re: #174 Absalom, Absalom, Obdicut

It still makes whatever paid speech they’re giving appear to be their speech, which it isn’t.

It’s a complex area of theory, since people often simplistically think of free speech as a right that can’t infringe on the rights of others in any way, but it can. In fact, it’s one of the few rights you can exercise on behalf of someone else, in someone else’s employ.

So again, if you are taking the position that it is all speech, if you don’t want to be dramatic and allow all paid political speech, what’s your rationale for limiting any political speech?

My rationale is that of compromise. Unrestricted political speech (although I would mandate disclosures, since should know who is really saying what they are hear) is not going to be acceptable politically, so my idea is to take what space is available within recent Supreme Court decisions and what can be obtained by compromise. Advocating the scrapping of campaign finance law is sudden, too one-sided, and doesn’t fit through the public’s Overton Window.