Do As I Say, Not As I Spam

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist spent at least some of his time in office fighting spam, defined in one of his press releases as "an annoying, intrusive form of e-mail that almost all of us receive but few of us want." In 2004, he pushed for legislation giving his office the authority to prosecute spammers. Now he is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. His campaign strategy of choice? Mass e-mails begging for cash. Explains Crist's political director:

"It's not spam…It's political speech. We're not selling anything, we're not being deceptive. We love the First Amendment, and there's nothing more powerful than political speech."

Reason's Nick Gillespie penned a paean to Spam back in 2003.

Comments

[Chuck]

Charlie Crist's qualifications for office--ANY office--consist SOLELY of being a lifelong loyal Republican with deep connections in the good old boy network. By any other measure, he is a blithering idiot. I dread the guv'nor elections next year. At least we will finally get rid of JEB!, but my hopes for anyone better are fading fast.

[joshua corning]

yup i hate the "government stop spam now crowd". my suggestion? get a gmail account...I get like one or two spams in my inbox a week and about 50 in the spam folder. And i post my e-mail address on the internet.

anyway i tried like a year ago to convince the slashdot crowd that government regualtion of spam was a really bad idea and would just invite the govenrment to regulate even more of the internet and gasp would do nothing to really stop spam...but my words fell on def ears. Those people on slashdot are real assholes and all democrats unlike here where only joe is a democrat.

🙂

[Christopher King]

At the risk of spamming you, I provide a very interesting First Amendment case for your consideration. And I am not a robot; I read Reason on frequent occasion and just finished a dialogue/comment over on Daily Kos regarding location technology.

Anywaym, all you have to do really is listen to this audioblawg piece from this morning, off the top of my head as I rolled out of bed. Some people, including Jaffrey Police and the NAACP -- hate smart n*gguh's like me who actually press for Civil Rights in the trenches, no doubt about it.

christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/12/closing-argument.html

But you may as well read this one, too about Boston NAACP and how they tie into this:

christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-was-boston-naacp-pres-_113557602577059376.html

I respectfully submit this closing argument for your consideration relative to the case in which I stand accused of Attempted Felony Extortion for issuing a Demand Letter and threatening to call a press conference.

I sued them back, of course, for Defamation and First Amendment retaliation because they copped the indictment 2 days after I notified NAACP and Jaffrey, NH lawyers about my little blawg -- which was quite critical of the both of them.

[joshua corning]

Ruffle the feathers of the new hampshire white power structure?? What color should the power structure be in New hampshire be? I mean it is New Hampshire...its like calling the power structure in Mexico the brown power structure.

Anyway if someone is pressing criminal charges against you for calling a press comference then I think you have a good example of the criminalisation of politics.

[SPD]

Everyone knows most New Hampshire politicians are in the deep pockets of the maple syrup industry.

[Pro Libertate]

I hate Big Maple. They abuse trees.

[Eric the .5b]

i tried like a year ago to convince the slashdot crowd that government regualtion of spam was a really bad idea and would just invite the govenrment to regulate even more of the internet and gasp would do nothing to really stop spam...but my words fell on def ears.

Back when I posted on Slashdot, I was a cranky libertarian kicking against the geek conventional wisdom (as Halfabee or Point5B or something like that).

I got yelled at and dismissed, but despite my arguing against the overwhelming tide of comments that people actually posted, it didn't take long to max out my Karma - a measure that basically took into account how many random moderaters modded my comments up. (Do they even still do Karma?) I think there are more libertarian-ish geeks out there than we'd expect, just that they've learned to keep it on the down-low to avoid abuse.

[Stevo Darkly]

but my words fell on def ears.

"What?"

[Christopher King]

Joshua that's hootlarious, your comment. But by white, I don't mean just white... I mean REALLY white 😉

I was raised amongst white, no problem. Loved my life growing up and all of my friends who have continued to support me through the years:

http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/11/40-up-where-are-they-now.html

But this thing is ridiculous.