Dec. 11, 2003 - 20:42 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Over Regulation ?

Funny, the Rocky Mountain News now calls its editorial page "Commentary." Or did in this issue anyway. Headlined "The scary future of speech restrictions."

Quoting, "Will Congress decide someday to prevent this newspaper from publishing editorials and other commentary favoring a candidate within 60 days of a federal election ? Will it order radio stations to muzzle their talk-show hosts and guests ?" We ask this because we think Congress could now get away with such a direct assault on freedom of the press given the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday upholding most of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance law." "In a 5 to 4 decision the court upheld restrictions on ads appearng close to an election paid for by unions or corporations that refer to a candidate."

Still quoting, "That's a disturbing curtailment on of the right of free expression in its own right, in our view. But its also a warning of the possibility of more restrictions to come, as Justice Clarence Thomas complained in his dissent." "The chilling endpoint of the court's reasoning," Thomas wrote, "is not difficult to forsee: outright regulation of the press. None of the rationales offered by the defendants, and none of the reasoning employed by the court, exempts the press." "Thomas then quoted another court decision noting 'the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of distinguishing, either as a matter of fact or constitutional law, media corporations from (non-media) corporations."

"McCain-Feigold's attack on free speech comes basically two ways, the second one a little more roundabout than the one we've already discussed. That is, it also restricts the raising and spending of so-called 'soft money' by national and state political parties. The pretense of the bill's supporters is if you take away the means of speech, you aren't really taking away speech. But of course you are. If political parties are limited in how much money they can raise and spend, then their aility to promote their views is limited, too."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The article also mentions it feels that McCain-Feingold will distort political fund raising and campaigning, divert wealth into other soft-money channels and protect incumbents.

I don't know but I think that somethings considered as givens such as the poor, prostitution, gambling, alcohol purveying, distilling and brewing, and such things indicate that money will find a way to be applied to the desired point. Look at the money being spent to counteract the No-call ruling by the telemarketing businesses. Corporations have the edge because of their wealth so therefore their people can find obscure ways to funnel wealth in whatever direction desired. Seems to me that a good example of that is Mr. Bush, the CEO of the United States and his corporate buddies running things as they see fit -- to our disadvantage.

I think what we need is elimination of many of the laws we already have before they strangle us all. The more laws passed, to my mind, complicate matters more and more. Looks as if we are indulging in Over Regulation . . . . . . . . .

Blog