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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (493)	11/15/2002 10:58:26 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7936

So you would say that if you were shut up in the traditional "hole" in prison, where you had no contact with anything or anybody but the jailor who slipped food through the slot in your door three times a day, you still had freedom of speech, just less ability to exercise it? There is a difference between having less resources to do a lot with the freedom that you have, and having someone take away your freedom. I posted several examples to demonstrate that but apparently you ignored them. In fact one in particular dealt with the government chaining you up (close enough to "the traditional 'hole' in prison", and said that in that situation "you are being abused by the government and having your rights infringed on by the government." I personally take a different view of freedom of speech. I think a democracy is healthier when ideas compete on their merits, not on the amount money their proponents have. That's not an idea about freedom of speech as much as it is an idea about what is healthy for democracy. You are in a sense arguing that some infringements on freedom of speech are need in order to have a healthy democracy. Personally I am not for socialism of political speech any more then I am for socialism in other areas. Sure I want ideas to compete on their merits but I don't want freedom of speech infringed on to further that cause. Not allowing someone to get their message out so that they will be somehow equal to other people who can't get their message out is no better then taking money from the rich so that all can be equally poor. In any case I think the attempt actually decreases the ability of ideas to compete based on their merits. Restrictions against anyone running adds about the candidates within 60 days of an election clamps down not just on the specific freedom of someone to get out their message but the whole political debate. And I think that when one person can shout another down by dint of enormous expenditure of money, there is a problem with freedom of speech. It doesn't work that way. Someone else buying a political add doesn't shout you down. If you don't have the money to get your message out then no one would hear you whether or not others are allowed to get their message out. Shutting them out from political adds doesn't increase your ability to get your message out, in fact it decreases it because you can't combine with others to push for ideas or candidates you support either, at least not if you don't have enough money to buy or create a TV or radio station or newspaper or magazine. Tim