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"I am looking forward to hearing what CB has to say because some of what I have read on here is mind boggling. Still trying to figure out how MY own PERSONAL free speech has been infringed."

You will still be able to tell your neighbors how you feel. You'll still be able to write a letter to the editor and if you are rich as Croesus or Soros you can run ads to your heart's content.

What you will NOT be able to do, however, is pool your money with a group of like-minded people, like Free Republic, the NRA or Right to Life, and take out a radio or TV ad 60 days before an election.

And that, to me, rips the heart right out of the Constitution.

For, if we cannot join together in like-minded associations to express and publish our opinions on political candidates and races, we have ipso facto LOST our freedom of speech, letters to the editor and jawboning the neighbors at the local feedstore notwithstanding.

The incumbents won't give a hoot that you write letters or tell your neighbors that Hitlery is a Marxist, Dr. Dean was a ob/gyn at a Planned Barrenhood clinic or Patty Murray supports OBL.

Shoot, the NKVD didn't really mind the Babushkas grousing about the lack of potatoes or vodka. It's ORGANIZED opposition they dread, and this abomination gives incumbents the right to JAIL people if they join together and run ads opposing them.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why we are not all weeping for this nation.

This day, to me, is as bad as January 21, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and it will have the same long-term impact.

The body political voice will be stymied, free political discourse will be muzzled and believe me, it's just a short matter of time 'til we see mini-McCain-Feingolds in all the different states, outlawing political free speech 60 days before a state election. Or maybe they will go 120 days before an election, or just ban political opposition from groups outright.

I also think it's but a slippery slope to extending this disgusting anti-American act to talk radio and the internet...the handwritintg's on the wall.

That's why I cannot in good conscience vote for President Bush again. The political climate has undergone a sea change, we have lost the second-most vital of our freedoms...the right of free speech to criticize our government and I, for one, cannot vote for the man by whose hand this came about.

It's like Congressman Janklow. He was a good man, a good governor, a good representative, but he killed a man, and now has to accept the consequences.

You can no longer vote for him, no matter how much your heart wishes you to, because he took himself outside the pale and what he did demands that he resign his office and be sentenced.

By the same token President Bush, by not vetoing that abomination, killed the Constitution.

He killed it in the only way that matters...he took from us the right to collectively join together and criticize our government. In the long run that decision may even be worse than the decision to take our guns, if that ever happens.

And because he did that to the Constitution, I can never again vote for him. To my mind, it was as serious as what Representative Janklow did, and as such, it HAS to have consequences.

That is why I cannot and will not ever again vote for George Bush.

Ed

...What you will NOT be able to do, however, is pool your money with a group of like-minded people, like Free Republic, the NRA or Right to Life, and take out a radio or TV ad 60 days before an election.

And that, to me, rips the heart right out of the Constitution....

Incumbents are very aware of the power in numbers. What better way to keep us isolated and silent? If I understand it correctly, broadcast ads can be aired if the candidate appears in the ad. Stop & think...this requirement is nothing more than requiring government's permission to have my voice heard prior to an election.

We join groups of like minded people for one reason....to have our collective voices heard. We cannot, without fear of prosecution of the federal government, have our voices heard via broadcast media prior to an election.

What happens to Talk Radio? The conservatives rule the roost. Prior to an election I expect the dems to be crying foul when issues and names are discussed in detail by conservative guests.

The toe is in the door. How long before a case is before SCOTUS arguing Talk Radio is nothing more than an election ad in disguise? Will we see the day SCOTUS rules talk radio must close down prior to the election?

Anything can happen.