Posted on 11/17/2006 1:12:45 PM PST by radar101
There are three factions of the pubbie party:
1. The religeoous right.
2. The libertarian wing.
3. The moderates.
See tagline.
ping
"The mainstream media" is an unnecessary circumlocution - it's Big Journalism, and fellow travelers thereof. Big Journalism consists of a number of corporations, just as Major League Baseball consists of many nominally competitive teams. But MLB baseball is an entity which promotes interest in its games, and just so Big Journalism promotes its talk divorced from action and therefore from consequences and accountability."Take the dirty money out of politics"Big Journalism is naturally socialist because, since it does nothing but talk, it is best able to gain attention/importance by criticizing people who do things and therefore are vulnerable to the second guess. And socialism is nothing else but criticism and second guessing of those who do significant things. Socialists criticize not only those who provide our food, clothing, shelter, and fuel/transportation, but also those who provide security - notwithstanding the fact that police and the military are an essential part of the government so beloved of socialists.
This conceit is offensive because while it condemns the political contributions of non-journalists, it takes for granted that the money Big Journalism spends is pure as the wind-driven snow. There is no justification for that assumption, and there is no justification for the assumption that journalists are objective. The First Amendment doesn't say journalists are objective, it says journalists don't have to be objective."It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.""Citizenship in a Republic,"
Theodore Roosevelt,
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
The first thing we could do is put our trust back in the American people. You could ban PAC, corporate, and labor contributions tomorrow if you take the limits off individual contributions (as the law stood before 1974, when the dems decided to do in Nixon).
We could also ban 527's from political activity. We should also require that 50% of the money a candidate raises come from within the district they seek to represent.
But, of course, none of this is possible with a dem House or Senate, let alone both.
Excellent points.
but the democrats don't mind "big money" in politics, .......
As long as it is THEIR big money supporting THEIR causes.
interesting points.
ABC | 9,670,000 |
NBC | 7,000,000 |
CBS | 6,310,000 |
FOXNEWS | 3,050,000 |
CNN | 2,963,000 |
DrudgeReport | 2,300,000 |
MSNBC | 1,926,000 |
Bookmarked
I heard he gave 8 million bucks to the aclu. Nice guy.
The Rabbi nails it.
The relentless attacks on the good name and even the character of good conservative Republicans across this land in the recent election was unprecedented.
McCain, Bush, the Congress and the SCOTUS have tied the hands of regular folks and given all the power to Soros and the Democrat Media.
We have no choice but to fight them and defeat them. Our free republic will soon be gone if we don't.
We have the means to do so, by the way.
BTTT for later read.
SEN. JOHN McCAIN: THE ULTIMATE "RHINESTONE HERO"
SEN. JOHN McCAIN: THE ULTIMATE "RHINESTONE HERO" Part II
U.S. Sen. John McCain is no War Hero
John McCain: The Manchurian Candidate
John McCain, you treasonous bastard, I challenge you or any of your traitorous cohorts...
McCain Is Booed by Labor Activists
McCain Rides to Kerry's Rescue: "John Kerry is Not Weak on Defense" (Today Show alert)
John McCain SCREAMS AT 9/11 FSA MEMBERS FOR OPPOSING HIS BILL TO GIVE AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS
BTTT
More than enough. And, yet, what does he have up his treacherous sleeve to "botch" the 2008 election ... ?
BTTT
We could also ban 527's from political activity. We should also require that 50% of the money a candidate raises come from within the district they seek to represent.Bad idea. Very bad idea.
We don't need less free speech. That is not the answer.
The 527 "loophole" doesn't just apply to the dhimmi's. The good people can use it too. So let's use it. Let's do it.
We don't need more draconian anti-speech laws. We need to stand up and speak.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
We could also ban 527's from political activity. We should also require that 50% of the money a candidate raises come from within the district they seek to represent.Very bad idea. We don't need less free speech. That is not the answer.
The 527 "loophole" doesn't just apply to the dhimmi's. The good people can use it too. So let's use it. Let's do it.
We don't need more draconian anti-speech laws. We need to stand up and speak.
The way to understand the First Amendment, and to understand which government policies violate it, is to ask questions about newspaper publishing:If there is no restriction on the source or quantity of money which may found a newspaper, and if requiring newspapers to be objective would be unconstitutional and absurd, by what logic is it possible legally to prevent a newspaper from being associated with a political party, being sponsored by a political party, or even being a political party?
- Does money invested in a printing press have to come only from an existing print operation? Can it be illegal for a newspaper to incorporate and sell stock to people who are not journalists? To the contrary, money to be invested in a newspaper can come from a poor man frugally saving his money, or from a shipping tycoon or from a gas station owner.
- Does a newspaper have to earn a profit, and does it even have to charge a fee for its product? No, a newspaper can be free, and it can operate at a loss - may become a sinkhole of money for its investor(s), and may finally go bankrupt.
- Is a newspaper required by the First Amendment to be objective? To the contrary, the First Amendment means that a newspaper does not have to be objective.
- If the government did attempt to require newspapers to be objective, would it be possible for any newspaper to meet that standard? No - for the simple reason that
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin FranklinSince nobody ever can know, much less print, the entire truth, it would be impossible to ever prove the negative than any given report was not tendentious in omitting some fact from the report.To operate a newspaper is to exercise a constitutional right, and in no sense a duty. I cannot be required to found a newspaper, and I cannot be required to continue to operate a newspaper if once I have founded or otherwise acquired it. I can sell it, to anyone. Including, to the only other newspaper in town. Newspapers are free to collude with each other; it cannot be legally prevented. One newspaper can conspire with another to each assert that the other is objective, without evidence. Newspapers are free.
Newspapers are free. If newspapers have any motive to do so, they can operate in league with each other just as much as two major league baseball teams do - competing within agreed boundaries, and otherwise colluding with each other. They can form a joint operation to share rights to news stories amongst themselves. They can all join one guild. Newspapers are free.
Newspapers are free. If each of them has the same motive to select the same sort of story for front page emphasis, for inclusion in the body of the paper, or for systematic omission from any mention, they all can behave in the same way - and and if the result is that they all exhibit the same political tendency, they can do so without restraint. Newspapers are free.
Newspapers are free. They can compose, or subscribe to an existing,
Code of Ethics which they publish and/or post on their office walls. They can even make an effort to adhere to such, if they choose. Or not. Newspapers are free.If newspapers are free to do all of the above, and if they have motives to do any or all of the above, there is not the slightest reason to be surprised, or offended, at any evidence (no matter how strong) that they actually do so. In fact, if they have motive as they have opportunity, it is only rational to assume that they will routinely do it. Just as bears are in the woods, and bears have motive to drop excrement - and probably do so there.
The proofs of newspapers' political tendency which Ann Coulter presents in her books - Slander certainly, but also in Treason and Godless - should not surprise us. The only reason it does, is because we have been taken in by a massive propaganda canpaign.
What does that mean in relation to Campaign Finance regulation? It means that all such regulations are unconstitutional. But it also means something else. It means that when broadcasters ape - nay, amplify - The New York Times and other newspapers in order to produce broadcast journalistism which is "in the public interest" appeal to such example is no evidence at all of conformance with the public interest. It may interest the public - and since that is a motive of The New York Times, it probably does - but that is different and often antithetical to the public interest.
Broadcasting exists because of censorship of the many so that the transmissions of the few can be recieved over a broad area. Broadcast Journalism is illegitimate.
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