Politico: Why didn't GOP rescue Democrats from their own foolish constitutional amendment?
"Why, for example, does the existence of campaign ads constitute a grave danger to the very concept of democracy? After all, a core concept of democracy, especially with respect to free speech, is that the remedy to bad or incorrect speech is not government restriction on speech, but more speech," Red State's Leon Wolf wrote. "When the government plays arbiter between whose speech is protected and whose is not, that is the true threat to Democracy, not the very concept that groups of people who have things they want to say have the money to say them on television."
Wolf puts his finger on the problem: This amendment's supporters sound incoherent because theirs is not a substantive argument. It is merely a populist gripe in the form of legislation. The Democratic Party has come a long way from Al Smith's admonition that "The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy." Today, the cure for the ills of democracy is to restrict the freedoms of the Kulak class.
It is the political press which is dropping the ball by not calling this effort out for what it is. That may simply be because, while a kamikaze constitutional amendment may not be the right way to pursue the goal of limiting the influence money has over politics, many agree with that ultimate aim. If, however, the end justifies the means, even if those means are selective honesty and clever omissions while reporting on this particular vehicle, is the end really all that noble and popular?Also read:
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