view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
Free speech pretty much means you can't stop someone from advertising for themselves or a cause just because it isn't close to election season. I don't disagree with you at all, but this is going to be a constitutional no go, I think.
Free speech can be limited if you have a good reason. For example, if you don't want people to see how their food is raised, you can just ignore key constitutional freedoms..
Yup. The ag-gag laws seem to be a huge carve-out - if that can be managed, I don't see why we don't start limiting the election cycle, too.
Totally.
We have freedom here, and yet our elections are like 2 months long, start to finish (including hand-counting ballots from that one day of voting). My polling place is a mason's hall about a block away that they convert to a polling station with some cardboard boxes and folding tables.
What are you referencing?
Feels like you could go after it from a campaign finance angle, not that those laws are particularly restrictive as it stands.
Agreed. What about an inflation adjusted campaign budget for each elected position? I believe this system is already used in some countries.
I feel like this would promote a focus on policies/platforms and encourage good faith campaigning.
Citizens United determined that money is speech though.
I think most people agree that was a harmful decision though.
Absolutely. But you can't un-ting that bell, not without a constitutional amendment.
I really don't know. We'd have to pass it as a law and then see if it survives challenges. Better question is does either party have the political will to make it happen?
Campaigning is not a right. Postal employees can't run for office, for example.
I'm really not invested enough to disagree, here. If someone can make it happen, great. I think it might not pass constitutional muster but I'm not on the Supreme Court so what I think doesn't matter.
You could be right, who knows. But that would basically invalidate the entire Hatch Act, which would be wild. But Hatch is too restrictive in my opinion anyway.
They could regulate campaign donations, like when they are allowed to be made. Or maybe when those funds are allowed to be accessed. Maybe that would help.
Maybe the access. I don't know about the donations, though. It's already been ruled that donations are speech.
I'm not against the idea if someone can make it happen.
I guess this just reinforces the problem with Citizens United. All that free speech is infringing on everyone's free speech.
You aren't wrong.
It's sorta like how "Christmas season" feels earlier and earlier every year... I'm a Grinch until Thanksgiving, and a patriotic non-partisan until Independence Day, thank you very much.