you can pay large amounts to have ads run on a particular issue that just so happens to be one of the core parts of a particular candidate's campaign platform
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!
Why are you so emotional about it?
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.
would have been legal over Atlanta
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 do you hate helicopters?
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.
Should they all be banned from urban areas? If not, you are a lying hypocrite.
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).
It's a lot easier to be heard when you have money
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.
you're not being intellectually honest. if the guy with the most money gets the most speech
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.
This is a massive part of what's screwed up with US politics - this perverse idea that money = speech.
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
So what's your suggestion? The government "shall make no law
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.
Most Americans probably will not agree that money is equivalent to speech, that's the crux of the issue.
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.
Does that mean they're ignorant and incorrect or does it mean the Supreme court's verdict on Citizens United is questionable?
It means they're ignorant and incorrect, yes. About the First Amendment.
Your blowing it out of proportion. The guy didn't endanger anyone.
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.
actually the rotors are very low speed. gyrocopters rotate at 500 RPM, which is the same range as helicopters. but helicopter rotors are designed like a fan, where lift is generated by directing air downwards. If you look at a gyrocopter rotor it has the cross section of an airplane wing. lift is generated from the bournulli effect. ao if you stand under a gyrocopter you aren't blown away by the downwind.
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.
groups do not deserve extra rights over individuals.
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
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.
That is not his message, but complete fabrication is part and parcel of your typical troll posts.
OK, so what IS his message? That he thinks the government should NOT interfere with political speech? Because that's the opposite of what he's saying. He thinks that the government should control who gets to say what. That's the bottom line of his position. Just because you don't like it being boiled down to its essence and said out loud doesn't mean that doing so is trolling. It's just calling it what it is.
If it is correct to limit labor union's ability to spend due to unequal protection, then how can corporations not similarly be limited?
Wow, you are really missing the point. You have it backwards. The law wasn't "loosened," it was struck down, in part, because it allowed some groups to do things like run political ads on TV while barring other groups from doing so. Regardless of that unequal treatment under the law, which favored some groups and companies over others, the main issue remains: telling people that they're not allowed to say things during an election is a direct violation of the first amendment. Period. The court came to the same inevitable conclusion. If you don't like the groups like Greenpeace or a labor union or the NRA can run opinion pieces on cable TV or in a newspaper ad, then you need to figure out how to let the government stop those people from saying what they think while not violating the first amendment. And then you have to apply that new speech-inhibiting law evenly to everyone.
Personally, I think all labor union and corporate campaign contributions should be eliminated. "We the people..."
So when you join a labor union or incorporate your business, you think you're surrendering your rights to free speech? What if you incorporate a landscaping business in your town, and some local politician says he's going to make it the focus of his term as mayor to prohibit all gasoline powered landscaping equipment in town. Do you really think that the would-be mayor should be allowed to say what he thinks about your business practices and equipment, but you and your fellow landscapers in town shouldn't be allowed to run an ad saying, "Don't elect Mr. Smith, because all of your local landscaping companies will end up out of business." Why do you think such political speech should be banned, but only when it's the business owners who speak it?
most americans agree with him
No, most Americans do not think that the government be allowed to stop you from expressing your opinion about politics. That's what the First Amendment is there to prevent the government from doing.
Even if you disagree with his message (I can't think of anyone who would)
What? His message is that he wants the government to limit your ability to engage in free speech. Ironically, he wants to the right to make a highly dangerous (to other people), theatrical exhibition of political speech
"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different." -- Franco Spisani