The left has oft times suggested that we need transparency in political advertising. That people deserve to know who is paying for a political ad. While this sounds like a good idea on its surface the legislative remedies the pro-government elites tend to propose turn out to be the equivalent of using a sledge hammer to hit a thumbtack. And their obsessive desire to protect and defend the government from the enemy that is the Constitution (I really think they should just change their oath of office to reflect that truth) will forever produce restrictions on speech that are unacceptable to anyone who understands the first amendment in even its most un-convoluted context.
'Congress shall make no law' is so simple even a liberal ought to be able to get the gist, but that's proven itself to be a wall easily scaled by the word ninja's in the liberal enclaves of academia. The idea of first amendment political "speech," which was born from a desire to protect opponents of the government from fear of intimidation, oppression, and retribution (including the actual "disappeared in the middle of the night" variety of retribution) got tangled up in the coffee-shop notions of sixties socialist beatniks in black berets. Blinded by the stench of clove cigarettes and numbed by "please just slit my wrists" haikus, 'speech' was quietly mugged in a dark alley where it had wandered out for a bit of fresh air and dragged into the secret underground lair of the socialist democrat headquarters where mad social scientists water-boarded it, drugged it, butchered it, attached new limbs and then, using the lighting of a complicit liberal media and the primped and powdered soap boxes of artists and Hollywood "heroes" with the intellectual agility of a potato, resurrected it as the new and improved free speech, "expression."
Expression changed the first amendment protection completely. Any behavior that could be suitably defined as an expression--independent of any political application--could be protected, as long as it did not threaten left wing power over the entire political process. Bare breasts and smoking pot in the park, for example, could be argued as a protected public expression while an insurance company pointing out that Obamacare will make their rates go up can and should be silenced by political appointees. The former, regardless of how fat the buds or how nice the breasts, has about as much in common with actual political speech as your dogs penis, the latter is political oppression of an opinion based on the actions of the government.
But that's where we ended up. The breasts and pot question by the way is not unworthy, it's simply not speech. Writing anti-political screeds on a woman's bare breasts in pot resin might qualify but that's a discussion for another day that should probably include the observations of prominent left wing feminazis on the broader issue of whether this 'canvas' constitutes using womens bodies as sex objects to advance an agenda. (It would certainly make the "please just slash my wrist" haikus more popular were someone to write them there instead.)
Now it should seem obvious that the need for an educated electorate is the better solution all around. Curious and well versed, any political ad or expression would find itself challenged by a curious populace both willing and able to question broad assumptions regardless of who paid for them. The same people who ask if Mighty Putty really can pull a fully loaded, 18,000 pound tractor trailer, would likewise be inclined to question if candidate 'x' really is whatever the television says they are.
But that's not exactly an option just yet becasue the same beret wearing, haiku spouting lot that created frankenspeech also hijacked the education-industrial complex and fixing that takes time. With around 90% or more of the education superstructure under their "'congress shall make no law' really does demonstrate a lot of latitude" attitude, any lack of intellectual faculty on this front can and should be placed at their feet--which coincidentally is where their party of choice would like to keep the constituency.
Honestly, anyone with a few spare hours and a hot pot of coffee can follow the bread crumbs--but they have to feel a natural distrust of government before they make the leap and that's not how they were raised by the teachers unions in "caring educators clothing." Remember that if you make successive generations of civic imbeciles who are trained to rely on the ideas and will of government by the government run schools, you can then perpetrate great evils upon the person of their liberty with their fawning consent. An evil like, say...spending more on public education than the rest of the free world, cranking out civic morons, and then insisting most sincerely that the solution to the latter is to invest a few billion more per year into the moron making machine.
Doing more of the same thing and expecting different results...? Priceless.
So why wouldn't some speech restrictions begin to sound like a good idea? The fact that the left has all the paid free expression it wants in the form of a complicit left leaning media is a fact big enough that it has to be ignored, (with help from teachers perhaps.) It has and continues to function as an unreported multi-billion dollar in-kind contribution to the campaign of every democrat candidate, left wing grievance class, protected special interest or pandering moderate republican with two words to put together in support of the ruling class agenda. So the goal is and always will be to stifle any opposition to the pro-government message--supported by a predominantly democrat education complex (funded by taxpayers), and a for-profit, big business left wing media propaganda-mill that uses its superior bandwidth and protected free speech carve out to destroy anyone who refuses to walk their line. This is the exact thing the first amendment was designed to protect us from and it is the very thing the left would like to entrench.
The democrats want to know who you are so they can send the SEIU, or angry gay activists, or paid protesters or picket line walkers to your house, your place of work, and to visit everyone you know--major networks in tow--so that the pro-government punditry have fresh fuel for the fires of effigy in which they will destroy your life for disagreeing with them. We the people see this, and make a conscious decision to keep our mouths shut for fear of being the next log on the fire.
That, my friends is premeditated tyranny. (It is also why the left fears the Tea Party--because they are simply too big and too diverse to isolate for a proper water boarding by the media.) But you will notice they have still tried.
So this is the driving force behind separating the cost of political speech from speech itself--the illicit buying up of influence by mysterious unknowns--something the left does every day with the money you pay to public servants who fund unions (who are typically exempted from the lefts money rules on speech). It also favors pro-government incumbents who are well funded by lobbyists, corporations, wealthy individuals, and deep pocketed special interests, all of whom use money (excessive profits from the pockets of unassuming consumers if you like) to advance their political speech to defend the power of the state and it's citadel of corporate socialism from the rabble of small business and individual opinions that might object.
Put simply, the 'advertising' speech restrictions are all a left wing, protectionist, ruling class scam.
So do not be fooled by the calls for clarity in the funding of political advertising. The system is gamed to the government's advantage already. If you allow them, they will rob you of any free voice that can speak without fear of intimidation. Speech and money are inseparable, and in the modern age it is almost impossible to reach any respectable number of people with any message, without the money to pay for it. Those in power just want to make sure they have the monopoly on the money--and by extension, the ideas--just in case the years of government education programming fail to take. Anonymity prevents them from finding you and making you into the next reality television superstar in their game of personal destruction. It is premeditated oppression, and it works. Legislating that protection away will only give them that much more power to silence speech before it can happen.
*Note: it is also worth mentioning that the same people who insist on truth in advertising for political speech are often the same people who like to comment on political blogs like this one using anonymous names and untraceable email address so they can object to this form of free speech without revealing that they are connected political insiders or staffers with the democrat party or their fellow travelers. I would however like to commend those who do use their real names and emails when engaging in debate. It is not required, but is is refreshing.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 06:01AM 
For quite some time, Paul Hodes has maintained a diary over at the Daily KoS. That's the Daily KoS.