Please Support Banning Political Commericals

[NathanTheGreat]

Everyone hates them, they're annoying and misleading, and the most effective commercials flat out lie...it's proven.

It's the reason why it costs millions of dollars to run for congress, it's by far the largest expenditure and what seperates grass root candidates from the elite.

Isn't it about time we pulled election commercials from television? I'm sure there are far more people who would rather the FCC concern themselves with the health of our democracy rather than if someone did or didn't expose their nipple.

Please join me is demanding that election commercials be banned from the public airwaves.

[RKP5637]

1. K&R !!!

[ClassWarrior]

2. K&R

NGU.

[NathanTheGreat]

3. Ahhh...too many acronyms

I'm fairly new here, so please explain what K&R and NGU standfor

[backwoodsbob]

5. can do K@r for ya

means Kick the post and reccomend for greatest page...no idea about ngu

[pinboy3niner]

7. NGU = Never Give Up nt

[NathanTheGreat]

14. Ah ha

I see...so they were both expressions of encouragement.

I had assumed it was some nasty message...cool.

[BeFree]

4. Make them X-rated

After all, the kids under 18 can't vote. So it is a purely adult enterprise, these campaign commercials.

At least relegate the commercials to late night TV.

[Nye Bevan]

6. You would need a constitutional amendment.

Your proposal would violate the First Amendment.

[pinboy3niner]

9. Bingo!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

[NathanTheGreat]

10. Technically

Everything the FCC does violates the First Amendment.

They have laws forbidding certain words from being said on television, they have laws forbidding cigarettes from being advertised on television.

There are plenty of laws that put some kind of restriction on our freedom of speach.

[unblock]

13. but they have to have some compelling, competing reason

society has decided that minors shouldn't be easily exposed to certain words and images and such, at least not without warnings and some ability for parents to be alerted and to control that exposure. so there's a balance between the rights of broadcasters and the rights of parents / protection of minors.


but the mere annoyance of many political ads is hardly a compelling reason to restrict the very type of speech our founders were most interested in protecting.

[NathanTheGreat]

20. I'd go farther

I'd go farther than to dismiss the damage done by political commercials as mere annoyance...I think they are one of the fundamental problems rotting our democracy.

It has been proven that the most effective ads are the most negative and the most dishonest. A better funded candidate can bombard the airwaves with complete lies and there is little for the other guy to resort to if he doesn't have the commercial war chest to work with.

[Scuba]

35. +1

[unblock]

41. but the problem is not sufficient free speech, rather the lack of it

the problem you describe is not that misleading ads exist, but that it's too hard and too expensive to get opposing views and correcting ads.

the solution is not to ban political ads entirely, or to try to identify the misleading ones, but to simply make it free and/or federally funded so that opposing views get their day. lies will always be with us, but they're considerably less effective when the opposition has equal time and a fair opportunity to refute the lies.

[Survivoreesta]

8. Great idea>

Never gonna happen!

[unblock]

11. why not repeal then entire bill of rights while you're at it?

feel free to bemoan the influence of money or the state of political ads, but governmental denial of political speech is a solution that's far worse than the problem.


how about we give generous federal funding of political campaigns a shot before resorting to tyrannical methods?
yes, this will mean MORE political ads, but at least the little guy will be on more of an level footing.

i'd also suggest that media CHARGING for political ads could be severely curtailed. the fcc could make it a requirement to broadcast a certain amount of political ads, at nominal cost or even free to the campaigns, as a part of their civic duty in exchange for use of public airwaves.

[cthulu2016]

21. +1

[NathanTheGreat]

22. I don't think you're denying free speech at all

You aren't denying free speech by disallowing television networks from broadcasting certain types of messages.

They operate on airwaves owned by the public by license, and the FCC has the sole power to issue said license if the broadcaster pays the necessary fees and if the broadcaster follows the rules they set forth.

Some of the rules they operate by include no cursing, no offensive or suggestive language, no nudity, as well as sound quality and other technical concerns.

They also regulate TV commercials...you can't advertise tobacco, you can't have excessively loud commercials (so they say) and you need a certain amount of time set aside for public service ads.

The FCC does all of this because broadcasting over the publicly owned airwaves is a revokable priveledge, not a right. Broadcasting is not speech...actually opening your mouth and speaking is.

All I ask is that the FCC takes one more step to protecting our democracy to help drain this money swamp around our capital.

[cthulu2016]

26. "Broadcasting is not speech"

Wow.

How do you plan to deal with cable, which is most of TV now?

[NathanTheGreat]

32. The same way

The same way they currently do.

