Saturday, May 03, 2003
A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH AND DEMOCRACY
The odious, incumbent protection law misnamed " Campaign Finance Reform " is struck down
Good riddance. While we are at it roll back most of the inane and counterproductive post-Watergate reforms as well and let candidates raise however much they like from whomever they like subject only to full public disclosure and American citizenship of the donors. With the current system, only a billionaire is free to break with particular special interests, PACs and rain-makers who totally dominate the Democratic and Republican parties. McCain-Feingold was an authoritarian, anti-democratic law that prohibited the unwashed masses from contributing to the public debate during election times -i.e. the time it matters most. It was an attempt to reserve national politics as the province of the self-appointed elite and shut the rest of us up under the guise of populist rhetoric about " cleaning up the system " ( a " system " created by previous reform laws that enshrined lawyer-lobbyists as the gatekeepers to electoral competitiveness - in the old days, a candidate had so few financial backers that we at least knew who was buying him and if he stayed bought after the election) ¶ 7:50 PM
The odious, incumbent protection law misnamed " Campaign Finance Reform " is struck down
Good riddance. While we are at it roll back most of the inane and counterproductive post-Watergate reforms as well and let candidates raise however much they like from whomever they like subject only to full public disclosure and American citizenship of the donors. With the current system, only a billionaire is free to break with particular special interests, PACs and rain-makers who totally dominate the Democratic and Republican parties. McCain-Feingold was an authoritarian, anti-democratic law that prohibited the unwashed masses from contributing to the public debate during election times -i.e. the time it matters most. It was an attempt to reserve national politics as the province of the self-appointed elite and shut the rest of us up under the guise of populist rhetoric about " cleaning up the system " ( a " system " created by previous reform laws that enshrined lawyer-lobbyists as the gatekeepers to electoral competitiveness - in the old days, a candidate had so few financial backers that we at least knew who was buying him and if he stayed bought after the election) ¶ 7:50 PM
