Think of the plausible scenario of a certain Presidents FEC deciding friendly speech isn’t “political” (it’s “patriotic”!) But critical speech is clearly political and should be regulated.
Our Supreme Court has decided that corporations spending money[3], even in politics[4], is speech as well.
The O'Brien test[5] is generally used to tell whether a law encroaches on 1A rights.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson [1]: http://joshblackman.com/blog/2018/07/10/doj-second-amendment... [2]: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/archive/abi.htm [3]: https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center... [4]: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v... [5]: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/obrient...
Banning political advertising is just a play to strengthen incumbents and hurt new comers. I also think it's morally wrong. It's "you should not try to influence others by yourself - only government approved channels are ok and maybe you will get a minute a day if you're already visible in the polls" kind of law. It's censorship reminding me of Soviet days. Europe is terrible when it comes to freedom of expression. Blasphemy laws are another example of prosecuting speech some groups don't like.
Why is paying someone to murder someone a different category than other forms of speech?
Why are intentionally deceptive drug advertisements a different category than other forms of speech?
Why is pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something a different category than other types of speech?
I'm going to claim that it's because these forms of speech enable types of coordination and coercion that corrupt processes and structures that we deem essential for the operation of society. So, pragmatic reasons.
Placing limits on the payments, direct or indirect (a dollar I spend is a dollar a candidate doesn't have to spend), that can be made to aid people in gaining a position that places them in charge of allocating public resources, that's something that very few people seriously argue against. What they argue about is what those limits should be.
You can make an argument that payments to candidates and government officials should be allowed, but making absolutist arguments that something is speech and therefore must be permitted isn't serious. Payments to a television station to run an ad that you financed the production of is surely less worthy of being called speech than calling in a bomb threat is - at least the bomb threat is using your mouth to say a thing. Speech, instead, is what we define to be speech. If it's to encompass all expression, you might as well call selling cigarettes without a tax stamp speech.
The speech isn't illegal - the act of trading based on insider information is. This works in a similar manner to bomb-making plans being legal to disseminate, but making a bomb being very illegal.
> Why is paying someone to murder someone a different category than other forms of speech?
This is solicitation to commit a crime, which is a specific exception to the 1A.
> Why are intentionally deceptive drug advertisements a different category than other forms of speech?
This is a false statement of fact, which is a specific exception to the 1A.
> Why is pointing a gun at someone and telling them to do something a different category than other types of speech?
Pointing a gun isn't speech, it's coercion.
The act of paying for something. That's not a very helpful distinction to make when the proposal is not being able to pay for certain ads.
> This is a false statement of fact, which is a specific exception to the 1A.
Political ads are deceptive all the time.
And what does "specific exception" mean? Specified by what?
* https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transc...
Enjoy.
Free speech does have certain restrictions, which you can easily read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
Contrast with the Basic Law of Germany article 5, that has already come up in this discussion, which outlines specific exceptions in paragraph 2. (For another example, see article 8.)
Real exceptions exist, regardless of whether they are written in the original amendment text or in rulings afterward.
Amendments were added to the body of laws after the constitution, and congress and the supreme court have since added more to the body of laws after the amendments. The cumulative result is what governs citizens today.
Those laws are in fact very specific about their exceptions, as shown very clearly in the wikipedia link. What exactly do you find fuzzy or confusing about them?
Case law, as you linked, is not. It also keeps changing without the underlying documents changing. I don't know how you can look at all those dates marking times high courts had to get involved and still say it's clear.
Not everyone attends a rally and not every rally is (or needs to be) covered in the news.
Also: in the US parties are less powerful (and not even mentioned in the constitution) so each candidate is presented individually and it's up to that candidate to bring up whichever issues (local or national) that they consider relevant. There is nothing like the party list system. So the structure of elections are quite different from the ones in, say, France or Germany.
Do you expect people are all going to come online, visit HN or other forums, and then discuss politics willingly with potential candidates?
She did exactly that.
Campaign was as follows:
Identify policy platform and benefit to winning majority of voters.
Identify win numbers.
Two of hers were Medicare for All and Living Wages.
Organize volunteers to canvass. Break it down and insure coverage.
Canvass, hold events, town hall, rallies, etc...
Continue, until win numbers plausibly met.
Continue.
Win election, which she did.
The beauty of that campaign is the strategy I put here was announced and implemented. All well ahead of the election. Was nearly a two year effort.
No big money, no big media, no extensive marketing campaign.
The single most important thing that team did was actually ask people for their votes.
A ton of campaigns do not actually do that. They imply and or talk about how bad it can be if you do not vote.
Big difference. And it takes much more of a spend to do too.
This works at any scale.
Sanders showed it in 2016. Same overall approach.
Won 22 States and 45 percent of Delegates doing mostly that.
On a national level, some AD spends are needed, but are not the core of the campaign.
People to people politics work, but that is a clear vote for politicking, not the usual vote against we see most of the time.
On FOR type issues, very large numbers of people will invest FOR, because they see a clear return potential.
Without that, yes more ADS and such are needed, because the ask for vote part is not as prominent, often implied.
My point here is we totally have ways of politicking that work and do not require massive political contributions and or ADS.
I perfer them and would gladly regulate political ADS.
Do the same for perscription drugs, just because doing that makes about as much sense.
You are not wrong, buying an office is not cheap. People lacking significant backing, or personal means cannot afford to do that.
That is not the only way to do politicking.
I am not wrong either.
I am not sure why you talk about buying votes. Getting people to look at your message is not buying votes. Making crazy promises like free cash for everyone or flats for everyone as human right is.
This is depressing.