Slashdot Mirror
Campaign Financing Cyber Loophole
goombah99 writes "The Washington Post is criticizing a little-noticed bill wending it's way through congress that would allow unlimited and unreported campaign contributions by corporations and individuals as long as it was confined to internet advertising and publicity buys. While internet spending was only $14 million last year it is growing at a rate of 30 fold over four years poising it to overtake conventional media spending."
Now all of Europe's going to be completely overwhelmed with advertisements for political parties they cannot even vote for.
I don't think that we're going to find billions dumped into internet advertising, why? Because internet campaigning isn't going to be growing at 30 fold forever.
Campaign 1: $.5 million invested online
Campaign 2: $15 million invested online.
That's 30 fold (and 14.5 million).
Campaign 1: $100 million invested, Campaign 2: $120 million invested.
That's 1.2 fold (and 20 million).
Nobody is going to target the internet with large amounts of money when it's more feasible to target the general public using television/newspaper ads. Nobody is going to say, "Hey! Look! I can donate $100 million in internet advertising" *when the money can be better utilitised somewhere else*.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
I am about as liberal as you can get. I think that the role of the government should be expanded such that it provides a very large safety net for the disadvantaged, and I think that many services that we now pay for ought to be subsidized such that those services (medical, roads, etc) are free/affordable for at least the most disadvantaged and ideally for the whole citizenry.
But I am absolutely against recent "liberal" attempts to stifle Free Speech by restricting campaign contributions. I think it is paramount to a repeal of the First Amendment to say that you cannot use your money in the way that you see fit. If a person wishes to give speeches on the corner in support of his candidate, it is wrong to take away his right to do so. If a person uses his own money to buy a soap box and megaphone to do it more effectively, it is wrong to take away his right to spend that money. If a person gives money to his candidate in order that the candidate can furnish other supporters with soap boxes and megaphones, is it right to take that right away? Where do we draw the line? Why do we draw the line?
It is not anyone's business but the IRS how I spend my money, in my opinion. If I want to blow a million dollars on TV ads for my favored candidate, the government ought not have the right to stop me anymore than they have the right to stop me from buying lollipops for the sick kids in the hospital.
How the "liberals" got caught up in this illiberal crusade is beyond me. It smacks more of anti-Republicanism than anything else. By restricting the campaign contributions of the rich, they effectively limit the amount the Republicans can take in from their supporters. That that crackpot McCain and the worthless Feingold were the people bringing the originally passing bill to the floor is no big surprise, but that we have widespread support of the erosion of our most cherished First Amendment rights among the people sworn to protect and defend our Constitution is abominable.
Good for this current bill. Let's bring back Free Speech to the citizenry.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
... if America keeps going along these lines, it won't be long before they elect a completely incompetent President, whose only qualifications are high level connections and the ability to outspend his opponent due to massive corporate contributions.
I don't look forward toward that day, let me tell you.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
It's starting to look as though McCain-Feingold will end up hurting larger blogs, as they risk being counted as contributions during an election cycle. Manolo's Shoe Blog is probably pretty safe, but Daily Kos and Instapundit aren't. I'd bet both their bandwidth bills violate the cap, and they both tend to back specific candidates. So, this law is likely simply a clumsy way to protect blogs.
I can't for for the life of me see the justification for ANY exemptions from campaign financing laws. If copmpany A spends $3.50 on shoelaces for candidate B, then I want to be able to see that, and the same goes for internet advertising. It's unfortunate that whatever justification is being offered for this bill isn't mentioned in TFA. At the end of the day, any off-the-record financing simply adds weight to long-standing suspicions that everyone in Washington is for sale. That being the case, it would be nice to at least know what the going rates are.
Filtering of email and blocking of web ads considered a subvertive terrorist activity.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
You have to sympathize with policitians everywhere, forced to lead demeaning lives on the margins of society because such a high proportion of the meagre funds they need to survive have to be concealed and cannot be admitted to. Why, a decent family man cannot even invite his friends to a cocaine and call-girl party without having to pretend that he's paying for it out of his own life savings.
It would be much more dignified if US politicians were allowed to nail a simple "Bill of Fare" to the front door of their office suites. This would itemize the services on offer - "Have your business rivals arrested - $10 million", "Pollute a wilderness area - $67 million", "Hunt and Shoot Wetbacks for Sport - $39 million", etc. - but the quid pro quo is that it would no longer be legal in any way to accept undocumented contributions.
We'd then all know where we stand, and politicians would be given back the one thing they crave above all else - respect.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
I would argue that it's important because it's essential for democracy. It allows ideas to be introduced and challenged, accepted or rejected, on a level playing field.
"Freedom of speech" doesn't mean you're free from me speaking louder than you because I'm persuasive enough to get get several other people to join me (pool funds, whatever). The constitution's guarantee of free speech refers to your freedom from interference by the government. That's why the campaign finance laws limiting speech are such a bad idea - they involve the government judging when and how you can express your opinion about something... something that's exactly contrary to the founder's strong words on the subject.
Does it really serve freedom in the larger sense to allow people to act in ways that subvert an essential component of liberal democracy?
How does two people getting together to say something against what you have to say equal subversion? It's exactly the point - it's free association and speech, exactly as guaranteed under the constitution. If you can't manage to get enough people to see your point, and thus attract the same communications horsepower as the people you oppose, then you need to re-examine the merits of your position. Unpopular, minority opinions do get through the larger noise when they are compelling enough. See voting rights and similar issues as examples.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Well, that's just it. Convenient blogging software made it easy for people not just to create web sites, but to keep them updated.
So they do.
Now, it's true that some of them shouldn't, and many of them aren't worth reading, and many more are of interest only to a small circle - friends or family or people of common interested (whether that be politics or raising puppies or knitting pullovers).
But some of them really are good.
And remember that those millions in revenues are spread among millions of bloggers, and the average blogger is lucky to cover his bandwidth bill. A few make worthwhile amounts of money; one or two make enough to live on.