle flag. It does not give you, as an individual, a right to arm yourself to the teeth.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[brianber]

So, why have the first part if it's not related to the second?

Because when the Bill of Rights was written "militia" meant any able-bodied adult male. This country wouldn't exist as it does today without citizens with their privately owned firearms fighting the British.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[brianber]

So, the phrase "right of the people," means the state? Or, is that only when followed by: "to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," but when followed by: "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," they mean an individual right? Am I understanding this correctly? I get confused when we change the definition of a phrase within the same document.

In the mean time, how many times a DAY do those same weapons get turned against the general population in the commission of crimes? Dozens? Hundreds? Yeah, something like that.

Care to site you source, or is that just the typical hysteria fomented by Handgun Control Inc. and their friends? I challenge you come up with and cite a statistic to back-up that claim that doesn't come from any "gun safety" or "gun control" group.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. government has been overthrown roughly 42 times so far. You get the chance every 4 years.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[StupidKatz]

In the mean time, how many times a DAY do those same weapons get turned against the general population in the commission of crimes? Dozens? Hundreds? Yeah, something like that.

Care to site you source, or is that just the typical hysteria fomented by Handgun Control Inc. and their friends? I challenge you come up with and cite a statistic to back-up that claim that doesn't come from any "gun safety" or "gun control" group.

... and then contrast it with a list of crimes committed using knives, bats, and fists. Perhaps we should start banning muscles.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Tassach]

Reads to me like you have the right to join a well regulated militia.

I suggest you read Federalist 29, Concerning the Militia, if you have any doubt as to what the Founding Fathers meant by the words "well-regulated":

To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.

It's crystal clear that the historical context of "Well regulated" means "trained and equipped".

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god you couldn't be more wrong if your tried.

OK you were right in that the amendment had to do with mailita's but after that one point you fairly jump off the path and run screaming off the cliff.

To properly read the amendment it's neseccary to look back at how our nation got to the the point of being a nation.

In that the first 2 years of the revolution our forces were made up of malitia's who supplied their own weapons with which to fight off the british as the founding fathers had no weapons or weapons stockpiles with which to supply they with said arms. Nor would they have for 2 years which is how long it took to put together the continental army for washington to command to continue the fight.

So the founding fathers acknowledged this in the right to bear arms first by saying that militia's are neseccary to the defence of states and then by saying since people are neseccary to mailitia's that their right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed since back then as stated the people was were the milita's weapons came from. And in some milita's today it's still were their weapons come from their members.

AS for how many times a day a weapon or as in the contexts of your statements a gun gets used against people to commit crimes. I would submit a gun isn't neseccary or needed to commit these same crimes just that it tends to be more reported to the general public than other means of commiting crimes. Like in the hockey dad instants no gun or knife or other artifical weapon was used but the one father is just as dead having been beaten to death by the other hockey father. As another poster said should we ban musceles as well?

Personally i don't have a gun nor do i use drugs legal or otherwise but that doesn't mean im against the right to bear arms. No one not even you knows what the future will bring so it's at least concievable that one day the people of this land may again owe their safty and protection to people with their own guns. I didn't say they would just that it's concievable.

Just because we have an army and national guard now doesn't mean we should get rid of that extra line of defence. Yes without it their wouldn't be any crimes being commited with legal handguns but ilegal handgun crimes would still continue but only the crooks would be armed as they could easly get them on the blackmarket have them smuggled in across boarders or even under boarders as in was instance where drugs were being smuggled into the us via a tunnel running between two houses on either side of the mexican us boarder.

As for the battle flag crack Please i wont even diginfy that statement.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Cryptnotic]

How about if you stop criticising us for helping the enemies of our enemies?

