There is nobody else. Pretty much all of them are bought off. And it's not like we know who the politician is being bought by either, so your free market argument doesn't work here. Bribery is illegal. Do you think this is a bad law? Not all laws & restrictions are bad things, they can & do help the system.
If the restrictions on advertisements were in place that we discussed earlier, then there would be no need for such large amounts of money. And "independent" organizations could be restricted just as easily. Sure, I can give my money to a regular person, but I believe you have to pay taxes on that above a certain dollar value, and I doubt people would be willing to do that. Laws will be broken, that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.
you mean the draconian restrictions on freedom of speech? no thanks. not true, my "independent" organization isnt really on the phone with karl rove. we didnt really exchange encrypted email to a random gmail address that isnt a bush operative. and even if i wasnt secretly dealing with the candidates, i could easily figure out what the candidate wanted me to to in terms of his campaign and do it for him. this already happens anyways, like i mentioned earlier, with "527" groups like moveon.org and vets for truth. you cannot stop it, even if you are willing to start the gestapo beating citizens in the streets. where will you draw the line, when somebody starts voicing support for a candidate, how long witll you let them go before you silence them? can an individual buy an ad on the radio and talk about how much he likes a candidate? what about two people? can i take out a pro-bush ad in the newspaper? what if i collected money from sabanfan and 157 so we could do the ad? do we get arrested? are we an illegal organization? what do we have to do to become illegal? if bush calls and thanks us are we illegal then? can bush say in a press conference what his supporters should do on his behalf? will i be arrested if i do it for him? it does when the laws are limiting our freedom of speech and our rights to support the causes we believe in.
Freedom of spreech is not absolute. Supporting something & buying it are not the same. You still have the right to vote for your candidate. Buying off politicians should not be acceptable. Make it illegal to have any political ads - then it doesn't matter who it's by.
that is clear violation of free speech. you are saying that people cannot buy ads based on the content of the ad. that is a restriction based on the content of the speech which is absolutely unacceptable. if i own a tv station, i should be able to sell ads to whoever i want, regardless of the ad's content. i can sell ads to people that favor a certain toothpaste. but not a certain candidate? that is content-based freedom of speech censorship. nothing is more important than maintaining the rights of the people to express their views, regardless of the topic. if what you proposed became law, i would consider moving to montana and planning the violent revolution. there is nothing more important than america not being the sort of country you propose. you couldnt come up with a worse idea. you basically favor ruining america and destroying everything it ever stood for. right, i cant yell "fire" in a movie theater, because peeps will get trampled to death or burn in the next fire when nobody heeds the warnings. that doesnt mean you should favor squelching people's views because you dont think they shouldnt have a say.
to further express how bad a mistake i think it would be if political ads were banned, i would favor the killing of any senator that voted for this, and i would also favor the total destruction of america as a nation if it happened.
It's not a matter of expressing views, as this could still be & certainly would be done on TV - just not bought. You know, they made cigarette ads illegal on TV. You didn't move to Montana to start your revolt then did you? Once again, it is not restricting speech. It is restricting buying of airtime for campaigning. The words can still be said on TV, they just can't be bought. This wouldn't be a completely free market, but so what? What does it affect?
i didnt celebrate. i mourn the loss of freedoms and the deterioration of america. if it keeps up, america will no longer be the greatest country in the world and i would prefer to live in somewhere else. i will join the gangs in the streets burnign flags and favoring the killing the great satan. what about campaign ads where they drink champagne? when political viewpoints cannot be expressed in certain contexts then we as a country have run our course and we should probably kill ourselves. when people can no longer express themselves, why bother living.
what if i dont have to buy the words, because i am rupert murdoch and i own the station, can i express my political preferences then? can that dude manship in baton rouge run a political ad in his own paper? no? can i start an online paper and run ads? if i can, how popular do i have to get before i can't? do the laws apply online? can i buy an ad on newyorktimes.com? what about the drudge report or andrewsullivan's blog or redelephant's myspace page? where do we draw the line? how political can i get on tv? can i campaign for a general concept like pro-choice without explicitly mentioning a candidate? what about religious values in general? do you see what an enormous can of worms you are opening up by banning political ads? besides high taxes, the assault on free speech is probbaly the greatest threat to our freedom.
what...? It's not the viewpoints per se, but the advertisement of a candidate. As I said, politicians could still express themselves. You're being pretty dramatic here.
