Slashdot Mirror
Democrats Defeat Online FOS Act
not so anonymous writes "The Online Freedom of Speech Act was defeated in the House of Representatives yesterday. The Act would have immunized political bloggers from having to comply with hundreds of pages of FEC rules." From the article: "In an acrimonious debate that broke largely along party lines, more than three-quarters of congressional Democrats voted to oppose the reform bill, which had enjoyed wide support from online activists and Web commentators worried about having to comply with a tangled skein of rules. The vote tally in the House of Representatives, 225 to 182, was not enough to send the Online Freedom of Speech Act to the Senate. Under the rules that House leaders adopted to accelerate the process, a two-thirds supermajority was required."
Ok, so I'm dusted. I see that the most liberal of parties opposes what is effectively Free Speech and the party which brought us the Patriot Act is advocating the it.
This means there's some reason other than what this post appears to say 'Hey, Democrats hate free speech!', like something has been attached which allows oil drilling in Yosemite National Park. From TFA:
Ah, there's the Why, a loophole for Campaign Finance law.The heading Democrats Defeat Online FOS Act and omission of the Why certainly colours this article. Why the omission? It appears the article poster favours websites/blogs which are covert mouthpieces of a particular interest group spouting dubious facts and leaving out highly relevant facts. Slashdot has effectively been trolled. Was this intentional, Zonk?
When black apears white or pigs appear to have sprouted wings, there's usually politics behind it, that's where Critical Thinking separates the herd. The Fine Print: We're probably not responsible for content, but in any event we are, we'll deny it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
FEC - Federal Election Commission
FCC tells you what you can say on the airwaves. FEC tells you what a politician can say (during elections).
Learn the difference.
From TFA, here's the full text of the bill:
That means that, if it had passed, anything posted on the Internet would be exempt from campaign finance laws. That means advertisements, editorials, etc. That means it would be perfectly legal for a political party to use campaign donations to hire people to write political blogs that they might not otherwise have written on their own time, initiative, and opinions. That means hiring people to comment on message boards and other people's blogs. In other words, it means astroturfing.
You may think this is a good thing, in which case it ought to be extended to the print and real worlds -- just remove all those limitations in the first place. But if you think we should be limiting the effect that money has on election campaigns, what makes the Internet special?
As it stands, anyone blogging on their own time already has free speech on the internet. So let's not cast this as a blogbing issue.
This is a joke. The Republicans control the House. In the House, the majority does what it wants. While the bill was brought up under a rule that required 2/3rds majority, the Republican leadership could right this very second bring it up as a normal bill that requires only a simple majority.
It is impossible for the Democrats to stop anything in the House.
While I'm as big a proponent of free speech as the next guy, I have to say this will likely have little to no impact on actual internet speech. There won't be a "chilling effect" as some would have you believe. In the end there just isn't the budget or the manpower to enforce the same FCC political advertising guidelines online as are enforced in major boradcast media. and the big topper is that the first time Big Brother tries to enforce this we will quickly see it in front of 9 of the US's top justices whom will in all likelyhood vote to remove FCC regulation from the whole realm of internet publishing.... Anyone who tells you otherwise is just a chickenlittle...
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
According to the Supreme Court, campaign finance laws do not violate the 1st Amendment. The argument basically goes like this:
So, now we're talking about the Internet. And here's the problem:
If someone has a political blog, that is probably free speech.
If someone pays a large number of people to have political blogs to support their view, is that still free speech, or is that diluting free speech?
What's the difference between paying for an advertisement on television saying that "Candidate so-and-so likes to have sex with black people and make bastard babies, don't vote for him!" and a company buying up advertisement on the Internet saying the same thing?
So, while I don't think that either the Dems or the Repubs have noble interests at heart, this is an interesting challenge. Do you just say "The Internet doesn't have to worry about campaign finance", and give the possibility of the delution of "pure" free speech as discussed by the Supreme Court and previous campaign finance laws, or do you try and put some language saying "If you get money based on your political views, you have to reveal who did it and how much and can only accept X amount".
