Posted on 04/07/2014 10:01:06 AM PDT by jazusamo
The recent Supreme Court decision over-ruling some Federal Election Commission restrictions on political campaign contributions has provoked angry reactions on the left. That is what often happens whenever the High Court rules that the First Amendment means what it says — free speech for everybody.
When the Supreme Court declared in 2010 that both unions and corporations had a right to buy political ads, that was considered outrageous by the left. President Obama called the decision "devastating" and said it "will open the floodgates for special interests."
Those unfamiliar with political rhetoric may not know that "special interests" mean people who support your opponents. One's own organized supporters — such as labor unions supporting President Obama — are never called "special interests."
All politicians are against "special interests," by definition. They all want their own supporters to have the right to free speech, but not those individuals and groups so benighted as to support their opponents.
Even in an age of polarization and gridlock, the one area in which it is easy to get bipartisan support in Congress is in passing campaign finance laws, restricting how much money can be spent publicizing political candidates. What Congressional Democrats and Republicans have in common is that they are all incumbents, and they all want to keep their jobs.
Publicity is necessary to win elections, and incumbents get millions of dollars' worth of free publicity from the media. Incumbents can all pontificate in Congress and be covered by C-SPAN. They can get interviewed on network television, have their pictures in the newspapers, and send out mail to their constituents back home — and none of this costs them a dime.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
My opinion for what it is worth is, “No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.” JMHO
I think Mr. Sowell makes a great point. Incumbents already receive free publicity and coverage by the mainstream media - especially the leftist incumbents. Limiting campaign contributions only helps leftwing incumbents and sets up barriers to those trying to vote out an incumbent.
I like when he says that campaign reform laws are really “Incumbent Protection Acts”.
And yet a great many people for whom you cannot vote vote on matters that directly affect you. By definition at the federal level you can vore for 2 senators and one representative. That leaves 532 who can screw you with their vote.
Agreed, plus the point of incumbents having taxpayer paid staffs that work constantly for that incumbents reelection.
“No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.”
Now *that’s* an interesting thought. However, it could also turn out to be an incumbent protection act, especially in smaller areas.
Riiiight. I guess that rules out contributing to primary challegers of RINO, and to the opponent of Harry Reid.Freedom of speech, and of the press, obviously implies that my speech can criticize or extol politicians whether or not I can vote for them - and so can my printing press.The fundamental import of the First Amendment is that the government doesn’t have a right to license me to speak or print, because it doesn’t have a right to prevent people who don’t have a government license from speaking or printing.
If my newspaper is the New York Times or if it is a flyer I print out on a copying machine, that paper still has the Constitution squarely behind it no matter what its politics and no matter what its religious identity. That leaves no scope for “campaign finance reform,” since Congress is explicitly forbidden to legislate about it.
. . . and as to other technologies besides print, those are anticipated by the Constitution. Not explicitly, of course, but in principle.
Article 1 Section 8.informs us that no one should assume that the framers would be surprised at the arising of propaganda media other than print. It was to be encouraged.The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . . <
But what of the possibility that such advances might require governmental regulation? Article V
Amend the Constitution to fix the problem. But before you do that, don’t you think we ought to actually try the Constitution we’ve already got? That would require the abolition of the FCC as well as the FEC.
We also need to abolish, or at least to delegitimate, the wire services because it is they which are the engines of the homogenization of journalism nationwide. They empower the collusion of journalists across the country, they impose style guides which define politically correct nomenclature, and in general they are anticompetitive. That leaves the interests of journalists as the definition of “the public interest.” And the interests of journalism lie in promoting the conceit that criticism is superior to performance, and the conceit that all journalists are objective.
My opinion for what its worth: It's none of the government's blanketly-blank business who I give my money to in politics. It's my money, not the governments they don't own, so aside from taxes; they don't get to spend it.
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