digamma.net - notes

Retardo writes in the comments to this post:

Leftists dont want to stiffle free speech; this is the classic miscontrual of the traditional leftist position.

Well, in 2004, that’s pretty much true; it was, after all, the point of my post.

We want laws that ban perennial campaigning;

What do you mean by “perennial campaigning"? Is that speaking out on any issue in an effort to influence public opinion? You want that banned? Wouldn’t that ban both elementropy.blogspot.com and digamma.net?

we want free air time for candidates of all parties.

Well, I’d favor a fairly radical overhaul of spectrum policy that would get rid of the current artificial scarcity. Within the current spectrum allocation method, I guess “free air time” makes some sense, but have you ever watched public access TV? How many people would watch it, and of that small set of people, how many could have their minds changed?

I never have understood why you sneer so much at the leftist position. Do you *like* legalised bribery, which is what political donations by PACS actually are?

This post has nothing to do with donations to candidates. I am talking about independent groups of people who spend money to express their opinions.

Do you *want* Nike to lie, call the lie “free speech", and then with its massive funding, outspend the grassroots people who tell the truth? That’s the “free market” position, after all.

No. But I don’t want government to do that either. 98% of Congressional incumbents get reelected every time. They will always have a microphone, and they’ll always be looking for ways to take our microphones away. And given a choice between you and Nike, they’re more likely to side with Nike.

But let’s talk about this “outspending". Your weblog gives you more of a voice than at least, I’d say, 75% of the people living on Earth. Blogger lets you write it for free, but the computer you’re posting with cost money. Your technical knowledge of how to do it and your mastery of America’s language are unequally distributed commodities too. Should it be legal for you to leverage this overwhelming advantage?

I spend about $100 a year running this site, and it’d be a lot more if it weren’t for the massive generosity of the project that makes it possible. Do you want this to be illegal? If not, where do you draw the line? How big does digamma.net have to be before I have to provide “equal time” to Bush, Nader, Badnarik, and every other jackass running for office?