I'd rather see a law like the "truth in advertising" - if you're getting money for writing the blog/hosting an ad, you have to state on your web site where that comes from and how much. This way people who are just running ads can say "Google adsense", and those getting it from campaign groups can disclosed if they are a hired gun or not. Granted, there is more to the language than this, but this is just my thumbnail sketch, so if you need to split hairs, at least come up with your own complete language to cover the complexity of the issue
It's an interesting question, and one that *should* be debated for a good and long time. If you notice, this was the failure not of a majority but of a "mega-majority" of 2/3 to pass the bill. Some further debate and clarification of the language should make it palatable to that majority in the end, which I believe is perfectly reasonable.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Sites like the Daily Kos can now be subject to campaign finance laws. Which means, essentially, their speech can be regulated during election seasons.
they are, as long as you agree with them :)
Wrong! The bill was brought this up under the Suspension Calendar rule which allows a short debate and no amendments. Democrats had problems with the wording of the bill. Because they could not amend it, they had to vote against it.
Daily Kos has an article on this with a bit more information. This one actually goes into reasons why the Dems voted againt it. Daily Kos disagrees with the Dem's reasons, and was in favor of extending the free nature of blogs.
0 /088
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/3/11254
Note that the act can still be brought up for a vote under normal rules and passed. The defeat was under special rules intended to speed the process.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Why does there have to be an Online Freedom of Speech Act? Why does there have to be anything other than the First Amendment? I am tired of how much our "free speech" has become regulated since the founding of this country.
The other thing that bothers me is the two party political system. Why wouldn't democrats want to protect our speech online? It seems all they're interested in is opposing the republicans these days (I used to be a republican, but I don't think they stand for conservatism anymore, so I'm libertarian/independent/non-incumbant now).
We need politicians that will bring us back to the freedoms our country enjoyed two hundred years ago, but everyone is interested in towing the party line--it seems even the voters. If you are of voting age, and in the US, please consider third-party candidates in the '06 congressional elections. I want to be part of a larger group than 0.5% of the population.
Remember who signed the DMCA--Clinton. I think free speech in the slashdot, eff sense is really quite orthogonal to party lines.
This is not an encrouchment on your right to free speech. This just applies existing election campaign laws to internet communication.
You can still post your political party bashing blog. Now you just can't get paid insane amounts of money to do so with out the backing party acknowledging it.
Nothing to do with your rights. Everything to do with campaign finances.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
...were you paid to submit this here?
--
Once upon a time, I was a Democrat -- and damn proud of it. Democrats have a wonderful and storied history of going to bat for the little guy. Be it gender, race, disability, religion... you name it, the Democrats were willing to support those unfairly accused or biased against.
And then came the 90's.
Bill Clinton still did many good things -- but one of the worst things he did (IMNSHO) was to cause the Democratic party to lose its identity. He frequently took Republican initiatives, rubbed off the serial numbers, and called it "Good." Then came Gore & Kerry -- both of whose campaign platforms could be summed up as "I'm not George W. Bush."
Then we have stuff like the DMCA and the Sonny Bono act, both of which should have been squashed by traditional Democrats... and instead are supported by them.
I'm disgusted. Bring back a JFK. Bring back a Roosevelt! Hell -- even Carter! He made some really dumb mistakes, but nobody doubts his sincere willingness to try to do what he felt was best -- as his continued works with Habitat for Humanity show.
Instead, we get Ted (The One That Wouldn't Go Away) Kennedy, we get Tom (I'm a waste of space and air) Daschle, we get antagonists, footdraggers and backpeddalers.
God, I hope McCain runs next time. I'll vote for him before most any Democratic contender I can think of. Perhaps that's why I'm now a registered independent. *sigh*
I've come to expect dupes, glaring ommissions, and outright falsehoods from Slashdot, but up until now it had resisted posting blatantly partisan rhetoric.
You must be new here.
can someone explain?
