On Sat, 10 May 2008 09:32:02 -0700, Rudy Canoza
<pipes@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Larry in AZ wrote:
>> Waiving the right to remain silent, Rudy Canoza
<pipes@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>> said:
>>
>>> Larry in AZ wrote:
>>>> Waiving the right to remain silent, Rudy Canoza
>>>> <pipes@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said:
>>>>
>>>>> We're talking about lawsuits *brought* by conservatives, to suppress
>>>>> speech.
>>>> *You're* talking about it. But you haven't shown it...
>>> Of course I have, stupid lying ****bag. I've already mentioned two of
>>> the most infamous ones: the Texas cattlemen's suit against Oprah
>>> Winfrey and Howard Lyman, and the Wa****ngton state apple growers' suit
>>> against CBS and the NRDC.
>>
>> You've got proof that the cattlemen and apple growers were
Conservatives..?
>
>Texas cattlemen? By definition.
>
>Look, ****wit: the other foam-at-the-mouth knuckle-dragging troglodyte
>conservative footsoldier already conceded that SLAPP and product
>disparagement lawsuits are almost exclusively the province of
>conservative-oriented groups. This is not in serious dispute.
You want to sit and piss and moan about private entities launching
lawsuits that they lost. Seems like beating a dead horse. All kinds
of folks file all kinds of injunctions and lawsuits everyday.
If you were in business and someone with the money and the power came
out and told a ****load of bald faced lies for the sole purpose of
simply killing your business you'd probably file suit as well.
Borttom line is they lost their suits, no one's free speech was
affected right or wrong.
On the other hand legislation that has been pushed into law by the
left such as Federal Elections Campaign Act in 1974 and the Campaign
Reform Act of 2002. And they regularly try to get the ball rolling to
reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. Whenever the democcrats get a
large enough majority in congress it will be reinstituted.
You can keep blathering about every lawsuit that pops up claiming some
great conservative plan to kill free speech but personally I'm more
concerned about the assholes that are actively making the laws.
In 1974, for the first time in American history, amendments to the
Federal Elections Campaign Act (FECA) made it illegal in some
cir***stances for Americans to publish their opinions about candidates
for election. Citizens and organizations who "coordinate" with a
candidate for public office were prohibited from spending more than a
set amount of money to publish arguments for or against a candidate.
Those who "coordinate" with a candidate are his friends and
sup****ters. In other words, publication was forbidden to those with
the greatest interest in campaigns and those most likely to want to
spend money publi****ng on behalf of candidates.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 goes well beyond the 1974
law, imposing substantial limits on the right of political parties and
nonprofit organizations to publicize their views on candidates during
election campaigns. Imagine the shock of the Founders if they were
here to see that government was heavily into the business of banning
private citizens from pooling their fortunes to publicize their
opinions about candidates for elections.
These laws do contain a notable exception. Newspaper owners may spend
as much money as they wish publi****ng arguments in sup****t of
candidates with whom they "coordinate." This solitary exemption from
restrictions on free speech is, of course, no mistake: The dominant
newspapers in America are liberal, and the 1974 law was passed by a
Democratic Congress on the day before Richard Nixon resigned in
disgrace from the presidency.
Campaign finance regulation stands in direct opposition to the
Founders' understanding of the First Amendment. For a large class of
people, it effectively prohibits and punishes the most im****tant thing
that the right to free speech is supposed to guarantee: open
discussion of candidates and issues at election time.
Those who favor campaign finance regulation sometimes claim that their
primary concern is with "corruption and the appearance of
corruption"—that is, what used to be called bribery or the appearance
of bribery. But that is not the real agenda of the reformers. There is
a good reason why the 2002 Act, like the 1974 law, was voted for by
almost every House and Senate Democrat, and opposed by a large
majority of Republicans: These laws are primarily about limiting the
speech of conservatives.
Here are some quotations from the 2002 congressional debate:
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.): "This bill is about slowing the ad
war.... It is about slowing political advertising and making sure the
flow of negative ads by outside interest groups does not continue to
permeate the airwaves."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.): "These so-called issues ads are not
regulated at all and mention candidates by name. They directly attack
candidates without any accountability. It is brutal.... We have an
op****tunity in the McCain-Feingold bill to stop that."
Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.): "I think these issue advocacy ads are a
nightmare. I think all of us should hate them…. [By passing the
legislation], [w]e could get some of this poison politics off
television."
In other words, the law makes it harder for citizens to criticize
liberal politicians when they disagree with their policy views.
Some congressmen were willing to be even more open about the fact that
the new law would cut down on conservative criticism of candidates.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said: "If my colleagues care about gun
control, then campaign finance is their issue so that the NRA does not
call the shots." Democratic Reps. Marty Meehan (Mass.) and Rosa
DeLauro (Conn.), and Democratic Sens. Harry Reid (Nev.) and Dick
Durbin (Ill.) also cited the National Rifle Association's political
communications as a problem that the Act would solve. Several liberal
Republicans chimed in.
What this means is that government is now in the business of silencing
citizens who believe in the Second Amendment right to keep and bear
arms.
Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) said that issue ads "are obviously pointed
at positions that are taken by you, saying how horrible they are."
"Negative advertising is the crack cocaine of politics," added Sen.
Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). What these quotations show—and there are many
more like them—is that the purpose of campaign finance regulation is
to make it harder for conservatives to present their views to the
public about candidates and issues in elections.
In its shocking December 2003 decision in McConnell v. Federal
Election Commission, the five most liberal members of the Supreme
Court upheld this law and saw no conflict with the First Amendment
guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press. Yet it is impossible
to imagine a more obvious violation of the First Amendment, unless the
government were explicitly to authorize the Federal Election
Commission to close down conservative newspapers and magazines. In his
powerful dissent in the McConnell case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote:
The chilling endpoint of the Court's reasoning is not difficult to
foresee: outright regulation of the press. None...of the reasoning
employed by the Court exempts the press.... What is to stop a future
Congress from determining that the press is "too influential," and
that the "appearance of corruption" is significant when media
organizations endorse candidates or run "slanted" or "biased" news
stories in favor of candidates or parties? Or, even easier, what is to
stop a future Congress from concluding that the availability of
unregulated media cor****ations creates a loophole that allows for easy
"cir***vention" of the limitations of the current campaign finance
laws?
With the National Rifle Association announcement that it intends to
acquire a media outlet in order to get around Congress's
unconstitutional restrictions on issue ads during elections, Justice
Thomas's nightmare might come true even sooner than he anticipated. We
are already hearing statements suggesting that any media owned by the
NRA will not count as "real" media. At some point, perhaps in the very
near future, the Federal Election Commission may find itself deciding
which newspapers and broadcast stations are "real" news media (and can
therefore be permitted their First Amendment rights) and which ones
are "slanted" or "biased" (thus whose First Amendment rights must be
denied).
http://tinyurl.com/6xhqda
Regards
Starkiller
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