Allison R. Hayward writes about new rules regulating campaign speech enacted in Shays-Meehan, which she believes will “create an incoherent mess” in political advertising. I consider myself a free-speech radical. Silly me, I think “Congress shall make no law…” means no law. There’s no doubt that much campaign advertising is insipid, false, and overly pathetic. So what. That’s one of the prices of freedom; you have to deal with the extreme use of any particular right. I do not, however, consider spending money to be speech. That’s a cognitive and political stretch. I have no problem regulating campaign finance. Let any person or group that can pay for it produce whatever ads they choose and run them when and where they choose. But let’s make sure we continue to require that they sign their work.
The Rhetorica Network
I offer commentary on the rhetoric of the American conversation, especially as it unfolds in documentary film, the news media, and politics. Check out my feeds on Twitter and Instagram. Also be sure to see my work at Carbon Trace Productions, a non-profit documentary film studio in Springfield, Missouri. I am a Professor of Media & Journalism at Missouri State University. I teach classes in mobile journalism and documentary filmmaking.
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