Sure. In a nutshell, you've been lied to. I would never assert that the Republican party has always vote pro-Freedom (yeah, we wrote the Patriot Act. Sorry about that.), but censorship has often been a Democratic pastime. Remember, the DMCA was signed by a Democrat president, and the PMRC was a pet project of Tipper Gore.
And yet, to hear liberal groups tell it, it's always the Evil Republicans (tm) who want to silence everyone. The truth is far more complex, but how often do you hear of both parties' sins?
P.S. I don't know which party Jack Thompson affiliates with. I won't blame either party for that nut.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Disclaimer: I am mostly Republican.
The issue is that the bill would have allowed almost unlimited political spending on the Internet. The Republicans almost always have WAY more money than the Democrats, but how they can spend it is sharply constrained by campaign finance laws. The Democrats do not want to allow the Republicans to 'buy' the election by spending vast amounts of money on unregulated messages over the Internet.
Rep: "Pass this bill" so we can pay people to blog for us with no oversight.
Dem: "Stop this bill" or we will lose our asses in the next election.
It's not about free speech, really. It's about campaign finance and tactics.
The amendment would have created a loophole in campaign finance reform and allowed unlimited political spending on the web. The amendment would actually suppress free speech to the extent that independent views could be drowned out with politically financed astro-turfing.
In the fine tradition of many other laws and bills that have surfaced over the past five years, the intent of this amendment was the exact opposite of that implied by its title. If Orwell were alive, he'd be rolling in his grave.
Slashdot: faux infotainment for nerds.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Ultimately, the Democratic position would probably limit free speech among bloggers to a certain extent. The problem has to deal with the "Schenck v. United States", where a person has a limited amount of time to make a decision based on statements that he/she has no ability to verify (because of that time).
New campaign laws seek to limit the type/amout/method of information being disseminated in the weeks directly before election. Let me give an example...
Lets say a large group of bloggers decides they want to impact an election. 2 days before an election one anonymously blogs that Candidate X was accused of date rape in college and that the accuser is afraid to come forward. The day before the election, all of the other bloggers pick up the story and start talking about it in huge numbers. Then, the day of the election, every voter has to make a decision of risking to vote for a date rapist. I know this sounds silly, but it was a very effective strategy against a college student body president campaign at my alma mater only a few years back. A similar strategy was employed against a Republican candidate for house in 1996 in NC (although it wasnt bloggers, it was a mass mailing).
While there is no precedent against bloggers, it seems silly - I think - to give them a complete immunity when it is very possible (if not inevitable) that such an immunity would create a haven of this kind of attack.
The most important speech that must be protected is the vote.
Can you even imagine having the RNC pay 5-10 people a day to create a bunch of accounts on here to post on political articles of relevance? You may be thinking that no one would care enough to do it, but with the kind of money involved, they could hire 50-1000's to do it on as many American news sites/blogs as they wanted. All of that aside, its nigh impossible to enforce broad internet legislation that is not copyright oriented (so the RIAA pays for its enforcement).
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
Remember who signed the DMCA--Clinton. I think free speech in the slashdot, eff sense is really quite orthogonal to party lines.
And a Republican congress passed the law to begin with. Both major parties have similar agendas in this regard--most people, sadly, choose to ignore that fact and simply spout "my party is all that is good and light. Your party is teh suck" tripe.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
There are lines between political speech and paid political speech. As long as somebody is speaking his/her mind without being paid, free speech for political reasons is nearly absolute (short of slander and libel, but even then, the burden of proof bar is set pretty high). As soon as money changes hands (e.g. a person being paid to say that a candidate is wonderful, someone being paid to say that they use brand x toothpaste when they really use brand y, etc.), the rules change dramatically and always have.
The bill, as written, would have substantially blurred those lines. If you are taking money from any political group, whether through ad revenue or otherwise, you have an obligation to disclose this fully. That's what these laws are about. It's that simple. Exempting bloggers and online communication would just mean a whole new flock of internet advertising with no money trail, potentially with the ability to say nearly anything, no matter how outrageous, and get away with it. Astroturfing is just the tip of the iceburg. Under the relaxed rules proposed, we could see all-out news stories that border on political party-financed libel, again with no disclosure.