Cable TV has to follow the same rules regarding TV commercials as the networks. They cannot have cigarette ads either, it's the law.

[unblock]

42. i can't believe this is even a topic for debate. do you SERIOUSLY think our founders wanted that?

do you SERIOUSLY think our founders wanted the government to ban political speech?


your logic is as sound as the argument that hey, the government kills people convicted of capital crimes, so it's ok for the government to kill anyone.

the government's power to regulate COMMERCE does not extend to the power to BAN POLITICAL SPEECH.

[NathanTheGreat]

43. Do you think our founders imagined?

Do you think our founders imagined that we would be able to watch moving pictures in our living rooms broadcasted from 2000 miles away instantly?

Of course not, so why the hell are we asking people who have been dead for 200 years how best to run things. Why not take Abe Lincoln's advice on speed limit laws, or maybe we should ask Sigmond Freud about the side effects of Paxil?

This nation is in the state it is because we have dropped the ball, our democracy was supposed to support our capitalism, but unfortunately our capitalism has taken over our democracy.

It's the 21st century, and it's time to talk about solutions that work in the 21st century.

This country is built on what it called a living democracy...meaning that people have fundamental rights but we aren't so stuck in our ways that we can't open our eyes to the situation we find ourselves in.

I never suggest that we ban political speech (feel free to read the post again.) My suggestion was we no longer stand with our heads in the sand while our country is bought and sold by the highest bidder.

The government's power to regulate commerce means they have the power to regulate buying and selling. There is no conflict with the constitution.

How dare you suggest that we shouldn't be talking about this also...is it so offensive to you that someone suggests a real world solution to the problem rather than just sit and whine about being marginalized and ignored. If you have nothing of value to add to the conversation, maybe you should practice self control and let the reasonable adults talk.

[unblock]

44. wow! twice in one hour you position yourself as adult/grownup and dismiss what i have to say.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002147421#post3

funny. the content or caliber of my speech obviously doesn't matter to you, implying other people are immature or childish is clearly your "go-to" tactic.


just to be clear, you haven't described anything about commerce. you've described banning speech. you COMPLAINED about the commerce, or more accurately the amount of money involved in it, and you've COMPLAINED about the content (the lies) but you then used that as a justification to ban the speech, not the commerce. require ads to be free, or not over a certain amount, or half-paid by the government, etc. that would address the commerce without banning speech.

i find it very amusing that you're so defensive and high-and-mighty about your right to make a political speech about squelching political speech. and you also can't seem to abide by my posts. interesting.

my other thread, you tell me i shouldn't have posted it and just let the grownups talk.
in this thread, you don't like my arguments, so you say i should practice self control and let the reasonable adults talk.
and in your o.p., you don't like political ads, so your solution is to ban them all.

i sense a pattern....

[NathanTheGreat]

45. A little irony there, don't you think?

You dismissed my entire post as a waste of time, yet you come up with a reasonable solution as a response after you dismissed the entire conversation.

Make political ads free of charge and available to everyone? Not a terrible idea, perhaps next time you should just make a suggestion as to how to solve the problem at hand rather than be snarky.

This may sound childish, but you started it. I just lack the restraint to put a blowhard in his place. Welcome to your place.

[blogslut]

12. Just the opposite for me

I want regulation that requires television and radio networks to provide free airtime for local, state and national candidate commercials.

[lpbk2713]

15. What I don't like is the anonymity factor.

It's much too easy to air a poli-commercial just a few days before the election filled
with lies and exaggerations and then at the end of the promo post a message like
"Sponsored by concerned citizens for {bogus cause}" . You never know who it
could be behind this smear campaign and there is not enough time left to refute it.

[dougolat]

16. Either way, manage public airwaves for the benefit of the public.

[Spike89]

17. "Public Airwaves" simply not what they were

It sounds great, but the reality is that not only has cable become a huge force (not under FCC regulations), but even "broadcasters" are often leasing bandwidth. The public airwaves argument has been weak for years and is almost totally gone now. With each of the traditional broadcasters heavily invested in the cable/satellite networks, it would do almost nothing but possibly force the move to 100% subscription television sooner than later.
Even if it were practical, censoring or even limiting conversation (yes, even stuff that is dreck) is the wrong approach. Better to make campaigns publicly financed, force advertisers to more clearly identify themselves, and get corporate money out of the equation.

[GreenStormCloud]

18. You seem to have forgotten about the First Amendment.

Maybe you are ready to throw it away?

[NathanTheGreat]

23. How is this throwing away?

No one is punished for saying anything...no one is losing any of their rights.

There is a distinction between speaking something and broadcasting something...I'm not going to argue if it's right or wrong, but there always has been.

