But when I'm watching a show that I want to watch, I can't help but be bombarded by campaign advertisements funded through CUBut that doesn't change anyone's vote, right? Because everybody is already exercising the most basic responsibility of a citizen and independently researching the candidates and issues they're asked to vote for or against, enabling them to discern the honest ads from the misleading ones?
A rational people looking for fairness in their politics would have long ago demanded that television time be made available at no cost and apportioned equally among rival candidates. But no one expects that any such arrangement is now possible. Political ads are jealously guarded as a major source of income by television stations. And what passes for news on most TV channels gives short shrift to most political campaigns except perhaps to “cover” the advertising combat.posted by russilwvong at 10:24 AM on January 17 [3 favorites]
There are no easy ways to repair our entire election system. But I believe that a large degree of fairness could be restored to our campaigns if we level the TV playing field. And given the television industry’s huge stake in paid political advertising, it (and the Supreme Court) would surely resist limiting campaign ads, as many European countries do. With so much campaign cash floating around, there is only one attractive remedy I know of: double the price of political commercials so that every candidate’s purchase of TV time automatically pays for a comparable slot awarded to an opponent. The more you spend, the more your rival benefits as well. The more you attack, the more you underwrite the opponent’s responses. The desirable result would likely be that rival candidates would negotiate an arms control agreement, setting their own limits on their TV budgets and maybe even on their rhetoric.
they also apply to non-profit advocacy corporations, such as, say, the ACLU and Planned ParenthoodThe Planned Parenthood PAC (different from the Planned Parenthood non-profit organization), under the Russell-Feingold act, could engage in as much advocacy as they wanted. So could Exxon-Mobil. They just couldn't engage in direct electioneering. I'm OK with restricting PP's right to electioneer.
When Milton names Catholic discourse as the exception to his toleration he does so because in his view Catholic speech is subversive of everything speech, in general, is supposed to do -- keep the conversation going, continue the search for Truth. In short, if speech is really to be free in the sense that he desires, Catholics cannot be allowed freely to produce it. This might seem paradoxical, but in fact it is Milton's recognition of a general condition: free speech is what's left over when you have determined which forms of speech cannot be permitted to flourish. The "free speech zone" emerges against the background of what has been excluded. Everyone begins by assuming what shouldn't be said; otherwise there would be no point to saying anything.The First Amendment is not a suicide pact.
If you can get the right "principles" on your side, if you can announce your own program and wrap it literally in the flag of the right high- sounding phrases, you can have a great advantage over your opponents. That is why, even though I am always arguing against the coherence of most First Amendment arguments and doctrines, I never urge people to stop using First Amendment formulas -- because they have so much resonance. Freedom of speech, individual rights, the establishment of autonomy, the freedom from governmental restraint -- these are magic phrases. The trick is to take those magic phrases and fill them in with the content that will then generate the outcome that you desire.Stanley Fish, meet Leo Strauss.
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posted by benito.strauss at 9:39 AM on January 17