Thursday, March 17, 2005
Declaration
...it’s impossible to sit comfortably if’n ya can’t stand up.
Patterico: Quite simply, I intend to go on blogging like I did before. Regardless of whether the FEC promulgates rules for political speech on the Internet, I plan to express my opinions just as I did before. If I need to link to a politician’s campaign web site in order to make my point, I’m going to do so. If I decide to endorse a candidate, I will. If I think my readers should send that candidate money, I will encourage them to do so.
I’ll do this during the next congressional election, and during the next presidential election. I will engage in this core political speech whenever I feel like it. And I will not change my behavior in the slightest, regardless of any FEC regulations.
...If we actually reach the point where my engaging in such core political speech might subject me to arrest – something I believed unthinkable before the BCRA was upheld by our spineless Supreme Court – then I’ll make sure that television cameras are there to watch the authorities slap on the cuffs. Let the authorities prosecute someone for telling the world that someone should or should not be President.
Patterico’s point here is that while the online petition begs exception to regulation for “blogs and other online publications,” it gives validity to the notion that “paid political advertising on the internet should remain subject to FEC regulation.” Like the 527’s. Like the Swift Boat Vets. To get their word out there, the Swifties paid for ads. The ads named a political candidate. Therefore the ads were “paid political advertising.”
But the Swifties were no different than you or I—in fact most of them are ordinalily less politically active than the regulsr [non-cat-blogging] blogger. We re all citizens with something to say about the political process.
And isn’t that the whole danged point of America?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Prudence does indeed dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes. But experience has shown that, rather than suffer, it is better to right such evils as exist, in a timely and forthright manner, than to allow them to fester untended until they become unbearable and wholesale overthrow proves necessary.
Article [I.]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now, SCOTUS seems to disagree with me that telling people how much they are allowed to say about the political process, and how and when they may say it is an abridgment of the freedom of speech. But I believe the majority of Americans believe that it is. Now we have to find out how many American citizens there are who are willing to do something about it.
Along that line comes Patterico’s Challenge: “Who out there will make this pledge?”
If the FEC makes rules that limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not obey those rules.
Personal story: I gotta say that when I read those words, then read the cautions expressed by Thoughts Online, I felt a sudden rush of, “Wait.... I got things I want to do. I got a family. I wanna travel, and move to a better place, and train another horse, and. . . . I don’t wanna be tied down—hell - jailed! For blogging?!?!?”
And then I listened to myself. I am actually worried about being jailed for writing my opinions on this little blog?!?!?
I don’t think so.
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