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

To: hmaly who wrote (128580)	11/15/2000 4:07:59 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580522

Isn't that what newspapers are for, or debates or the internet. Why go to the worst possible source for honest information. Would you go to the Yahoo boards for stock tips? I probably would not buy stock based on a Yahoo post. I also would not make it illegal to post on Yahoo or to buy stock based on such a post. And why believe someone who is trying to slant something and doesn't give the other candidate the chance to respond until days later. That is what our jurisprudence system requires, that the accuser can meet and respond to the accuser. Elections are not court trials and they should not be subject to the same restirctions of court trials. No specific right to respond to public statements (includeing campaign statements) is required if you have generally free speech. Anyone can respond to the campaign statements without a specific "right to reply". There are two key words here; minimum and properly. Does anyone think that those two words come anywhere near describing what we have now. No I do not think the current canidates have used only a minimum amount of completly honest negative campaigning. So you point out somthing bad or imperfect. However not everything bad or imperfect should be illegal. Also any law against negative campaigning would presumably also cover "minimal, proper and honest", negative campaigning. If such a law did attempt to allow "minimal proper and honest" negative campaigning but outlaw other negative campaigning then you have campaign themes having to go through legal red tape with review by judges or burocrats. Why do parties demand money for access. Because 1 - They need money and 2 - The amount of access a politician can give is not unlimited. It has to be allocated in some way. If you don't think 90% of the politicians are on the take; name 30 or 40 US reps. who don't. Heck, name even 5 you can prove don't take any money from special interests. It is pretty hard to prove someone is not on the take. People recieveing bribes usually do not put out a press release about it. Can name 30 or 40 reps. who you can prove are reiceiving bribes? Note - I do not consider takeing any money from special interests to be a bribe. If I was in the House of Representatives, I would take special interest money. Most of the money would probably be from people who support ideas I agree with. If someone who disagrees with me wants to send me money fine, but that doesn't mean I would change my vote because of the money. "If you restrict issue advocay then you have truely abonded free speech and have taken a step toward totalitarian government." Agreed, and that is what negative campaigning does. Restricts issue advocacy by drowning it out. Negative campaigning is not a government restriction. It is in no way totalitarian. It isn't even a non government restriction. It does not prevent other people from having there say. The answer to "bad" speach ("hate speach", negative campaigning, inaccurate information, ect.) is not to ban it but rather to respond to it with fair accurate statements of information. Trying to ban speech because we judge it to be bad in some way is a very slipery slope. What makes you think the special interests aren't extorting money from us now. They don't have the power to do so for the most part if you are talking about them doing it directly. They can get government to do it for them, but I don't think campaign finace reform will stop this. Certainly banning negative campaigning will not stop it. Corporations get out of taxes, or get contracts they don't deserve, and who do you think pays. You do in the form of higher taxes. The tobacco industry lobbies against regulations and against liability lawsuits, and who pays. You do in the form of more cancer and higher prices on cigarettes. Getting subsidies or undeserved contracts could be considered having the government extort money from the people for their benefit. Fighting against taxes or regulations is more of a defensive measure, avoiding government control and trying to keep some of there profit. This is particuarly true in the case of the tobacco industry, which is really getting slamed by government now. BTW - The higher cost for the cigarettes is due to the government taxes and regulations not the tobacco companies trying to fight these taxes and regulations. I believe in the aggregate, publically financed campaigns not only would cost less, but we also would get fair and honest laws and taxation. And that is what government is all about. The cost here is fairly small, having it be less would be nice but that is not a big consideration in my opinion at least as long as the cost is not payed for through taxes. I'm not so sure that it would make things truely more fair or honest and in any case freedom is usually a higher priority for me then fairness. "I think most proposed campaign finance reform ideas are neither necessiary nor sufficient to adress the problem." Isn't that an oxymoron. In one instance you are saying the problem is so small changes are uneccessary, and then claim that the problem is so big, the reforms are insufficient to address the problem. I would suggest it is the later. Not at all. A problem can be small enough to not have to be solved but at the same time be very difficult to solve. Or a problem can be big and important to solve, but not need a particular solution so the solution is not neccessary), and the particular solution doesn't really work or at least does not work by itself (so it is not sufficient). I have not seen a proposed campaign finance reform that would actually solve any problem that needs to be solved without causing greater problems. Banning negative campaigning certainly is neither necessary nor sufficient to solve the problem of dishonest and dirty campaigns. Inacting such a ban is not necessary in any way, will cause harm itself, and will not stop campaigns from being dishonest or dirty. Tim