corplinx
11th December 2003, 10:42 PM
You know the proverbial excrement has hit the hypothetical fan when the NRA and the ACLU have to file suit to against a law congress passes.
In this case its the McCain/Feingold "campaign finance reform" act which I like to think of as the "incumbent protection act".
Not only did the bill not touch on any President Bush's requirements for reform (like full disclosure which would alone would make campaign finance a non-issue) but it actually infringes the first amendment in a tangible way.
You may hear the ACLU or the EFF talk big about the patriot act sometimes and go to great lengths with hypotheticals and such showing how patriot could in theory infringe civil liberties (usually involving someone using applying patriot in an illegal way). In this case though we have something that directly infringes freedom of speech and it slipped under the radar.
What I am talking about is this, say it is the week before the next presidential election. I buy a 30 second spot on tv. I run an ad criticisizing Dubya for signing this steaming turd of a bill. Wait, I can't do that now. Its against the law!
The really sad thing is, the supreme court upheld this law with Scalia and those other evil conservatives dissenting. You would think such a direct violation of free speech (which above all is meant to protect political speech) would be unanimously opposed.
I really think this calls for an act of civil disobedience where a tv station and group run a commerical criticizing one of the bill sponsors before their election and accept the consequences to prove a point.
This is just silly to the extreme and annoys me to no end. You can go on some news show and criticize a politician but when they break for commercials political speech has to stop? In the words of Jim Traficant, beam me up Mr. Speaker.
In this case its the McCain/Feingold "campaign finance reform" act which I like to think of as the "incumbent protection act".
Not only did the bill not touch on any President Bush's requirements for reform (like full disclosure which would alone would make campaign finance a non-issue) but it actually infringes the first amendment in a tangible way.
You may hear the ACLU or the EFF talk big about the patriot act sometimes and go to great lengths with hypotheticals and such showing how patriot could in theory infringe civil liberties (usually involving someone using applying patriot in an illegal way). In this case though we have something that directly infringes freedom of speech and it slipped under the radar.
What I am talking about is this, say it is the week before the next presidential election. I buy a 30 second spot on tv. I run an ad criticisizing Dubya for signing this steaming turd of a bill. Wait, I can't do that now. Its against the law!
The really sad thing is, the supreme court upheld this law with Scalia and those other evil conservatives dissenting. You would think such a direct violation of free speech (which above all is meant to protect political speech) would be unanimously opposed.
I really think this calls for an act of civil disobedience where a tv station and group run a commerical criticizing one of the bill sponsors before their election and accept the consequences to prove a point.
This is just silly to the extreme and annoys me to no end. You can go on some news show and criticize a politician but when they break for commercials political speech has to stop? In the words of Jim Traficant, beam me up Mr. Speaker.