I think we're pretty familiar with each other's views on speech (esp. campaign finance reform). But what the heck? I'm bored at work.

[Stuff about bad filtering software] I agree completely. Even the supposedly fascist Supreme Court has repeatedly agreed with you on that one.

Read a banned book... So would you advocate that we NOT read Howl? Or Mark Twain? Or Fitzgerald? Or Salinger? all got banned at some point you know.

You're shooting at fish in a barrel there.

Allowed to? yes. Should? no. There is a strong difference there.

Here we start to part ways. (You're referring to ABC being allowed to broadcast porn.) Restrictions on obscenity have *always* been permitted. And I think they are entirely justifiable. We can argue about the evolving definition of "obscenity," but I firmly believe that the gov't has not only the ability but also the responsibility to regulate it.

But I do oppose the blatant extension of copyrights as being a violation of the first amendment. While an important restriction on free speech (and some, narrowly constitutionally defined, are allowed - including pressing state interest - attracting tourism by getting strip clubs off the main drag for instance - also note that a strip club is generally content free speech. They'd have a hard time getting Hair out of a theatre... As for kiddie porn... In a democracy, the people are the state. A crime against the people is a crime against the state. The state has a compelling interest to protect children from physical exploitation and molestation that supercedes free speech.)

I guess you agree with me to some extent that regulation of obscenity (in this case, child pornography) is desirable. I'd spread the net a little farther out.

And I'm also in favor of copyright extension for corporate copyrights (although not for individual copyright holders). I see absolutely nothing in the public interest in allowing some pirate to make money off of Mickey Mouse *while Disney is still in existence.* Now for corporations that have gone out of existence, it's a different story, but to me there's no difference in the value of the Mickey Mouse copyright now as compared to in the 1920's when it first arose.

I would argue that TV networks shouldn't be rewarded for anti drug messages because THEY ALREADY ARE. Quite simply, broadcast television stations don't pay for the spectrum that they use. The recieve a liscense to use it, from the government, FOR FREE. The only condition? That they use that spectrum to serve the public interest. Once again, different from censorship in the form of banned books and library filtering because it's built into the conditional language of the right to use the spectrum. Were the spectrum made freely availiable, and conditional liscenses not offered (a chaotic nightmare at best), then such a public interest requirement would be illegal.

Ahh, the "unconstitutional conditions" issue. I agree with you here. But be careful--the argument can taken you farther than you want to go, and not just in the free speech context (e.g., forcing states to raise the drinking age, forcing universities to allow ROTC on campus, etc.).

This is why I favor public financing over money regulation. But the fact of the matter is, that Money != Speech. Money fails to express a coherent idea, it is, in the words of a few supreme court justices, referring to things as diverse as pornography, flag burning, and money, non-speech, the symbolic equivalent of a grunt.

I'm not sure I understand you here. But as I've said before, it's rather silly for pundits on the left to cry foul whenever someone threatens "censorship" with respect to publicly-supported art and then to turn around and insist that political speech be restricted through campaign
finance laws. But in any case, do you think, if there was public financing of electoral campaigns, that it would be justifiable to regulate candidates' pronouncements (a la Israel)?


I'm sorry I wasted the time replying to what in the end turned out to be a love letter to Mitch McConnell.