united NATIONAL independent Tea Party polite just to a point
Panning Feingold
This entry was posted on 1/22/2010 8:25 AM and is filed under Added Articles.
What's a word worth Wordsworth a bucket of spit, a handful of earth? even gamblers ante up to play but opinion's free so "nil" they say or at least that's my two cents worth
When the Supreme Court in Buckley ruled that free speech is just money that gushes and bundles of cash and fine turns of prose are a wash they put a for sale sign on democracy
When money is spent promiscuously it cheapens free speech immeasurably it opens the way for ticks and leeches to kill good political bills and speeches by vastly increasing lobbying intensity
Now some would weaken McCain Feingold a poor stab to keep votes from being stolen by pretending there's no public interest in watching corporate and private interests let Congress continue to loaf and freeload
The Court claimed that free speech plain is the same as funding expensive campaigns it's a pure legal fallacy that can be dispensed of with with a dictionary to claim that free speech equals paid is insane
To equate the indecent inducement of money with the chaste voice of speech is baloney all sound thought and fine nuance is lost 'mid the bullhorn of high finance even a blind child has more perspicacity
Yet in their zeal to make wrong seem right they Court'd gut and rewrite our Bill of Rights to allow a very small constituency of a wealthy well heeled minority diminish the glow of Lady Liberty's light
Giving unequal say to the worst among us destroys all hope of a national consensus pays offs and kickbacks are rigidly compulsory but free speech is fluid and voluntary no wonder our politics grow so contentious
To ensure that a corrupt few can profit abjectly access to all must be denied completely they'd lobotomize the constitution in favor of pure political prostitution as they recast free speech as pay to play
But won't moneyed interests be deprived if they lack a way to pay our pols bribes? No. Freedom's based on an individual's right to be heard not on massed capital's speech with a price tag is free speech denied
Politicians deny they vote how they're told to but money screams louder than words do clearly there's a sublime correlation between money outlays and bad legislation no one ever sells out their country pro bono
Has a Supreme Court ever been dumber at least to its typical five to four number that in its loathing for democracy rules bribes not just right but mandatory to rouse Congress from its golden slumbers
Those who'd have money and speech identical and influence peddling as normal are imbeciles all robber barons are unanimous that finance reform is traitorous a justice shouldn't kowtow to people so cynical
They'll say their hands and tongues are tied stutter stare decisis and utter previous lies if you're raised in a corrupt system when money talks you must listen when its says jump laws they say, "how high?"
Not the sword but the dollar, euro, yen, yuan and rial'll all be mightier than the pen in the beginning was the word for free now for most of us it's far too costly as political access for all comes to an end
When money's god only prayer's free as the plutocracy rapes our democracy then even truer words won't count as much as the size of bank accounts first congress then we'll be bought to our knees
But money per se is not the real enemy it's its misuse that spawns demagoguery like Greshams's Law bad money spent drives out good ideas and common sense as money corrupts politicians absolutely
To base our future on the tyranny of money rather than the primacy of ideas is lunacy it's little more than virtual suicide as our leaders abandon all pride to let Wall Street speculate with our liberty
So words aren't money and money isn't words that's the lamest logic ever been proffered though speech is aided by small sums it is completely swamped by large ones to give money more impact than words is absurd
So what's a word worth Wordsworth? free speech is of inestimable worth money's a small and tawdry thing above its own cost not worth anything that's why in the Bill free speech is first
To say that money may be limited is not the same as ruling it's prohibited whether used as bludgeon or coercion too much of it is unconducive a free nation McFeingold should be stronger not weakened
