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Court limits free speech

I was shocked and appalled when I learned of the U.S. Supreme Court's complete disregard for our Constitution when it ruled to uphold the ban on campaign ads in the campaign finance reform law.

I have not heard much coverage on this ominous ruling from the media, and I'm concerned that people don't realize what the most powerful judiciary in the country has done.

This law bans any individual, corporation, or political committee from running so-called issue ads about candidates before an election. If I purchased a commercial to criticize a presidential candidate 60 days before the general election, I would be fined and/or thrown in jail. Is this freedom of speech?

Thomas Jefferson believed that the freedom to express thought without hindrance and to criticize political opponents, even if the opposition was the government, was at the very heart of a democracy. James Madison felt that intellectual freedom would perish if people were not allowed "the right of freely examining public characters and measures."

Aren't these five justices who made up the majority in this ruling sworn to uphold the Constitution? I guess if you want your speech to be protected under this court, just be sure it's pornographic.

Rich Clark
http://www.columbian.com/01072004/clark_co/106423.html

Remember better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob
Special to FreeRepublic | 17 December 2003 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

This is nothing like the usual whine by someone whose post was pulled. JimRob pulled my previous thread for a good reason. "If direct fund-raising were permitted on FR, it would soon be wall-to-wall fund-raising."

So, let's start again correctly. This is about civil disobedience to support the First Amendment and challenge the TERRIBLE CFR decision of the Supreme Court to uphold a terrible law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush.

All who are interested in an in-your-face challenge to the 30- and 60-day ad ban in the Campaign Finance "Reform" Act, please join in. The pattern is this: I'm looking for at least 1,000 people to help the effort. I will run the ad, and risk fines or jail time to make it work -- AND get national support.

But there should be NO mentions of money in this thread, and not in Freepmail either. This is JimRob's electronic home, and we should all abide his concerns.

Put your comments here. Click on the link above, and send me your e-mail addresses. I will get back to you by regular e-mail with the practical details.

This CAN be done. This SHOULD be done. But it MUST be done in accord with JimRob's guidelines.

Fair enough?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042394/posts

I don't think most people realize just how far the 30/60 day ad ban goes, especially in presidential races. First, it applies only if the ad can be seen by a certain number of viewers - 50,000, I think - where the election is being held. But in many areas, an election in one state will trigger the ad ban in others. For example, you can't advertise on a St. Louis TV station and mention the president not only in the 30 days before the Missouri primary, but also in the 30 days before the Illinois primary, since your ad will reach Illinois. You can't advertise in Chicago markets 30 days before each of the Illinois, Wisconsin, or Indiana primaries (and for larger stations, maybe even Michigan and other states). You can't advertise in New York city 30 days before each of the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut primaries. Plus, the ban applies to the national conventions as well. So in some areas, you may not be allowed to criticize the president for 5 to 6 months of an election year - 2 months before the general election, 1 month before the convention, one month before your state's primary, and 1 or 2 months before neighboring states' primaries.

There will also be some of this spillover effect in congressional and senatorial races. For example, you can't criticize the "McCain-Feingold" bill on a Milwaukee 30 days before the Wisconsin primary or 60 days before the general election. But you also can't run ads on a Chicago station urging congressmen to repeal it, because those ads will also reach Wisconsin, where Feingold is up for reelection. I would guess that large Chicago radio or tv station reaches reaches 20 or more congressional districts, easy, not counting the ones in Wisconsin. So right there you've got probably 30 or more congressional districts blocked out.

If American democracy is finally done in, the perpetrators will unlikely be Hitlerian figures whose strutting authoritarianism is plain to see, but a collection of well-meaning, schoolmarm-like activists who aim to restrict our freedoms for our own supposed good.

[...]

I don't doubt that Common Cause has benefited America since it was created in the 1970s or that its members and officers are nobly intentioned. I think they are also hopelessly innocent on some issues, ideologically incapable of grasping some relatively easy concepts and so fixated on the question of money's corrupting influence on politics that they fail to see things whole.

We ought to stop thinking of leftists as well-meaning but tragically mistaken people. The fact that you have a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart while you pursue your anti-American agenda does not make you a good person. Hitler had a good justification for his actions too, as did the Communists--but that doesn't change the fact that they deliberately tortured and killed millions of innocent people.

The harm done by leftist policies, including this unconstitutional restriction of free speech, is so obvious that any person who actively supports them must be far worse than just a dim bulb who fails to grasp things very well. The tyrannical nature of these policies is so blatant that it cannot possibly go unnoticed by anyone who actively advocates them. These guys know this is an evil law, but they choose to support it nonetheless.