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[tgrigsby]

"In 2001, there were 29,573 gun-related deaths in the United States--or about 80 deaths per day. Firearm deaths represent 1 of every 5 injury deaths in the U.S."
-- John Hopkins University, http://www.jhsph.edu/gunpolicy/US_factsheet_2004.p df

"Key Statistics: On average per year, only one percent of actual or attempted victims of violent crime (62,200) use a firearm in an attempt to defend themselves. Another 20,300 use a firearm in an attempt to defend their property during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft. Conversely, victims report an annual average of about 341,000 incidents of firearm theft. In 1992 offenders armed with handguns committed a record 931,000 violent crimes."
-- "Handgun Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft" by Michael R. Rand, Crime Data Brief, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 1994

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[mbrinkm]

You do know that "regulated" means well armed, right?

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[engywook]

I'm not quite sure what language the parent article was in. It appeared to be similar enough to English that I thought I would take a stab at translation. I do not necessarily agree or disagree. Just performing a public service. :-)

Oh, God! You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

OK. You were right, in that the amendment had to do with militias, but after that one point you fairly jump off the path and run screaming off the cliff.

To properly read the amendment, it's necessary to look back at how our nation got to the the point of being a nation.

In the first 2 years of the revolution, our forces were made up of militias that supplied their own weapons with which to fight against the British, as the founding fathers had no weapons or weapon stockpiles with which to supply them. Nor would they have for 2 years, which is how long it took to put together the continental army for Washington to command to continue the fight.

So, the founding fathers acknowledged this in the right to bear arms, first by saying that militias are necessary to the defense of states. Then, by saying that since people are necessary to militias, their right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed because, as stated, the people were where the militias' weapons came from. In some militias today, it's still where the weapons come from -- their members.

As for how many times a day a weapon or (as you state) a gun gets used to commit crimes against people, I would submit that a gun isn't necessary to commit these crimes. It is just that gun crime tends to be more reported to the general public than crimes committed by other means. For example, let's take the hockey dad incident. No gun or knife or other artifical weapon was used, but one father is just as dead, having been beaten to death by the other father. As another poster said, should we ban muscles as well?

Personally I don't have a gun, nor do I use drugs (legal or otherwise). But that doesn't mean that I'm against the right to bear arms. No one, not even you, knows what the future will bring. So, it's at least conceivable that, one day, the people of this land may again owe their safety and protection to people who do own guns. I didn't say they would -- just that it's conceivable.

Just because we have an Army and National Guard now doesn't mean we should get rid of that extra line of defense. Yes, without it, there wouldn't be any crimes commited with legal handguns. But illegal handgun crimes would continue. Only the crooks would be armed, as they could easily get arms on the black market, have them smuggled in across borders, or even under borders (as in the instance where drugs were being smuggled into the U.S. via a tunnel running between two houses on either side of the Mexican / U.S. border).

As for the battle flag crack, PLEASE! I won't even diginfy that statement.

Re:Not suprising at all

[blue7th]

The link to Patridiots Watch shouldn't have a trailing slash. It should be http://www.patridiots.com/000875.html .

Liberal thumb-suckers cower before Karl Rove

[ccmay]

How do we know the republicans didnt stuff Dan Rather bad info, just to expose him on some blog?

I am really glad that this meme is taking root among the liberal chowderheads. It exposes their lame, vacuous intellects, stokes their feelings of marginalization and powerlessness, and reinforces the reputation of the omnipotent Karl Rove. As a hard-right extremist, I couldn't ask for anything better.

Keep it up, you thumb-sucking, bed-wetting little pussies!

-ccm

Re:Liberal thumb-suckers cower before Karl Rove

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

ah... a fine example of what our country has begun. How very christian of you.

I'm sure God is proud of what you've become and how you treat the rest of his children.

next law to be voted on

[noamsml]

a proposal that all persons using pen and pencil shall be required to register with the ethics commitee and report all paper-and-pencil related costs which exceed 1000$. moreover, if they mention the name of a candidate to the local office and write more than 500 words, they must pay a fee.

San Francisco of all places?

[mlopes]

What a place for that to happen!

What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy?

I blame 'bloggers'

[tod_miller]

I cannot bring to words how much contempt I have for the 'blogging' phenomenon, in todays world where protocols are attacked (torrents / p2p / http - same thing, but if you label yourself you can be a target) people have labelled 'putting information on the intarweb' 'blogging' because everything is a blog nowwadays.

