From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 10:50 PM
To: 'Peter Stone'
Subject: RE: Protect Kids from Big Tobacco!

Hi Peter,

Speech is a class of actions, and almost all of those actions involve 
employing one's resources. If you ban the use of monetary resources for 
speech, you merely amplify the power of other resources, 
e.g. fame/celebrity/noteriety, media ownership/control, ability to organize 
and bundle the resources of volunteers (e.g. benefit concerts), etc. 
If you limit how much of my money I can spend on my speech, shouldn't 
you limit how much of Barbara Streisand's fame she can spend on her speech?

Speech restrictions are profoundly undemocratic, and don't even have the 
effect their advocates claim to desire. Retiring politicians don't suddenly 
change their voting patterns when freed from the need to seek campaign 
financing. The myth is that the politicans adapt their positions to chase 
the money. The reality is that the money is there because of the government 
benefit (or potential restriction) in question, and the money naturally 
flows to whichever side is its natural ally. The Cato Institute explained 
just today exactly why Big Government inexorably will lead to Big Lobbying: 
http://cato.org/dailys/11-01-04.html

Instead of trying to impose on every speaker a one-size-fits-all muzzle, 
why not instead impose on every listener a requirement to listen? I'd 
like to hear just one campaign finance reformer have the courage to 
place the blame where by their logic it ultimately must belong: the voters. 

If voters are too selfish, then the solution would be: no representation 
without taxation. One idea: if both last year and in your lifetime you've 
received more in dollar-denominated government benefits than you've paid 
in taxes, you don't get to vote.

If voters are too ignorant, then the the solution would be to test voters 
before they can vote. One idea: you can't vote for me unless you can 
answer one multiple-choice question about my positions from each of my 
opponents. The idea would be that you can't vote against X unless you 
can prove that you've listened to the advocates of X.

But I'm not yet ready to declare that voters are irredeemably selfish 
or ignorant. I just wish process-oriented reformers would hold a mirror 
up to the electorate itself, instead of complaining about the things 
that influence the electorate. 

Brian Holtz
Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley) http://marketliberal.org


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Stone [mailto:stone1936@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 11:18 AM
To: brianholtz@comcast.net
Subject: RE: Protect Kids from Big Tobacco!


Thank you for your thoughtful e-mail. While I am not a Libertarian, I do 
think your proposals would deal with most (though not all) difficulties 
generated by tobacco. I would just add, however, that I don't see how the 
special-interest politics you deplore, especially as they concern tobacco, 
are going to be stopped without public financing of elections. As long as 
the U.S. persists in the myth that money is equivalent to speech, corporate 
interests like the tobacco lobby will always cast a huge shadow over the 
political process.

Sincerely,

Peter Stone