Case in point...the government has no right to stop me from saying that Marborolos are the best tasting cigarette...but they certainly will stop me from broadcasting it.

[ClassWarrior]

24. +1

NGU.

[GreenStormCloud]

36. By your standard the government can censor newspapers.

In any case your issue is moot. Almost all TV nowdays is cable or satellite. You don't see forests of TV antennas the way you did back in the 60s. Cable and sat aren't broadcast.

I would be willing to bet that you are watching cable or sat and are complaining about commercials on them and blaming it on broadcast.

[RC]

19. Political ads need to be regulated.

We don't care how evil your opponent is. We already know.
What we want to know is what you plan to do if you are elected. Or if you are the incumbent, why you did the opposite of what you said you were going to do.
Political ads need to be about informing us about the person running, not spin and lies about his opponent.

In other words Truth In Advertizing! They lie, they pay. Court of law and all that. Let them spend their money there.

[NathanTheGreat]

29. I thought the same

I thought perhaps we could encode into law that campaign commercials shouldn't be able to lie and distort the truth.

Now here's another challenge...go ahead and write a law that draws a very clear line that defines truth.

Unfortunately, defining truth can often get a masters level philosophy student tripped up.

Isn't it just easier to keep the stuff off the TV?

[treestar]

25. If cigarette ads can be banned from TV

It makes me wonder, on what basis is that possible? And why didn't the cigarette companies complain that it violated the First Amendment?

The First Amendment is in the way of it - yet, there is precedent.

[cthulu2016]

28. Politics is not considered commerce.

That's a hell of a straight-line, but also true.

[NathanTheGreat]

31. I'm not entirely sure

I'm not entirely sure how they justified it...but how they generally work around the constitution goes like this.

If someone is broadcasting commercially, they are conducting a business...they are the provider and the people watching the boob tube are the customer. Thus broadcasting is commerce.

Now if you draw a map of where most broadcasters' signal can be reached, chances are better than not it's going to be broadcasting into a different state. Also, network commercials are always broadcasted into many states.

So we have established that broadcasting is not only commerce, but also interstate commerce.

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution says,

The Congress shall have Power...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

By this logic, broadcasting falls well within the power and scope of Congress...who through a lawful act created the FCC to oversee this type of commerce.

[treestar]

33. Even so - while we could say Congress can regulate interstate commerce

and that it is interstate commerce - still a law can violate the First Amendment. Which it would seem the ban on various forms of advertising does.

[GreenStormCloud]

38. The cigarette companies didn't fight it.

They were actually happy about the ad ban. It saved them loads of money. Each company had to advertise on TV because all the other companies did. When they were all required to stop it kept the advertizing field level. They knew that they would still sell cigarettes because people were addicted.

[treestar]

39. That would be true

But cut back on getting new addicts, perhaps.

But if they had fought it, they likely would have won is my initial impression. The First Amendment protects all speech.

[tritsofme]

27. The First Amendment is always frustrating to those who wish to limit free speech.

No thanks.

[Shankapotomus]

30. Here's a way to get money out of political campaigns

Disallow money for political campaigns.

Have one website.

That website will be the Facebook for political candidates.

Each candidate gets their own page.

At election time government funded public service announcements will refer voters to the website where they can view each candidates' platform and stances. Thereby they can make an informed decision on who they want to vote for.

No more commercials.

No more political donations.

No more favors for money.

Just one .gov website.

[Stand and Fight]

34. No. What a god awful and stupidly draconian idea.

Regulate how they're made and that they present facts. Don't limit free speech. Disgusting thread.

[spanone]

37. let's eliminate 'citizens united'

[MineralMan]

40. First off, that would be unconstitutional.

Second, candidates have to tell their story, one way or another. So, they advertise.

Third, this suggestion will not come true.

[NathanTheGreat]

46. Why we can't just enforce free and open commercials

Have you ever seen how many people run for a single office sometimes? Yeah, this makes sense when there's just 2 or 3 people running, but often the primaries have 30 or more candidates, and the general election often has 8-10 people.

Take the number of candidates running for election in the viewing range of a single TV station, and you're probably talking about several thousand people even in small markets, even more in large markets.

Do you seriously think it's possible to establish rules that provide equal time for every one of these thousands of people on every channel...and i'll also throw the monkey wrench of national network commercials...they have to give equal time to every person who's running for president? Have you ever seen how many people run for president?

There is no better way to remove the overwealming influence of money from elections...or at least I've never seen one.

And yes...this is going to happen. I get nothing but support when I talk to people uninvolved and uninterested in politics...and those people are the majority in this country.

This is going to happen...this is the only way.