Posted on 08/09/2012 7:27:55 AM PDT by teflon9
I’m absolutely terrified that the end of the political campaign season, with its cavalcade of negative advertising, is here.
Exactly how am I going to be able to determine who is attempting to tear the very fabric of our nation apart, or who shipped my job overseas, or for that matter, who is forcing their constituents to bow bound and gagged before a false God?
This is the kind of stuff I need to know about. These people are out there amongst us, and with the big political machines in idle they’ll now be able to go about their dirty deeds with impunity.
I can just see them skulking about with their gray sullen faces and bloated bodies like I’ve seen on TV. They’re hideous. And now, who’s gonna’ keep an eye on ‘em for us? The media? While this used to be our bread and butter, we’ve been out-matched.
The truth is that even the best creative journalists at the National Enquirer are pikers next to the minds of mayhem at the Democratic and Republican national headquarters and their minions at the local level.
Nobody can dig up, make up or disperse dirt like those jokers. And apparently, it’s working like a charm. A new study out shows this year to have been the all-time winner in terms of the number of negative campaign ads. Not a real shocker to anyone who’s turned on a TV in the last few months.
But I have a perfectly reasonable solution to ending all concerns about negative campaign ads, campaign finance reform, and getting rid of those little liar meters that pass for news with the daily papers these days: Simply pass a law that makes it illegal to refer to an opponent in any campaign promotion material or speech.
That’s it.
All a candidate is allowed to talk about is his or her own campaign.
Campaign finance problems? Done. I seriously doubt there will be a surge of shadowy Swiftboat-type campaign finance groups looking to fund ad campaigns on a candidate’s position on regional transportation strategies.
Kinda sucks all the fun out of being “shadowy,” doesn’t it? It would also get these political operatives out of our business. If somebody’s gonna get dragged through the dirt, why, that’s our job.
But I’m not satisfied with just trying to change the system through advocacy. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.
I hereby pledge to never accept any money from any future candidate that refers even in passing to his or her opponent and I implore all my media brethren, especially in broadcast media, to do the same.
I pledge to make this sacrifice of literally tens of dollars in campaign advertising revenue we received because someone has to make a stand and I choose decency over dollars.
Now, I understand that the broadcast folks might have just a little more at stake in this, but I have no doubt that the millions spent by the campaigns on broadcast advertising is nothing compared to the honor and satisfaction these TV execs will get from bringing back respectability to the electorate.
I’ll be waiting for their calls to join the movement.
In the meantime, if you can’t say something nice about somebody, there’s an elected office with your name on it.
Nice to see that Dick Scaife is still hiring dropouts who don’t understand what the First Amendment is and giving them jobs as Journalists.
what’s a negative ad? what you might consider negative, i might think of as truthful, say bringing up ‘fast&furious’. who is to determine what is negative?
seems to me that this gives the party in power the ability to censor their opponent’s ads....very dangerous indeed
Don’t let us have to think for ourselves! I mean c’mon!
Halloween - Shadowy Swiftboats = sacry
Political speech is the very thing the First Amendment was drafted to protect.
Alien and Sedition Act 2.0 will never go anywhere.
If you don’t like negative ads - TURN OFF THE TV!
A revolutionary proposition to some, I am aware.
But so long as Americans determine who they are going to vote for based upon TV advertisement - there will continue to be billion dollar ad buys - and negative ads.
Why don’t we just nominate candidates that had some value? These people running for office have no vision and no objective other than to win. We the voters need to fix this by putting pressure on the parties to clean up their acts.
No NEW law needed. Simply remove the protection the ruling elite have created to allow them to say ANYTHING without fear of a lawsuit.
Even the bottom feeding lawyers would love this as it would mean another huge revenue stream.
If politicians were a product or private citizens, such ads would be slander/libel and the fact they were broadcast would supply all the evidence needed.
The filthy Chicago style politics of the dark lord exceed half truths and are downright libel.