When are the movies out? check the movie blog. WRONG, it isn't a log, it is a news article with a forward thinking measure.

I also hate the endless endless agregation, why even link to engaydget.com from slashdot whenthey are blogging about the same thing that /. is aggregating?

Damn damn damn. bah. *exasperating lack of ability to voice contempt for blogging* (except blogs that are retrospective personal logs - not just blogs for the same of link/comment/spam/$$$/whoring - and only those because they are really web logs)

Re:I blame 'bloggers'

[adzoox]

I have switched the majority of my site [jackwhispers.com] to a blogger BLOG [jackwhispers.blogspot.com]. It's been a way for my site to grow easily. It's also easy to gain revenue from BLOGs that otherwise might not have been successful. I also can post small or insignificant posts that relate to my site's content, get reader feedback, and allow people who disagree with my editorials to return comment.

Your engadget reference is a good example of this ... until someone here on slashdot pointed it out to me, I didn't realize that Weblogs Inc was formed for the specific purpose of generating ads on BLOGs. Engadget is such a BLOg and the most successful of Weblogs Inc ventures.

gee, if only somebody had known ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

It seems that 'campaign finance reform' is turning out to be the biggest Trojan Horse in the campaign to regulate free speech.

I seem to remember some of us fat cat theocrat Republicans warning you about this ...

Re:You knew this was coming...

[mute47]

Oh, common! Prove them slashdot haters wrong, and RTFA (ordinance actually). This is a modification to campaign finance rules declaring that any payments to bloggers above $1000 by a candidate should be declared, and the blogger in question should be required to disclose this in his posts. The registration is for the candidate who pays the blogger. Sheesh....and I thought you disliked astroturfing (wich seems to be the target here).

People's Republic of San Francisco....

[Pxtl]

Can I moderate the blurb "flamebait"?

Darn the liberal media

[fprefect]

CBS and others are pissed because now their job, getting the story RIGHT, has suddenly become that much more difficult with people who are both knowledgable in such matters AND able to make that knowledge widely known.

Despite all the conspiracy theories about the "liberal media", for the most part they report stories factually -- there have only been a handful of cases where the facts don't pan out in public.
Count all of the cases (Rathergate, NYTimes, etc) and you're talking well over 99% accuracy.

Compare that to bloggers like Drudge, who repost rumors and hypothesize stories by the handful only hoping to hit an occasional truth. On the Internet, even a 50% success rate is great, and political pandering and bias ensure a steady stream of advertising.

Now, I'm not saying all Internet bloggers and fact-checkers are bogus, but I am saying that they aren't held to the same standards as the professionals in the "traditional media". Instead, I prefer to think that blogging works rather like open source software -- thousands of eyes (or voices) make many problems shallow. I support the critical review of politics, media, etc as an important part of democracy, as well as anything that makes it easier for the masses.

Quite the free thinker!

[lysium]

Ah, the spectre of the Liberal Media rises again. Look, if you believe that the media is not "neutral" it is because society itself is not "neutral" in a way that pleases you. You want everyone to be more like you, so you complain fiercely when views other than your own are labelled "objective" or "neutral."

Go back to your think-tank talking points and find some that weren't penned decades again, O trollish one.

Oddly worded for a slashdot article about politics

[adzoox]

Very interesting how this article was carefully worded not to mention that REPUBLICANS ARE AGAINST CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM.

Campaign finance reform (which this post mentions may be the crux to limiting BLOGs) is mostly a democrat and republicrat (John McCain) idea and push. ...

Non-legislative approaches

[fprefect]

Campaigns are still free to say whatever they want through any venue they want, but they must disclose that they've spent money on these sites so you should take their gushing praise of the candidate with a grain of salt.

I think a better approach would be for "honest" sites to state their funding up front in a disclaimer... "this site is exclusively supported by commercial advertising", "this site is paid for by the author's personal funds", "this site is a corporate shill for MegaEvilCorp." It won't get rid of the phonies, but it will make it easier to pick them out. Now get some public-minded watchdog to maintain a list of known shills and hacks, and you start approaching a better solution without legislation.

