[IMC-Editorial] Op-Ed: Campaign Finance Limits Violate Free Speech

[anarch3m]

Our editorial staff has requested you cease sending to the list.  I offered you the open publishing feature.

I posted for you, even tried to start dialogues and explore positions.

You ran from the oportunity by doing a official policy position vs your own personal position dance arout..

All the while writing under the biline.

Well, I guess we are not going to be a made in heaven couple.

I am still not sure how your mail keeps distributing.  Are you enrolled on the sly and evading our "members only" policy?  If so I can't find who you send thru.

In any case, Chris has contacted you 3 times with no response.

Should I give  him the phone number?  So I can retire from this silliness.

I tried, you coped out, others are tired of it, please don't bother us...

Wow, that's great outreach for your/Ari positions.  Anarchists too much for you?

walt
a real Libertarian, not a wannabe neo con apologist...
at indymedia
editor list admin...
--

--------- Original Message ---------

DATE: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 08:01:00 
From: The Ayn Rand Institute <media at aynrand.org>
To: imc-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
Cc: 

>Dear Editor, 
>
>Please consider this Op-Ed submission from the Ayn Rand Institute.
>
>Campaign Finance Limits Violate Free Speech
>
>The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act--under review by the U.S. Supreme Court--is an 
>ominous limitation on free speech
>
>By Andrew Lewis
>
>Earlier this year President Bush risked the lives of American military personnel to end 
>Iraq's tyrannical regime--a dictatorship that not only restricted the actions of Iraqis 
>but also silenced them from speaking their mind. It is ironic that President Bush led 
>America into that war only days before signing legislation--the Bipartisan Campaign 
>Reform Act (B.C.R.A)--that would violate and ultimately curtail *our* freedom of speech. 
>
>The U.S. Supreme Court is now reviewing this legislation--and with it the future of free 
>speech in America.
>
>The alleged goal of B.C.R.A. is to end corruption in the political process. The two key 
>provisions of the law, based on legislation drafted by Sen. Russell Feingold and Sen. 
>John McCain, are the pre-election ban on "issue advertisements" sponsored by 
>corporations and unions and the limits on so-called "soft money." Far from stopping 
>corruption, these provisions are violations of free speech.
>
>Political contributions, large or small, are a mode of speech--more clearly so than many 
>of the forms of "symbolic speech," such as nude dancing and the filing of lawsuits, that 
>have previously been protected--because they explicitly entail the expression of ideas. 
>Your contribution to a candidate is *de facto* the publication of your ideas and is 
>similar to hiring a speaker or commissioning an author. The amount of money you 
>contribute--as an individual or in cooperation with others--should not disqualify you 
>from expressing your ideas. The only proper "limits" on contributions are those set by 
>your willingness to employ your money for this purpose.
>
>All forms of advertising, including television advertising, are crucial means for 
>communicating your ideas, values, and arguments. Election time is perhaps the most 
>opportune time to broadcast political ads. Under the B.C.R.A.'s provisions, 
>however, "issue advertising" on television is prohibited 60 days before a general 
>election and 30 days before a primary.
>
>B.C.R.A. strictly limits how much corporations and other organizations can contribute 
>in "soft money" to a political party, but leaves political action committees, such as 
>the environmentalist Green Power and Sen. McCain's own Straight Talk America, relatively 
>free to speak their mind. With this law, our government is effectively telling us: "Shut 
>up. Sit Down. Listen." And the only voices we'll hear are those the government has 
>approved. This law restricts *in principle* what you can say by restricting how much you 
>can say--and when you can say it. The B.C.R.A. will ultimately create in America an 
>entrenched ideological elite granted permission to speak by the government.
>
>The fundamental purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the right of citizens to 
>express their views. The right to speak cannot be implemented without the right to 
>property. The right to acquire and dispose of your property makes it possible for you to 
>express your ideas, be it by publishing a book, placing an ad on the op-ed page, hiring 
>a hall in which to deliver a lecture, supporting a candidate with whom you agree, or, 
>more important, criticizing one with whom you disagree. The right to use his property is 
>the only protection a private citizen has against a government monopoly on ideas. As 
>Chief Justice Rehnquist correctly noted, "[It's] not up to the government to decide 
>there is too much speech coming from one place and not enough from another."
>
>The Supreme Court would do well to strike down the entire B.C.R.A., and pave the way for 
>repealing all such legislation at federal and state levels.
>
>Campaign finance limits cannot end political corruption, because the origin of this 
>problem is the arbitrary power that politicians have to impose undeserved punishments 
>on, or grant unearned rewards to, groups and individuals. The "special interests" 
>contribute to candidates (often on both sides of an election) in order to escape certain 
>controls or to appeal for legislative favors. But the corruption lies in the arbitrary 
>power our politicians have, not in the fact that the victims or beneficiaries of that 
>power try to influence its exercise. Removing that power, therefore, is the only way to 
>eliminate the corruption.
>
>Limiting the amount of money spent on elections will not solve the problem of influence-
>peddling; it will, however, destroy a principle vital to our republic. It is the right 
>to use and dispose of one's property that makes freedom of speech possible. Taken to its 
>logical conclusion, the B.C.R.A. would move America's political system toward that of 
>Iraq's former dictatorship.
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Andrew Lewis is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, 
>Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and 
>The Fountainhead. Send comments to reaction at aynrand.org
>
>If you plan to use this Op-Ed, please send an email to
>media at aynrand.org with your publication's name and the expected date
>of publication.
> 
>Thank you,
>
>David Holcberg
>Media Department, Ayn Rand Institute 
>2121 Alton Parkway Suite 250
>Irvine, CA 92606
>Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 226
>E-mail: davidh at aynrand.org
>
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>
>
>
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