Why Do Democrats Hate Freedom of Speech?

Jacob Sullum | August 31, 2006

On Tuesday the Federal Election Commission deadlocked on a proposal to let public policy advocacy groups engage in public policy advocacy close to elections. The three Republican commissioners voted for the rule change, which would have allowed issue advertising that mentions elected officials but does not "promote, attack, support or oppose" them, and the three Democrats voted against it. The plan, which was supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the ACLU, the Alliance for Justice, and other lobby groups, presumably would have allowed ads like the radio spot Wisconsin Right to Life wants to run, urging passage of an anti-abortion bill. The group filed a lawsuit last week, challenging McCain-Feingold's 60-day gag. Now we can expect many more lawsuits.

Comments

Robert|8.31.06 @ 8:23PM|#

Interesting. Is such regulation a partisan issue in other countries?

|8.31.06 @ 10:57PM|#

"a proposal to let public policy advocacy groups engage in public policy advocacy close to elections."

If these groups are perverted enough to want to advocate public policy, let them at least have the decency to confine their activities to time periods when the public isn't agitated over election issues!

|9.1.06 @ 1:39AM|#

Interesting. Is such regulation a partisan issue in other countries?

No... because the U.S. is the last country with anything remotly resembling freedom of speech. Other countries universally despise freedom of speech, and consider the U.S. regressive because of it's freedom of speech.

Robert|9.1.06 @ 3:22PM|#

That still doesn't rule in or out the possibility that this particular type of regulation could be a partisan issue in other countries, regardless of how much freedom of speech they have in general.