I'm not saying that I think bloggers should have to go through the same legal hurdles as somebody doing ad copy for the RNC, but to say that all internet communication across the board is exempted, and to not put -any- rules on blogging (including blogging that is paid for by advertising dollars from political groups) would be disastrous.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Breakfast served all day!
Consider this scenerio:
Some PAC raises one million dollars from unlimited, unreported donations.
They use the money to pay 1000 bloggers to promote their issue.
They don't need to report that these bloggers work for them, or how much they get paid.
Rinse. Repeat.
Is this free speech?
The Democrats have neither sufficient numbers in the House, nor rules favorable to allow them to defeat anything. In the House the Republicans rule. Everything that happens in the House happens at the discretion of the Republicans. The title of the article should have been "Large numbers of Republicans break ranks to defeat bill...", but that's not something a right-leaning reporter would ever say because it implies that Republicans are not 100% in agreement on something.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If Moveon.org isn't a sucessful grassroots organization then what is? Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Actually, the law was problematic since it delinated the Internet from all other media, effectively allowing anything goes on the largest and widest media ever known. This was a bad bill and should have been killed. We want transparency, we want bloggers and other Internet media outlets to show where their funding comes from in order to separate honest viewpoints from propaganda.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
from TFWA:
So 1 democrat + 2 republicans = democratic project?
Hi All -
The reality is that neither party respects our liberties (i.e., fully embracing both the enumerated and unenumerated, and retained rights as outlined in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution). They tell us to look at the US Constitution and ask "where are you given that right?", rather than asking the question Madison would have, which is, "where did you give up that right?"
Both political parties have a shared monopoly on power (I think we called this a duopoly in Econ 101), and will resist any attempt to take away this power. Yes, they will jostle for advantage over one another, but when this duopoly is threatened they will unite against it (see, opposition to any redistricting reform by the mainstreams of both the Republican and Democratic parties in California).
Looking back at the 2004 election, the mainstream of the Democratic party was hit right between the eyes by the power of the Internet and Blogs, as demonstrated by the insurgent campaign of Howard Dean. The look at this and wonder what it might have been
Couple this with that there are still a few Republicans who value liberty (as understood through the lens of enumerated and unenumerated rights), over staying in power, and you see why this got fair broader support among them.
This isn't the first time something like this happened. Rewind back to the election of 1968, and TV was the breakout media. Eugene McCarthy used it effectively in New Hampshire to force Johnson from the primary process. Nixon and Wallace (running one of the most effective 3rd party campaigns since Teddy Roosevelt (even if I despise what he represented), used it to great benefit.
So, in the Congress following this election what happened? An incredible level of restrictions on TV in political campaigns were put into place, which effectively put access to TV in the hands of those in power.
Like McCain-Feingold (and I say this with the greatest respect for both of these gentleman), giving the FEC oversight of Bloggers will only diminish the level of free speech and dialog in the public square. The internet and blogs dramatically reduced the barriers to entry to commentators, because as A.J. Liebling noted, "Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." All of a sudden, a whole lot of people now could own the equivalent of a printing press. And the result is as you would expect (applying Sturgeon's Law that 90% of everything is crap), with a lot of nonsenses and garbage spewing forth, but a few gems mixed up in the overall stream.
If I had my magic legislative wand, and could make one change to improve the political process in this country, I would wave it and do away with our FEC as it exists and our various restrictions on political spending and embracing Justice Brandise maxim, "sunlight is the best disinfectant; electric light the best policeman", I would require the following:
1. That within 24 hours of any political donation being made, that this fact be posted for all to see and search on the Internet. Any legislation in which this party has an interest will also be identified. If this donation was made by a PAC, then the membership of that PAC must be clearly visible (i.e. I can follow the money).