Could be so simple, couldn't it?

[Pac]

One thing you should have mind is that, no matter what your local neocon operative is telling you, the Courts haven't suddenly started interpreting the Constitution because Clinton nominated a few dozens "terrorist" judges. It has always been the role of the higher courts.

Just for me to understand your line of thought, please define the words "establishment", "religion", "prohibiting", "free", "exercise", "abridging", "freedom", "speech", "press", "right", "people", "peaceably", "assemble", "petition", "Government", "redress", "grievances". For extra cookies, define both the meaning the Framers wanted them to have and the necessary adaptations to modern day. Note that I am noting trying to be difficult here - but that's what the courts are for...

Got to love the Nannies out there

[Visigoth21]

Most of the support for this Idea seams to come from those that are afraid that the reader will be fooled by incorrect or malicious information, usually with the assumption that there own view is by the power of there own exceptional intelect, unfettered. This is an expansive bit of intellectual arrogance. People are not the automations that the nanny's in our society assume everyone who is not as enlightened as themselves are, and will for the most part divine the truth when it is presented. How inconvenient for the nannies that the poor little lost sheep wish to make there own decisions. This kind of legistration for our own good of coures is always a disaster. But do not expect this to defer the nannies since In the Intellectual community of liberals an ideology's catastrophic failure in the practical arena merely demonstrates its Higher Truth to its anointed. And, more importantly, the anointed's ability to perceive that Higher Truth proves - to there own satisfaction, at least- their moral and intellectual superiority to the common people who allow themselves to be deceived by mere facts. Their right to control the lives of that common populace - for it's own good, of course- follows as their natural consequence. T.S. Eliot understood such people and their priorities. Writing in 1950, he said: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

Develop new technology.

[ElDuderino44137]

Effectivly nulling the new law ...

Develop new technology.
It will basicly do the same thing.
Just a little bit differently.

Law can not keep up with new industry buzz words.
If it could ...
We'd just have laws like.
Don't lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape.
And we'd be done.

-- The Dude

Mandated Log Retention Next?

[nurb432]

Next they will require that you retain all access logs forever.

Just in case a 'bad' person posts something unacceptable to the people in power, so they can track their ass down and harass/arrest them.

RTF Ordinance

[kokoloko]

Maybe I missed something but I looked at the ordinance here
And I think this article is extremely misleading.
IT DOES NOT REQUIRE BLOGGERS TO REGISTER.
It requires the spender of the $1000 or more for electioneering to report it.

If there is a line requiring these audits, could someone please point it out to me.

Rights vs. Privileges

[Tackhead]

> Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.
>Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
>None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.

An officer's gun pointed at your head when you refuse to pay your blogger's registration fees (or the fines for failure to pay your BRF), however, is pretty damn effective.

You have the privilege to speak. You have the right to remain silent.

Re:Rights vs. Privileges

[Tackhead]

> I'm not quite sure where you're going with the whole right/privilege distinction, either. It seems to me that a guy with a gun could compel you into being silent just as easily as he could compel you into talking, or, for that matter, clucking like a chicken, making amateur porn films, or pretty much anything else. That has no bearing on the rights and protections granted by the Constitution, or the manner in which they are enforced.

Where we differ is in what rights and protections are granted by the Constitution. I argue that "none at all" is a fair summation.

It may not be what the Framers intended, but it's what we've got. We're a nation of men, not a nation of laws. For proof, look to anything from the intellecutal property lawsuits (Mickey Mouse Protection Act, DMCA, Betamax precedent now under fire) to the Schiavo Circus two weeks ago.

I actually READ the ordinance...

[spiritraveller]

and yes, it is BAD. No, the slashdot summary is not misleading, it is dead on.

The ordinance defines "electioneering communication" as mentioning a specific candidate for city office within 90 days of the election.

It requires ANYONE engaging in "electioneering communication" to include in the communication "Paid for by ...".

It also requires anyone who spends more than $1000 a year on such communications to file a report with the city UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY.

There are exemptions for person to person conversation and for major media outlets, such as newspapers and tv news organizations. It is very clear that the ordinance covers bloggers.

