07 September 2006

Its that time, folks...

From the National Archives Bill of Rights transcript:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Today marks the beginning of the 'blackout period'- sixty days before an election- where broadcast media is officially prohibited from running ads that basically are 'issue ads' by an organization against another candidate.

I, personally, don't care how the Supreme Court ruled on this issue. These provisions, along with most of the other provisions, of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Incumbent Protection Act- a.k.a. the 'McCain-Feingold' Act- are supposedly designed to prevent campaigners from getting too much money from particular sources- particular support organizations.

Of course, this hasn't stopped George Soros from giving a reported ten million dollars to MoveOn.org to support liberal candidates or attack conservatives. What is has done is largely silence small political action committees from being able to make their opinion on a candidate's issues heard.

Geek with a .45 put it best here on the McCain-Feingold Insurrection site.

All this Act means is that those that can afford to spend their own money to get elected will get elected. Those that have money from years of campaign donations- i.e. professional politicians- will have money to spend to get elected. People that are trying to enter into the political arena anew, especially people that haven't spent years in lower offices, won't have the money to spend to be able to challenge these candidates. Thus, the incumbents, or those who have already held political offices for years, win.

I've gotten to the point where I have a serious problem with professional politicians, in general. But that will be another post, I think.

If some conservative organization wants to run a political ad on my blog, they can just contact me. Especially if they are based in California, and dealing with this state's... serious issues.

3 Comments:

Blogger Glenn B said...

The mcCain-Feingold law is ludicrous. I would like to see campaign finace reform come about but not at the loss of our liberties and rights - which is exactly what we lose under this law. In addition we may lose new candidates who actually have a chance at winning, as you said in your blog:

"People that are trying to enter into the political arena anew, especially people that haven't spent years in lower offices, won't have the money to spend to be able to challenge these candidates. Thus, the incumbents, or those who have already held political offices for years, win."


The law stinks. So to do mcCain and Feingold in my opinion.

All the best,
Glenn b

3:49 PM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I cannot agree with you, Glenn, Ludicrous is not the word for McCain-Feingold.
The only appropriate word is
treasonous.

Up until oh, say 1990, the SCOTUS recognized the primacy of political speech. Mere commercial speech could be regulated because the peons were too stupid to compare and contrast on their own, but political speech was the real deal, the arena where no holds were barred, because to limit political speech was to limit the very thing that formed the nation.

But, in a country where performing lap dances without pasties is a protected first amendment right, and protesting outside abortion clinics is not, I guess we should not be surprised that it is not protected under the first amendment to say within 2 momnths of an election that you support a particular politician, or another politician is a scumbag.

Wasn't there a movie about McCain once? A soldier is captured by communists and held prisoner, and when he returns to America he does many things that are criminal and treasonous?
Dang, what is the name of that film?

3:52 PM PDT  
Blogger Draven said...

The Machurian Candidate.

4:01 PM PDT  

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