2. For scheduled meetings, 24 hours in advance, and for unscheduled meetings within 24 hours, any meeting with a lobbyist (defined as someone educating on an issue or requesting legislative action) will be disclosed for all to search on the Internet. The topic of this conversation will be disclosed along with any legislation discussed or related to the topic of conversation. The source of funding for this lobbyist, organization, or individual, must be made transparent, all the way back up the chain. If Lobbyist A was hired by Organization X who received funding from PACS 1, 2, and 3, who in turned received funding from PACS 4, 5, and 6, I should be able to follow it all the way back to the companies and individuals making the donations.
3. The calendar of all members of the Legislative and Executive branches, along with their staff members, will be made available and search-able on the Internet. Common, unique identifiers will be used to enable cross referencing.
Yours,
Jordan
Bear with me, this connects
Not to long ago, an idea was presented to link voter registration with getting your driver's license. The underlying idea, reportedly, was that, by making it easier for the average adult to register to vote, there would be a greater population of registered American voters thus making elections more reflective of "the will of the people".
Seems like a good idea really, but the debates on C-SPAN went a little differently
The Republicans were not happy and saying that this was just a ruse to get a disproportionate number of Democrats registered to vote. The implication is kind of interesting. Apparantly, Republicans (and likely Democrats) were of the opinion that persons of the GOP were more likely than Democrats to register without the assistance of the "motor-voter" legislation - at least that was my interpretation.
With the present situation, the implication seems to be that Republicans have more cash reserves than Democrats and, by making blogs not susceptible to campaign fund contribution limits, they can more easily use that advantage.
So, both sides seek to exploit a "hidden" advantage in a particular legislation. It's like the old saying, for every endeavor there is a "good reason" and the "real reason".
and the games go on
A goal is a dream with a deadline
There. I said it. Come get me.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Remember, the DMCA was signed by a Democrat president
And passed by a Republican majority congress. The sins of both parties are legion, and whenever someone comes around to challenge the status quo, left or right, they band together and squash the threat.
It is so funny to me to listen to the Democratic Party's newly found fondness of federalism, where for 40 years prior they treated support of states' rights and federalism as mere code words for supporting racism and segregation, and out of touch with core American values. Now that they're outnumbered at the federal level, they have all kinds of respect for checks and balances and fiscal responsibility.
Amusing conspiracy rant but it doesn't have anything to do with 527 groups. To make my point, here is a URL for the list of the top 527 groups nationwide:m tes.asp?level=C&cycle=2006
http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527c
Note that of the top 10, only numbers 4,5 and 7 are Republican and only one, 9, is reasonably non-partisan.
It does when the one Democrat was on every TV and radio show to explain how censoring kids' music would make them happier, healthier, and safer. I'm pretty sure she invented the phrase "think of the children!".
Both sides of the aisle were in on this one, but Tipper was definitely the starring attraction.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Somehow the parent was modded 'insightful'?
Ignorance has covered the land, eh whos suprised?
This bill in NO WAY will effect your ability to post whatever you want on your website, UNLESS you recieve money from somebody in a political party to post said content. You can post or publish ANYTHING you like, as long as you do it with your money. In no way would that restrain your ability to read other people who run, and edit THEIR OWN blogs. And then, EVEN IF these websites recieved such money, the only thing you would notice is the disclosure of WHO paid money.
For some reason, this is being posted with a title that disparages democrats, when in actuality they struck down a bill that would have made the funding source similar to CLOSED-SOURCE software, ie you cant look at it. Or by striking down this bill, the funding stream FOR EVERYONE has to BY LAW be disclosed just like everywhere else, ie OPEN-SOURCE. I mean isnt that the republican line on all this Patriot Act smoke and mirrors? The basic line of thinking, if you arent hiding anything in your funding sources, why wouldnt you want to disclose them? If you stopped listening to the rhetoric, you wouldnt get caught up in such inconsistancies of logic.
Stop being such an uninformed alarminst!
On a side note, I stopped having stories posted by 'Zonk' display on my slashdot homepage, because they were just garbage and it made me start to stay away from this site. The only way I noticed this article was by logging in on a computer that wasnt mine. It was amazing how much removing just that single editor made a difference in the percieved, and actual, quality of slashdot.
