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Thursday, September 30, 2004

A Scary Read

Jonathan Rauch has an interesting read about the new McCain-Feingold campaign laws effecting political speech in the National Journal today (via EIKIW).

Now it is official: The United States of America has a federal bureaucracy in charge of deciding who can say what about politicians during campaign season. We can argue, and people do, about whether this state of affairs is good or bad, better or worse than some alternative. What is inarguable is that America now has what amounts to a federal speech code, enforced with jail terms of up to five years.


I found this excerpt particularly disturbing.

On September 9, the FEC ruled that a conservative group called Citizens United was not a "media organization" and therefore could not use unrestricted money to broadcast ads marketing a book and film critical of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "Not everyone can be a media organization," said one FEC commissioner.


How soon until these campaign regulations (or future regulations like them) are imposed upon citizen journalists like bloggers?

Go and read the whole thing. When you're done, contact your congressional representatives and tell them that you want the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws repealed.

Honestly, if it weren't for the war on terror and the alternative being John Kerry, Bush's signing of this law would be my reason for voting against him.

Comments

Avatar for Seth Yantiss

Give me a candidate that is not a Socialist and my reasons for not voting for Bush would have started with the Prescription Medicare act… Followed by McCain-Feingold…

To his credit, Tax cuts are always a good idea… as is hunting down Terrorist with big guns.

Seth Yantiss on September 30, 2004 at 10:09 am
Avatar for Lee Grey

I’m not disagreeing with your distaste for Bush signing the bill, but all he did was sign it.  Congressmen in committee devised, debated, and detailed this unconstitutional legislation.  Two houses of Congress passed the bill.  The President signed the bill.  It seems like the checks and balances let us down here.  The Supreme Court is our last hope.

Lee Grey on September 30, 2004 at 11:10 am
Avatar for Seth Yantiss

Don’t get me wrong… I won’t vote for any of my Senators / Representatives who voted for this abomination… Unless the replacement candidate is worse.

Seth Yantiss on September 30, 2004 at 12:09 pm
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