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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (128443)	11/13/2000 9:34:34 PM
From: hmaly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1580449

Tim Re..I would distinguish between dishonest campaining and negative campaigning. Tim Re.. I have been a salesman for my own business for 30 yrs. One of the first lessons I learned when I was young was to never speak negatively about your competitors. Why? Because then your competitors will speak badly of you also. If you are trying to sell a pool for instance and belittle all of your competitors; what will your potential customer think of you. Better yet, what will your customer think when all of your competitors thrash you. He will shortly decide all of you are bad and either forego the pool or get a contractor from outside the area; then neither you or your competitors will get any business. That is what has happened to politics. These guys have been so busy degrading everyone else, such that everyone looks like a crook. Me and my competitors do not denigrade anyone else. I always if possible speak kindly of my competition, so that my competition speaks kindly of me. It has nothing to do with free speech, it has everything to do with good business. Personally if you can't find anything good to say about yourself and your ideas, you shouldn't be running and trying to rob the person with good ideas out of a job. Our country has paid a terrible price by allowing negative campaigning because the wrong person gets elected. Who would you want to represent you. The person who can destroy someone with lies and untruths, or someone who can win your vote by telling you what he stands for.? Negative campaigning harms society and should be treated as such. Personally I care more about freedom of speech then short , civil or even 100% honest campaigns. I would have to oppose the sort of restrictions that you argue for, esp. if they apply to adds by people or groups besides the canidates and parties. Is freedom of speech so important, that you would want the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. Is freedom of speech so important that you want the right to swear and curse in front of children. Free speech has its limits. Respect the limits. While you are getting your free speech, the rest of us have to live with what your free speech has bought. Look at the campaigns and politicians we are getting nowadays. 90% of our politicians are on the take, and the good honest people are getting out. It is too high of a price for free speech. also don't like spending public money on election campaigns. Neither do I, but look at the alternative. The sight of our president taking money and compromising US interests from our enemies, renting out government property for personal gain, charging $10,000 for breakfast, 150000 to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom etc. is even uglier to look at. Until we clean up our government, the word democracy means nothing, because our representatives are paying homage to the almighty dollar;not to the people they swore to represent.