And the Republicans AND Democrats have way more money than every other political party...where's the laws bringing that into balance? Oh wait, we third party people don't even argue about that... We just want elections that are fair where when we get on the ballot we don't get dragged into local courts by the big parties with them arguing we should be taken off because we have no chance to win...because we aren't them... where our Presidential candidates, if they are on enough ballots to (in theory) get enough electoral votes to win, can participate in Presidential debates...where the ballot boxes aren't stuffed and voting machines aren't rigged (both big parties guilty of this)... In other words, we want Free and Democratic elections in the United States (well....everyone sems to want them for Iraq, or this or that third world piss poor country, only fair we should want them here.) That would be election reform. Who gives a shit about "campaign finance" at a stage where everything else is broken?
That aside, it's not clear to me that the rules are such a bad thing. They basically say that if a political party spends campaign money on the Web then it has to be reported - just as the case if said party spends money on TV ads. This is perfectly reasonable. Despite what some party-funded astroturfers would have you believe, this does NOT restrict J. Random Blogger from posting whatever he wants. It just says that if he gets money from the RNC, the RNC has to report it.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Then why isn't it called "\." ?
Haven't read through quite a bit of the comments, I can understand the issues related with the bill. What I still don't understand is though why it would actually matter? Passing a bill that essentially exempts the Internet from campaing finance laws opens the Internet up to massive campaign spending for US based services. Having the Internet though regulated by campaign finance law would at least curb that, but where does it stop applying? What if the campaign ad is hosted on an international server, but the actual Internet site is US based and only subscribes to an ad service from abroad. How will you ever apply campaign finance laws to this?????? Regulating the Internet has proven to be a pretty tough thing to do for one nation alone. Just remember the CanSpam act and how spam has dramatically increased since that law was passed (the only success I can see is that one indicted spammer who was dumb enough to be US based). As much as I support campaign finance laws, I really have to wonder what they matter to the Internet in any regard. In my opinion, whether to actually apply them or specifically exempt them is a mute point, as circumventing their application is a piece of cake.
They even say that they're fair and balanced.
Fox wouldn't LIE to me, would it??
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Oh, and at that time voting against something called the "PATRIOT Act" was political suicide.
But in some cases, seppuku is the most honorable thing one can do.
That's clever to accuse me of ommission and claim "I guess unions would be Democrat" with a snide bit at Republicans when clicking the profiles of said union 527s shows they pay for ads promoting Democrat candidates and they give money almost exclusively to Democrat candidates. Hmm, 99% of the State/County/Muni Workers Union's spending went towards Democrat candidates. There is no "I guess" about it. Unions are Socialist in nature so of course they fall in well with the Democrats who have as many Socialists as the Republicans do free marketers. Same goes for the League of Environmental Voters. They spent all their money running negative ads against Republican cadidates and for Democrat candidates. Also no need for "I guess" and a snide comment.
527s that appear suddenly with massive amounts of cash
Checking the 2004 expenditures, the Swift Boat Vets with their $17M is "massive" compared to America Coming Together's $79M. Sorry, $17M isn't much in the scheme of big politics.
Bloggers (and everybody else) are already exempt from dealing with those hundreds of pages of crap, because that crap has no authority in the first place. The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to free speech... and even if it didn't, government has no authority other than what comes from consent of the governed; so anybody who wants my simply choose to not allow the government to regulate their speech.
Repeat after me: Government has NO intrinsic authority or dominion over anybody; We The People are the ultimate and final source of ALL political power and authority... the government has ONLY what authority we grant it; and what is granted may be taken back at any time. Sovereign individuals not belong to, and are not subjects of, the United States government... they answer to us, not the other way around.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
You are yourself making the assumption that unions are always for the in support of the working man and that environmentalist groups are always for protecting the environment. Often I find that that they are more pro-democrat (or pro-racket in the case of unions) than pro-the cause they claim to support.
