Think about your position for a moment. If you claim that limiting the ability to spend money is limiting speech, then you are equating money with speech. Then you are saying that poor people with no money have no right of speech. It's that simple. Really.
No they have the right of freedom of speech, they have less ability to exercise that right. As long as the government is not reducing their ability to exercise their freedom, or some private group is not doing so by force, their freedom is not being abused.
If you catch a disease that makes you week and you can't walk you are not having your rights limited by the government you are just unlucky. If on the other hand the government chains you up, when you have commited no crime, then you are being abused by the government and having your rights infringed on by the government. If I can run faster then my roommate, it doesn't mean that she has no right to run, or that it is just to handicap me in some way so that I can no longer run faster then she can.
Or another example the 2nd amendment gives you the right to keep and bear arms, but if you can't afford a gun that doesn't mean your 2nd amendment rights have been violated (unless perhaps you can't afford a gun due to confiscatory taxes on guns). Now if the government says that the rich can not buy guns so that the "playing field" between the rich and the poor will be even, then the government is violating the 2nd amendment.
But it does mean that the politicians actually might listen to the ideas that are being expressed by their constituents, not just to the money they bring to the campaign.
The restrictions I have been talking about have not been restrictions on contributing money to campaigns. They are restrictions on your own political speech which may have no connection to any campaign organization.
Tim |
