No you didn't. But you're pretending you did so that you can avoid having to actually do what you're being challenged to do: come up with your version of a government law that limits speech while not violating the first amendment. You know you can't do it, so you're pretending you didn't see that part.

Everything else you're saying is you trying to distract from the fact that what you want is irreconcilable with the constitution. So that you can avoid confronting that reality, you're just blathering. This is exactly what you did when presented with contextual facts surrounding the second amendment. The moment you're asked to reconcile your agenda with the constitution, you have a fit and leave, so that you don't have to demonstrate that your position is untenable.

Too bad. Not letting you off the hook. Try again:

How would you write a law that empowers the government to prevent speech, without changing the first amendment? Be specific.

No, the law said absolutely nothing about the content of the political speech. You know this, so saying that it was about "lies" is you: lying. The law said nothing about "dominating" a conversation, or "flooding" anything. That's you, lying.

What the law did say was that if you, yourself, personally, ran an ad in the local newspaper to say that, maybe, you think gay marriage shouldn't be illegal, and that congressional candidate (or party) X is wrong for saying it should be illegal ... YOU ARE NOW A FEDERAL FELON for having had that opinion printed. This is your idea of how the first amendment works? I know you'll say yes, because you've shown over and over again that you're willing to pretend the constitution says things that it doesn't, in order to allow you to support the government violating that charter.

Blah blah blah ... what's really amazing is that YOU are so naive that you actually think people aren't capable of reading the words of a law and seeing that you are deliberately, purposefully lying about it. How about this: YOU point out the actual words in McCain-Feingold that talk about the size, accuracy, cost, merit, or any other qualities of political speech, and we'll have something to talk about. YOU show how the law's baked-in violation of the Equal Protection clause wasn't being violated, and we'll have something to talk about. But you won't, because you know you can't.

Since you can't manage to defend your position on constitutional grounds, why not try this: propose a law that prevents people from gathering together in a group, pooling their resources, and using those resources to express an opinion about politics ... and which doesn't break the first amendment. Remember, the first amendment says that congress shall pass no law that abridges speech. So the law you want, which will stop people from speaking, has to pass that test. Please write down, here, the language of that law, and how it would work. If you don't, then you're showing yourself to be the disingenuous person you appear to be. Otherwise, admit that what you really want is for the first amendment to be altered. It's one of the other, you can't have it both ways.

OK, I'll save you the trouble: you can't write a law that uses government power to shut people up unless you violate the first amendment. So we get to what you really want: you want to trash the first amendment. Just admit it, you'll feel much better not having to pretend you mean something else, and knowing that everybody can see right through your little charade.

The law that was struck down did exactly that. It made it a federal crime for some people, and not others, to talk. You know this, so why are you lying?

But because you can't get enough people to find your personal ideas to have enough merit to "rise," you want the government to stop other people from gathering together to speak their minds? You don't want merit, you want to use government force to make other people silent because you don't like what someone else has to say.

How? They are prevented from running web sites? No. Prevented from using social media? No. Prevented from doing what you're doing right now? No. But under the law you say you prefer, they WERE prevented, by the government, from expressing political opinions ... unless they were the people running the media outlet, in which case they were allowed to. So, you want NBC to be able to speak about politics, you just don't want me to, and you're willing to scrap the first amendment and use government force to stop me from ... spending $50 to run an ad in my local paper, explaining why a congressional candidate's policy position is wrong-headed? You must really have zero confidence in your own ability to voice a coherent opinion if you're so willing to give up the first amendment in order to silence someone else. Complete cowardice.

It's only unfair when people like you use the power of the government to pick and choose which groups of people are allowed to communicate. You want to trash the first amendment so that political appointees working in the FEC can choose to prosecute someone for running that page-two ad, while MSNBC can spend half an hour on the air expressing the opinion you prefer. Are you really so foolish that you think your hypocrisy on this isn't completely transparent? Are you so unable to find merit in your own opinions or your ability coherently communicate them that you'd prefer to take away other people's rights to speak, just so you don't have to get your act together? Talk about craven intellectual laziness.

