> I just don't believe that
> money is equivalent to speech.

All speech is action, all action requires effort, and different people have different capacities and resources for action. If you want to protect speech, you have to protect the actions that constitute speech. If you protect them selectively, it starts to look like you're trying to game the outcome.

> Ideally, the only thing that is supposed to
> influence that is the force of your argument;
> you win because you have a persuasive case.
> When other things determine whether
> your argument is persuasive--like the fact that you
> can spend more money getting your views out than
> your rivals--the process is distorted.

If your ideal is that voters act on a rational evaluation of the merits of the best arguments for and against each candidate or policy, then limiting campaign spending would leave you nowhere near that goal. If you were serious about such a goal, you would propose ignorance-based franchise restrictions. That you don't suggests that you have other goals (whether you realize it or not).

> I agree that fame, etc. could in principle be a
> distorting factor, but money is the most important
> and most dangerous one right now

Sure -- according to the outcomes you personally desire. To someone who disagrees with those outcomes, it looks like you just want to stack the deck.

> If fame by itself had so much power, then Robert
> Redford and the National Resources Defense Council
> would routinely be able to stop the oil industry
> (whose executives are much less famous) from
> getting its way.

This assumes that the "oil industry's way" -- whatever that means -- is obviously wrong on the merits, and only Oil Money is preventing the Good and Proper outcome from happening. However, I happen to know a lot about the economics of ecology, and so I happen to know that most people like Robert Redford are woefully underinformed about the relevant issues. (See, for example, my draft paper defending Julian Simon's _Ultimate Resource_ from the best available eco-pessimist critque of it: http://humanknowledge.net/NaturalScience/Biology/Ecology/.)

Suppose for the sake of argument that I could demolish any case Robert Redford could muster regarding environmental economics. Would that mean that any procedural reform is Good if it happens to help my positions win against his in the public arena?

> The one good thing I'll say about restricting the
> franchise to well-informed people is that it would
> make the current election a lot simpler.

Indeed. Watch:

> If all voters with an inadequate knowledge
> of Iraq and 9/11 were excluded [...]

If all the voters with an inadequate knowledge of the entitlement crisis were excluded...

> then Bush wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell

...then Kerry wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

If we had an objective Ministry Of Voter Informedness, then we wouldn't need elections at all -- we could just let that Ministry run the country.  The canonical mistake here is to think that the Right political solutions are objectively determinable, if only we had the proper procedural machinery up and running. That idea ignores the insights of game theory and especially Public Choice Theory (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoiceTheory.html).

> Still, I don't believe that one can
> blame people for being ill-informed or apathetic
> too readily.

You're right, but not for the reasons you're about to suggest. :-)

> Getting accurate information is hard,
> particularly in a media that is increasinly
> subservient to government and corporate interestes.

Getting accurate information is easy. Separating it from inaccurate information is hard. But far more importantly, forming Good judgments about such information is very hard, especially if one labors under the illusion that the Right judgments just fall out mechanically after one inserts "accurate" information. Politics is about principles, and the most important political principles are inherently in tension. (See http://marketliberal.org/Misc/Speech%2020040619.html.)

The reason not to blame people is that it's not in their rational self-interest to be well-informed in casting a vote that has so little influence on the outcome.  This phenomenon has been well-studied enough to have a name: the Voter's Paradox http://www.magnolia.net/%7Eleonf/sd/voter.html.

> (Unlike you, I suspect, I'm just as
> concerned when the media genuflects to
> private corporations as when it bows before
> government power.)

On the contrary, I suspect that we're exactly alike in that we're both concerned when the media gives insufficient emphasis to what we think is the correct analysis. You fallaciously assume that your perspective is the objective standard by which to measure concern over media bias.

> I don't believe one can ignore the structural
> factors that lead to public ignorance.

Indeed -- which is why I recommended this Cato Institute analysis of the most relevant structural factor: Big Government. http://cato.org/dailys/11-01-04.html

However, the evidence suggests that you care more about taking power from perceived enemies than about correcting public ignorance. That could easily be rational -- why correct public ignorance when you already know what outcome an informed public should desire?

Brian