At the very liberal Addicting Info website, Justin Acuff is upset that politicians might be lying, and he wants the government to do something about it:
There’s a first amendment case going in front of the Supreme Court right now that’s very, very dangerous. Why? Because it might allow religious opinion to become legal fact, corrupting the intent of our constitutional rights, if not the specific wording.
Actually, Acuff is concerned the Supreme court might overthrow the ability of election commissions to control speech about politicians:
The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), an anti-choice and anti-family planning group, is suing because they believe they have a right to publicly advertise lies if they have sufficient reason to hold the advertised opinion. Paradoxical, yes, but if you’re familiar with American culture, you’ll completely understand. Cognitive dissonance and bold denial in the face of proof are defining characteristics.
The specific issue at hand is the 2010 campaign of Democratic former Rep. Steve Driehaus, a pro-life moderate in Ohio. Because he was running in Ohio, Ohio’s “false statements” law applied. Many states have an equivalent law. The idea is that stopping political ads from outright lying might be a reasonable restriction of free speech, in order to protect our democratic process. Probably a good plan, and not just for elections — after all, an appellate court has previously ruled that media sources, such as Fox News (the specific agency in the case), have the right to lie.
Granted, it’s bad that politicians lie. But you know what’s worse than allowing politicians to lie? Allowing politicians to decide what people are allowed to say about politicians. Ohio’s law against false statements in a political campaign is enforced by the the Ohio Elections Commission, which is a politically appointed body, that has been used to press “false statement” charges against political candidates attacking incumbents and against people protesting Tax Increment Funding. Are we really supposed to believe they’re going to keep mainstream politicians honest? Or are they just another way to keep small players out of the field of politics?
The SBA List was upset they weren’t allowed to advertise things that weren’t true. After all, Driehaus supported Obama’s healthcare agenda, and they didn’t. So, they wanted to put up a bunch of billboards and use radio ads to blast Driehaus, a self-proclaimed pro-life candidate, as supporting a program that includes taxpayer-funded abortions. Except…the ACA, Obamacare, does not fund abortions. It’s actually illegal for the federal government to fund abortion. Instead, the ACA has private insurers offering abortion coverage under unique rules.
And as he just demonstrated, this is easy enough to explain to anyone who was fooled by the lies and who wants to learn the truth. You don’t need a special truth commission to rule on it.
Facts matter. Especially when it comes to democratically electing leaders. Without an educated, informed populace, there can be no progress in democracy.
Of course fact matter. And if SBA List is misrepresenting the facts about the way abortion is treated under the Affordable Care Act, it’s important to correct them, and it’s important to point out that they are a bunch of liars who can’t be trusted. But there’s a world of difference between responding to political opponents by calling out their lies and responding to political opponents by suppressing their speech.
It’s not like these kinds are laws are going to be used evenly across the board. During the long course of a political campaign, a lot of people will say a lot of things, and some of those things will be wrong. And despite the supposed goal of getting the lies out of politics, there aren’t enough investigators on the Ohio Election Commission to investigate every lie that is told during an election season.
That means that the commission will have to engage in selective enforcement, picking and choosing among all the lies to decide who they want to go after. Does anybody think that choice won’t be influenced by politics? My guess is that lies told by (or on behalf of) influential mainstream candidates will go unchallenged, because the political hacks on the election commission wouldn’t want to anger anyone who could hurt their chances of collecting a nice state pension. On the other hand, the commissioners will have nothing to lose by nitpicking fringe candidates and small special interest groups that are a thorn in the sides of candidates from both parties.
And let me point out something that every power-mad would-be censor seems to ignore: You may have the power now, but someday it will be your enemies who are in control of the power. Today the commission might be targeting a right-wing pro-life group, but tomorrow a different commission could be controlled by the other side, and it could be some left-wing cause that’s in the crosshairs. For example, I’ve heard a lot of gun control advocates say things that just aren’t true: They get confused about firearms technology, they misstate the current firearms laws, they use incorrect statistics, they make unsupported claims about things the NRA does, and they mischaracterize pro-gun arguments. Will the people demanding the SBA List be silenced have the same hardball attitude about “false statements” when a Republican-controlled election commission goes after a grassroots gun control group and runs them out of business with legal expenses?
I’m not defending the SBA List or the lies they are tell. But giving politicians the power to control political speech during an election is not something that’s good for democracy.
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