Recent Supreme Court decisions have distinguished spending from speech. It seemed like a logical distinction at the time, but we now are seeing the results of that sort of thinking... There is no a HUGE loophole in the First Amendment. Any form of speech other than direct person to person communication requires spending at least a little money.

Oh well, 200 years of (mostly) Free Speech is better than anyone else has pulled off yet.

The problem stands as described

[Pac]

Unless you hold that the people who wrote the original text were omniscient, and therefore knew all the future, someone must interpret the text in modern terms.

Re:The problem stands as described

[scotch]

When the president and the congress decide that the president can start a war without an act of congress - I would call that "interpretation".

Proof as regards libel

[SeanDuggan]

Well, except that murder is murder. If you kill someone, you're up for murder. AFAIK, libel is only libel if its false, which can be a bit more difficult to prove. Not, of course, that there aren't grey areas in murder as well (But my wife wanted to die. She told me so years ago without witnesses.) but slander and libel generally require more proof that a crime took place in the first place, rather than clarifying whodunnit and whytheydunnit.

PRSF finally getting to you?

[chadseld]

They started by banning firearms. And before that measure has even been ratified, they turn to limiting free speech. Wake up people!

"Well-regulated militia"

[StupidKatz]

Let's assume for the moment that only 'well-regulated militia's can carry man-portable arms. I don't agree, but for the purposes of this argument, we will overlook that.

US Code, Title 10, Section 113 defines who the members of the "militia" are:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Hm. That would mean, at a bare minimum, any "able-bodied" male from 17-45 has the right to own a Glock 23, an AR-15, an M4A1, a Stinger missile, an M240 (perhaps not an M60), a bandolier of fragmentation grenades, satchel charges, etc. Anything portable by "a man".

Just in case you think the exception mentioned excludes a lot of folks:
(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard,
a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64
years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy,
Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for
reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.
(b) To be eligible for appointment as an officer of the National
Guard, a person must -
(1) be a citizen of the United States; and
(2) be at least 18 years of age and under 64.

As for your funky 'shooting spree' comment, we already have laws that cover murder, etc.; no need to imply that without infringing firearm rights, we'd be legally sanctioning such offenses.

Re:He is not well-read on things Constitutional

[mzieg]

The crap being peddled here is almost enough to make me actually register on Slashdot.

I keep using that word, "marketing." I do not think it means what I think it means.

I looked for knees jerking...

[snorklewacker]

... and found people reading the FA and having rational discourse on the various interpretations and implications of the proposal! What is slashdot coming to?!

I dislike repeating myself

[StupidKatz]

While you are wrong in regards to an individual's (not the states') God-given right to bear man-portable weapons, let's assume for the sake of the argument that you are actually correct.

Who is a member of the militia? US Code, Title 10, Section 113 defines who the members of the "militia" are:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

That would mean, at an absolute minimum, any "able-bodied" male from 17-45 has the right to own a Glock 23, an AR-15, an M4A1, a Stinger missile, an M240 (perhaps not an M60), a bandolier of fragmentation grenades, satchel charges, switchblade knife, laser gun, etc. Any man-portable weapon (e.g., an "arm").

Just in case you think the exception mentioned excludes a lot of folks:
(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard,
a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64
years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy,
Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for
reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.
(b) To be eligible for appointment as an officer of the National
Guard, a person must -
(1) be a citizen of the United States; and
(2) be at least 18 years of age and under 64.

*waves the Second Amendment around as a battle flag*

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Dear Asshat^H^H^H^H^H^HKohath:

It has to do with Legal Theory. Author's name: John Rawls. A law is considered a good law if it is Fair, Just and Reasonable. A bad law is one that is unfair, unjust and unreasonable.

Google on Rawls justice and find a wealth of information. After that crawl back under your rock you ignorant tard.

RS

Re:He is not well-read on things Constitutional

[Naomiah]

All right. Please explain to me how what he says does not comport with Marbury v. Madison. For instance.

Re:Not suprising at all

[overunderunderdone]

The problem is that currently the checks on judicial power are not being exercised.

Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 put the appellate power of the court (the power Judicial Review comes from) squarely under the thumb of congress. Congress can not only regulate the appellate function of the court it can provide EXEMPTIONS(!)

I think the court has managed to be enshrined in such an aura of ultimate authority on constitutional matters that people wouldn't even believe that Congress is given a carte-blanche power to over-rule the court. Unfortunately with that check on judicial power taken off the table the court is essentially completely unchecked...

And, I'm sorry. the current unchecked state of their power DOES in fact show up as usurpation of both legislative and executive powers at all levels of government. For instance: In specific school desegregation cases courts have taken over executive power to the point of dictating precise tax rates and structures and precisely how the subsequent funds are spent. Who knew that the Federal constitution dictated the tax rate of Kansas City? Apparently though it does.

The courts don't of course "write laws" but they do rule on them through the lens of broad, general principles (platitudes really) rather than through anything in the specific text of the constitution. The problem is that vague principles leave decisions entirely up to the discretion of the person making that judgment. That is why vague laws are stricken down by the courts... the leave too much to the discretion of the executive. Well, the courts are subject to the same perfectly human temptation when interpreting a vague directive. It's even worse with the courts because they were the ones that conjured the vague directive out of the specifics of the constitutional text in the first place. The courts don't have the check on themselves in this regard that the legislature has in the courts.

Given (by themselves) very broad principles that touch just about every possible issue, and are even likely to conflict with one another in many cases the judges have no reason to ever let a law they personally disagree with stand. It's very easy for their personal judgments about privacy, liberty, property, separation-of-powers and all the other words that appear in constitutional platitudes dictate decisions. A judge bound by a constitution should often find themselves in the position of saying of a law: "stupid and wrong but (sadly) constitutional" or even "Great law, but (sadly) unconstitutional". Our judges no longer seem capable of such restraint. The vagueness of the principles we find in "penumbras" and other loopholes mean never having to.

For the past ~40 years this dynamic has benefited liberals who have won policy victories in courts that they couldn't win at the ballot box. But there is no reason to think that this trend will continue and good reason to think that a tide is already turning NOT to the judicial restraint of strict constructionism but to a "conservative" version of the same creative interpretation using the exact same loopholes. Witness Bush v. Gore. The ends clearly dictated the "interpretation" of the constitution in that case rather than any consistent application of principle (never mind that quaint anachronism: the written constitution). But in that regard it was no worse than most influential court cases of the last 50 years, the only difference was whose ox was getting gored (sorry for the pun).

I think with the switch of just one supreme court justice we will find a new liberal appreciation for "strict constructionism" just as Republican domination of the federal government has led to the new liberal attitude towards states-rights.

Re:This is garbage

[Naomiah]

AC, your explanation of Marbury v.Madison is totally wack. I even double-checked my constitutional law outlines, and the holdings of the case. But you are all over the goddamn place, so it is hard to respond with a coherent argument.

The main holdings of Marbury v. Madison are that:
1) The Constitution establishes the fundamental and paramount law. Therefore, any act of the legislature that doesn't conform to it must be void by definition.
2) That the Judiciary is the ultimate interpretor of the Constitution and the law; if not, they would have to turn a blind eye to the legal foundation of the United States, that is, the Constitution, everytime a law in conflict with it was created by the Legislature.

If you are claiming that who has final say as to Constitutionality is not mentioned in the Constitution, you are correct. But since it is indeterminate, it was left up to the Judiciary to interpret what they felt the Constitution meant. Marshall made an assumption that the courts have the right to make the ultimate determination. But just as the Constitution doesn't name the Judiciary, nor does it name the other branches. There are practical reasons to think that Marshall's assumption was correct:
1) Federal judges, appointed for life, are free from day-to-day politicking (goes the story, at any rate).
2)The Legislature represents the majority, but the Constitution is designed to protect the minority, therefore it makes sense that intepretation would not fall to the Legislature, the most political branch of the government.