Republicans can be against a Union, yet still support the views of the working class, or be against a conservationist group yet still want environmental protection.
Many on the far right would claim that fox's slogan is in fact a play on the rest of media claiming it is fair and balanced, while in fact biased to the left. (Witness CBS releasing and standing by fake documents in the last election)
These are the same people who will call Fox mid left, and everyone else extreme left. That most of Europe would consider the US media mid right is not important to them.
Oh.. now the liberal and emotional readers of Slashdot will have to figure out a way to pretend that Democrats really do protect free speech. The way I see it though, Dems have been foaming at the mouth since the advent of talk radio and blogging because the mainstream media can no longer spread liberal tripe unchecked. If they could do it, dems would ban talk radio and blogging altogether.
The big problem with campaign finance is that corporations have freedom of speech. Of course human beings should have freedom of speech, but I see no reason why a corporation should have the same freedom. The simple hack here is to just make it illegal for corporations to contribute to campaign advertising. Unfortunately, because corporations are "persons," there's no way to do this, so we wind up with all kinds of crazy laws that try to place limits on campaign financing by corporations in ways that are arguably unconstitutional.
ifwm said:
I am glad we are now talking about campaign finance and not "the Democrats are stealing our fr33doms!!1".
You are certainly entitled to your opinion that limiting campaign spending and contributions results in limiting free speech. Unfortunately for you, the majority of the American people, the Congress, and the Supreme Court have consistently disagreed with you.
Let's look at why this might be. If there was no limit or regulation of campaign finance then there is no question that the voice of the rich and powerful would increase. It is generally assumed that the increased voice of the rich and powerful comes at the cost of decreasing the voice of everyone else. In fact, without regulation, the voice of the rich and powerful can come disguised as the voice of the common person.
If the bill had passed, there is no question that the Internet would be flooded with soft campaign money. It could easily drown out the voices of individuals. Just as your freedom to move your arm and fist stops at my nose, your freedom of speech stops when it is so loud and pervasive that it drowns out the free speech of others.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
It is so funny to me to listen to the Democratic Party's newly found fondness of federalism, where for 40 years prior they treated support of states' rights and federalism as mere code words for supporting racism and segregation, and out of touch with core American values. Now that they're outnumbered at the federal level, they have all kinds of respect for checks and balances and fiscal responsibility.
Pretty much the same thing is happening in Australia. Traditionally the "liberal" (i.e. conservative) party has been federalist, and the labor (sort of post-socialist; US spelling sic) has been centralist.
But today the liberals control both the federal houses of parliament (and hence also the executive), while the labor party has a clean sweep at the state level. Quite extraordinary political situation, and the effect on politicians' psychology, on both sides of politics, has been equally remarkable.
Indeed as you point out bloggers on both sides of the fence and even the middle were all for the passage of this bill.
Which makes it even more rediculous the Democrats by and large sunk it! Take a look at the list of people voting against, hardly any were Republicans.
This bill being killed was all about the people not in power disliking the freedom blogs had to say what they wished, the freedom of blogs on thier own side be damned. Perhaps the Republicans would have acted the same in the same position, but all we know for sure is that the Democrats DID kill this bill. The people of the U.S. who are members of the Democratic (and Republican for those few cases) parties need to REMEMBER the votes on this bill come primary and election time.
It really is as simple as it looks this time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can buy 1 million blogs. But that doesn't mean anyone will read them.
That is entirely unlike TV advertising where my purchase of all ads means a specific number of viewers WILL be watching those ads.
People seek out what to read on the internet. They are told what they will watch on TV. That is why campaign finance reforms for the internet are utterly ridiculous and harmful.
The blocking of this bill is all about Democrats feeling that conservative blogs are, by and large, handing their ass to them on a platter. They want to see it all shut down, even if things like the Daily Kos end up taking collateral damage.
If this bill was so wrong, why did it enjoy such a preponderance of support from the blogging community at large both conservative and liberal (and otherwise). Surely if it were bad some of the more rational thinkers (pick your favorite on either side of the fence) would have been against it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley