Free speech does not just belong to those who own presses and transmitters. It belongs to all of us. Most of the press is grossly biased and 95% of it to the left. Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and talk radio tend to be more to the right, so what? They still don’t own the first amendment. I’d rather have politicians and pressure groups free to lie, distort and smear each other than to stifle free speech. The McCain/Feingold so called “campaign finance reform†was the grossest violation of free speech I’ve heard of in this country. To have it upheld by the Supreme Court was a travesty. The first amendment was adopted to guarantee political speech and debate, not to protect flag burners and pornographers. In today’s world money equals speech. You and I can rant on the internet all we want, we can stand on a soapbox and harangue passers-by, but to deny us access to the big soapbox of the airwaves is restricting us to tiny and inconsequential audiences. If I am forbidden from raising money from like minded people and supporting or attacking candidates and ideas then my free speech is severely curtailed. Democracy is served by letting Moveon.org, Focus on the Family, Planned Parenthood, the NRA and Handgun Control fight it out in public, Not by silencing them and denying political speech to all but the self appointed members of the press.
As for the lack of civility you seem to decry, what is currently done is extremely mild by historic standards. Check out what was said about Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln. We just whine about it more.