What kind of citizens are we when we allow these lies to unchallenged? We are basically giving the politicians free license to lie to us about ANYTHING, and unless some have not noticed, they are.
To those who question if this would pass First amendment muster, it already has for us peons. There are slander and libel laws on the books and they are prosecuted but only the ruling elite are protected.
At one time their slander/libel protection ONLY extended to what they said on the Senate or House floor. The ruling elite took it upon themselves to completely protect themselves from the very same laws they inflict upon us.
The First Amendment already has some limits like the overused “yelling fire in a crowded theater” and certainly it is much more dangerous to allow our elected representatives to lie to us. Yelling fire in a crowded theater might get a hundred or so killed/injured but politicians, especially left wing politicians can and HAVE killed in the millions. Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Hitler all were left of OUR center (not always Europe’s center) and killed millions.
So how do we get back to our elected officials being required to adhere to the same slander/libel laws the citizens must obey?
Considering the number of founding fathers who fought duels (up to and including Abe Lincoln), I very much doubt the current version of the First Amendment is ANYTHING like what the founders had in mind. Not to mention the states who had laws against blasphemy....
If we can’t bring back dueling, can we at least overturn Sullivan v. New York Times?
negative ads should not be banned but untruthful ones are a different story. Say what you want, good or bad, but if you lie the sky should fall in on you.
I would love to see pressure on OBAMA do end negative ads. That is the only thing he has. There is nothing positive to say about his administration and he knows it.
His entire political life is almost completely diametrically opposed to the one that he and his loyal imps in the main stream media have been proffering as the story
Obama is small man who let a felon buy him a home and became a kept Chicago politician, like so many others. There is nothing special about Obama, from the false praise for a grand intellect that he doesn’t have to a Nobel prize that he never deserved. Obama was going to change politics as we know it - and it is worse than it ever was. His roots as a community organizer lacked substance - a radical lawyer representing ACORN - which is nothing more than a criminal conspiracy financed by the government. The problems of the world all stem from white racism - the simplistic thinking of Rev Wright and Farrakhan that was made flesh in Obama - but well hidden. Everything about the guy is bull$hit. When he tells the truth - Joe the Plumber - ‘share the wealth’, or ‘you didn’t build that’, ‘clinging to guns and their religion’ or his wife tells the truth..’this is the first time I am proud of my country...’ Obama and his chimp-astronaut friends in the media spend days walking it back.
Romney does not know how to fight and he is letting Axelrod define him. I am seeing the reincarnation of Bob Dole, good on many fronts except the vital one of getting into the end zone.
“Why don’t we just nominate candidates that had some value? “
Last time we did that was in 1984.
if CBSABCNBCFOXCNN simply all put their collective feet down and said “we ain’t accepting any more of this trash”
You think they’re going to tell the President of the United States that?
It wouldn’t just be the POTUS? Everyone down to county dogcatcher would be required to follow the same rules. And as for a sitting POTUS, he (and his 503c ho’s) could send the major nets all the negative ads he wanted do. But when they never got aired, he’d get the message right quick.
Gimme a break. The suck-up press does much of the dirty work FOR democrats When we answer dems lies that the press puts out we have to pay for the privilege.
And the National Enquirer? They exposed John Edwards when every newsroom in the country knew what he was up to. The press covers for dems. The press cheats. The press allows for democrats to be liars. It's their fault dems are such bad liars... they let them get away with anything.
My feeling? Keep the first amendment - allow all ads - and educate biased creepy journalists that when they carry water for one party that they're horrible little bloodsuckers...
And YouTube? That’s one of the few places we can do a ‘truth end-run’ past our corrupt press. You’re on a strange side teflon
So I guess the general opinion of this thread can be summed up as:
“It’s a good idea IN THEORY for CBSNBCABCFOXCNN to banish all negative political ads, but they’re all so in the tank for the ‘rats (even Fox) that the ban would never be applied fairly.”
OK.
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