So instead of using your constitutionally protected rights to assemble with like minded people and speak to your heart's content in order to inform and persuade others to see things they way you'd like, you're opting for "people are dumb, so we need the government to silence others with whom I disagree." Right out of every totalitarian's playbook. Hope you're proud of yourself.

Ah, now we're getting to the heart of the matter. You don't think it's fair that other people make money in ways of which you don't approve. Are you talking about criminals? Then you should be supporting the prosecution of crime, not the destruction of the constitution's protection from government muzzling of free speech. But then, people who know they don't have a persuasive message always look to use force to prevent others from saying things. You're in good company with lots of tinpot dictators, fascists, and other totalitarians throughout history. It's a good thing the people who wrote the constitution had just had lots of experience with people just like you, and constructed a national charter that prevents people like you from using government force to silence those you don't like.

Of course, people do it all the time. I've watched you do it here, many times. But would you prefer that the government stop you from being able to talk?

Which is exactly why we have a First Amendment. So that the government can't be in the business of shutting down speech.

So why do you keep perpetuating a false idea? Money isn't speech, speech is speech. And you want to get more people to hear what you have to say, you're going to have to get what you want to say out in front of a larger audience. What's your suggestion ... that someone else pay for your ability to do so, because you can't get enough traction with your ideas on your own? Or that people who do get more traction should be silenced by the government so that your ideas, which can't compete, still get plenty of attention? What happens then? Every person with a nonsense agenda is equally heard? THAT is the "noise" you're talking about.

People who have good enough ideas to attract the support of others, so that they can voice their opinions in concert, aren't stopped from doing so. But the law you seem to prefer was shutting them up. If your ideas can't seem to get any support from other people, I guess I can see why you'd be in favor of the government silencing other people. Luckily, we have a constitution that doesn't allow that.

So if you persuade 100,000 other people to agree with you on an topic and decide to act in concert to make sure that the rest of the country notice your take on things (by doing things like running a good web site, using social media, maybe running some ads), that's corruption, to you? Or is it only corruption when you don't like what 100,000 other people get together and say and you happen to disagree with them? Yeah, I thought so.

Yes. Imagine that! Expressing your opinion about politics! This must be stopped! We can't have people saying what they think. And we certainly can't allow them to assemble as a group and speak their minds about a political topic on which they share an opinion. Unacceptable! That pesky first amendment is dangerous and must be taken away!

Because it was a reckless stunt in the service of a guy who wants to limit free speech. I consider his motivations to be wrong-headed, and thus his willingness to risk other people's lives in pursuit of his agenda to be especially obnoxious.

Yes, "dodgy." The very nature of that aircraft is that it's especially delicate, particularly susceptible to unexpected changes in wind conditions, and particularly dangerous to bystanders if it comes down in an uncontrolled way. It's a big weed-eater.

Actually no, it would not have. You're confusing the FAA's requirements for (or lack of them, for certain machines) a pilot's license with their take on reckless operation. The best footage of this idiot's approach to the capital lawn was taken from within a group of students standing one twitch of his control stick from being what he landed on. Never mind his deliberate violation of the DC FRZ, which brings very real risks to the people around him as he flies a machine in a place where he's very much at risk of having his aircraft shot out of the sky.

Speed? He was going plenty fast enough to kill someone, even without the exposed lawnmower blades.

Why pretend I've said or implied something I haven't? It's the behavior, not the tool. Gyrocopters don't kill people, gyrocopter pilots do.

I think they should be subject to exactly the same rules that govern the flight of a Piper Cub (though the Cub is much safer).

Right. It's a lot easier to hand out leaflets if you have a printing press. Can't afford one? Have a good enough message that people who DO have a printing press will agree with you and help to print some stuff up. Or help air an ad, etc.