I have no idea where you got the idea that: "The initial view of how things would work is that determining what was and wasn't Constitutional woudl [sic] rest in all three branches of government (this was why Presidents before Andrew Jackson only vetoed bills they thought were unConstitutional: the original use of the veto power was for that purpose, and Jackson just decided he could veto bills he didn't like, and the language of the Constitution did not forbid it)."

If you are using Marbury as the foundation for this theory, you are pulling it out of thin air. I would like to know what text you are basing that on.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[bigsteve@dstc]

Why should I have to pay the government for the right to discuss politics?

And why should you pay taxes for police who only stop you driving at 100mph on the freeway?

parent insightful, please mod up

[frizzbit]

It is quite strange how in the US liberal seems to mean socialist when the original meaning of the word is "someone who has a very hands-off or permissive attitude."

Truly liberal philosophy revolves around leaving people alone to do what they please. Now if you do that eventually some will rise to great wealth and others will spend everything down to the last dime. This makes liberalism inherently distant from socialism.

I think strict gun control is a compromise of liberal principles - eg. the US founders believed in a right to bear arms as one of their core liberal values. Give people guns and as long as they use them lawfully liberals say A-OK!

Re:You knew this was coming...

[dangitman]

At least he's not a social conservative. He's "pro choice" and in favor of gun control.

So, he's an economic conservative? And what's not conservative about wanting to regulate guns? The 2nd Amendment says "Well regulated militia" - and McCain doesn't want to take guns away. Is the NRA not conservative, because they support some forms of firearms regulation?

He's a RINO. (Republican In Name Only)

How convenient. So, you can just scream at the liberals, without acknowledging the conservatives who supported campaign finance laws? Would you accept the argument that liberals who do such things are also liberals in name only? Somewhow, I doubt it.

You are using the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy.

Freedom of Speech for Politics vs. Pr0n

[billstewart]

There are a lot of folks out there who don't like free speech, and while the Right Wing are much more enthusiastic about enforcing political correctness, the left wingers aren't always much better.

• If you're talking about pr0n on the Internet, they'll tell you that the First Amendment is designed to protect political speech, and that it doesn't apply to indecent or obscene speech.
• If you're talking about tobacco advertising, they'll tell you that the First Amendment doesn't apply to commercial speech, only non-commercial speech, especially political speech, and that we have to ban tobacco advertising to Protect the Children.
• But if you're talking about campaign financing, well, no, no, Elections are WAYYYY too important to allow unrestricted political speech, especially speech that people pay to print or broadcast.
• And anonymous political speech? We certainly can't have that at all! Why, people could say Bad Things about our Politicians, and the public wouldn't know not to believe them!
• And anonymous non-political speech? Unnamed Administration Sources say that that technology is too dangerous, because somebody might use it to talk about politics without filling out campaign finance papers, or to express terrorist opinions. Oh, or pr0n.

It's bad enough to hear this kind of demand for censorship coming from sources like "Right-Wingers For A Politically Correct Tomorrow!" But this is San Francisco, a city that's famous for hippies, rock&roll, beatniks reading subversive poetry, underground newspapers, anarchist bookstores, and proximity to Berkeley, where the Free Speech Movement advocated the right to stand on top of a car with a bullhorn and call the [expletive-deleted] University Administration and the [expletive-deleted] Governor Ronald Reagan a bunch of [Expletive deleted][expletive-deleted]s.

And if the Supes can't figure out that the First Amendment applies to political speech in all forms, well then [expletive deleted], it's time to start a blog just to advocate throwing the [expletive deleted] bums out.

And you don't get your stinkin' papers, either - only journalists working for established journalism businesses get press passes (except for the White House, where the Department of Toady Affairs can arrange them.) And by the way, if you're planning to enter the US and you're hoping that calling yourself a Journalist will get you better treatment, it turns out that foreign journalists have technically needed special journalist visas since the McCarthy witch-hunt days...

Re:There's something about Caesar

[hesiod]

It's fucking idiots like you that allow us to lose all of our freedoms, one raping at a time.

slippery slope

[Robocoastie]

slippery slope this is. accept this and how long until your blog is regulated? this must always always always be watched out for.