This is what was wrong with the law the court struck down: it was preventing people from gathering together and pooling their resources to speak in a more organized way. Counter-constitutional on many levels, and absolutely deserved the fate that it got. And you're exactly correct about the hypocrisy when it's the left's darlings throwing around big piles of money.

Except it's never been LESS expensive to get your speech out in front of millions of people. If you really want the unconstitutional law back in place, what you're really saying is that you are afraid that your own message is too unconvincing, too bankrupt to be swept up and passed along and echoed by honest people, and that you'd prefer that the government limit the speech of your opponents so that what you stand for isn't held up to scrutiny. If you prefer the unconstitutional law that was in place, it means you prefer that companies like NBC or the New York Times are allowed to put all of their resources into political speech in the period before an election while your opponents are muzzled by the government.

That's the end result YOU prefer, and which we were facing until the court correctly weighed the law against the plain language of the constitution. As with every one of your posts, the only way you can pretend you're being honest is to pretend you're so dumb that you completely misunderstand the constitution and turn it exactly upside down. You think the first amendment is meant to limit the speech of people you don't like, rather than what it's really for, which is to prevent exactly that.

Well, I get that "evil money is speech!" is the rallying cry of those who want a bigger, more powerful government limiting what some people (but not everyone) can say.

But money isn't speech. Speech is speech. If the people who say they're mad that "money is speech" had their way, the new complaint would be "control is speech."

If the court hadn't struck down the unconstitutional law, we'd still be in a position where you, personally, couldn't run an ad expressing your opinion about your local congressional race a week before an election expressing your opinion ... even while the editorial staff at, say, NBC or NPR or Fox or CNN are allowed to shape and air all the opinions they want, or certain exempted groups could. Just not you. The first amendment was no longer protecting you (or 10,000 of you and your like-minded friends who wanted to pool your time and other resources to express your opinions together).

So what's your suggestion? The government "shall make no law ... abridging speech" except when it's abridging the speech of people who buy ads? It's never been less expensive to get a message out in front of huge numbers of people. Money doesn't equal speech, well-crafted messages equal memorable speech - and you can get it out there for free, with people who think like you passing the word. But the Nanny State types even want to control that. They only want the mostly lefter-leaning media operations to have a free hand with their audiences prior to an election, because they know which candidates such media entities will back. And they'd prefer that you couldn't even be allowed to run a politically-oriented blog that might interfere with that orchestrated message. People who want control over political speech really want control over particular types of political speech, and they're making a calculated gamble that they can skew that control in their favor. The court was right to deny them that power over your freedom of expression.

The "perverse idea" that's on the table isn't that money = speech. It's that control = liberty. Thankfully the first amendment is still very much in place.

Who said money is the equivalent of speech? We're talking about the striking down of a law that was prohibiting political speech (only by some groups and companies, not others) whether it cost any money or not. The law was about political communication, not about whether or how much it cost. The first amendment doesn't say that government is prohibited from interfering with speech as long as it's done on a low budget. It says it can make no law abridging speech.

It means they're ignorant and incorrect, yes. About the First Amendment.

So if that gyrocopter developed trouble on his approach, and veered 20 degrees to the left on its way down, which would have put him into a crowd of kids and tourists, no big deal?

Granted, only a few hundred people have died in gyro accidents since they became popular.

Oh, OK. So if were to have crashed that machine into the group of school kids he flew past, it probably wouldn't have hurt anybody.

So I have the right to say something political during an election. And you have the right to do so. Each of us can, say, run an ad in the newspaper to express ourselves about politics, and the first amendment protects us from the government controlling our speech. Right?

But if we also engage in our protected right to assemble as a group, and do something horrific like ... sharing the cost of running that exact same ad because we realize that we're on the same page ... then suddenly we lose the rights protected by the first amendment?

The amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Explain where, in that very clear language, it says that the government CAN make a law abridging the freedom of speech of two people who say the same thing together as a group. Be specific.