then why the recent decision ... that allowed individuals to contribute directly to *all* candidates, with no overall cap on contributions?

Because it'a a SUPREME COURT decision. We have three branches of government and only two are elected.

The supremes are appointed, for life (subject only to impeachment for high crimes, like the president). They have no re-election issues and can vote their mind without affecting their own tenure.

The court has repeatedly struck down campaign spending restrictions, because they're limits, not just on free speech, but on the POLITICAL speech that is the reason it is an enumerated right in the first place.

But it takes a while for a law to produce enough damage to give someone standing to challenge it, and to bring it to the supremes, and then they rule narrowly. Then, once a piece is struck down, Congress just turns around and does another version of it to evade the details of that decision, and the cycle starts over.

There are under 700 people that hit the max last time around, do you seriously think that decision will benefit the grass roots? Sounds to me like it's aimed squarely at giving the oligarchs more influence.

Of course it's the rich are the first who are bit and who have the resources to bring the suit. That's part of why the limits end up off the rich (like Soros) first, while they're still hobbling everybody else.

It isn't just the limits themselves that are an issue. There's all the reporting requirements, publication requirements, time limits, and maze of details that make compliance hard.

It's hard for candidates: They need a substantial political machine right off the bat. Getting dinged for campaign finance violations is costly, may involve jail time, DOES involve court time, and produces publicity that tarnishes the candidate's image and hurts his chances in future elections. This gives the professional politicians, especially incumbents with the machine in place, a massive advantage over any grass-roots upstarts trying to replace them.

And it can bring on reprisals against donors - including carreer-killing or physical retaliation. Who contributed to what political campaigns is public record and searchable online. This is an invitation to people with opposing views to exert social pressure or take revenge. (Within the last couple weeks we saw the CEO of Netscape forced to resign by just such pressure, as a result of the McCain-Feingold reporting of a past political contribution to a "politically-incorrect" campaign.)

It's the exact opposite of a secret ballot, which is secret to prevent such reprisals so the vote can be cast in safety. Why should financial support be any different? Why would publishing the amount and beneficiary of each contributor's political contributions be any less of a bias on the political system than publishing the way each voter voted?

Further, risking a job is far more of a hardship for a little guy living hand-to-mouth than a rich executive with millions in the bank and a golden parachute. So it's another force to suppress grass-roots opinion in favor of those who are independently wealthy or well-off.

Oh, around 1 they start moving around and can actually do things. Before that they're just spuds. They sleep a lot, or they're fine sitting under one of those musical mobile things. Once they're about 1, though, they can move around, but there's nothing for them to really...do. They're too old to just sit and they're too young to play with (you can play along side of them, but they don't really understand 'play with' yet).

And there's little difference between the TV and the iPad, that was mostly a joke. There is one important difference, though. There are no commercials on Netflix, so my child has never seen an advertisement.

My kid's a year and a half old and can already use an iPad to watch Sesame Street and Curious George. He also still finds time to run around in circles, bang on things and play with his toy cars. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other...it can be both.

And if it were only one or the other, I'd still rather have the kid know how to use technology than blocks, anyway.

I thought that, until I had a kid.

The problem is once they're about a year old, there's nothing to do with them. They can't talk, they aren't old enough to understand the concept of playing with someone else...all they can really do is run around and bang into stuff.

However, I vowed to never be that guy who lets a TV raise his kid. So instead, my kid gets Sesame Street via Netflix on an iPad. Kid's 18 months old and already knows how to use a tablet.

"Kids these days can't even swipe a tablet, all wired-up as they are with these direct brain interfaces! It's terrible I tell you, terrible!"

But they can't anymore. It used to be that way, but now that all the lego toys are tie-ins with Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings or something, almost all the pieces are specially molded "bricks" that really only make sense in the context of whatever the kit is. You can't really use such pieces for anything more than what they were designed for.

To be honest, I'm really disappointed with the modern lego sets. When I was a kid, I had the city sets, and for the most part they were buildings that you made from brick-shaped bricks with only a few uniquely molded parts for that set. Today there's barely any blocks. They're all cross-licensed tie-ins with movies or cartoons, and so in order to get the assembled set to look like something from The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, 75% of the blocks are special molds.

There's almost no point in it being a lego toy, because you're just assembling a crude model of an x-wing, and the only thing you can make with the set is...an x-wing. Why not just...play with a model x-wing?

Exposing children to new technology is a terrible idea.

An Egyptian legend relates that when the god Thoth revealed his invention of writing to King Thamos, the good King denounced it as the enemy of civilization. "Children and young people," protested the monarch, "who had hitherto been forced to apply themselves diligently to learn and retain whatever was taught them would cease to apply themselves and would neglect to exercise their memories."

If they were "just enforcing the law", then why did the FBI/ATF enter with masks on and no visible identification? That's what terrorists do, not government or police agencies. There is evidence that the federal agents fired the first shots as well.

I never said a word about banning abortion.

Or spies on and tracks its own people, without specific warrants.

This is why the entire "we need guns to defend our freedoms!" thing the 2nd amendment crowd shouts is a lie. If these people actually cared about fighting tyranny with their guns, we'd already have a gallows set up on Capitol Hill with a whole bunch of congressmen swinging from it.

The problem with #1 is that it conflicts with free speech, and particularly the kind of speech most in need of protection: political speech. Who gets to determine who is and is not a "candidate" and therefore has access to the place from which they will state their platform?

I don't like the massive influence of money on politics any more than you do, but I don't think curtailing political speech will solve the problem.

As an aside, the way I think the influence of money on politics could be curtailed is by way more speech, drowning them out. Use every free (as in beer) platform available, twitter, facebook, youtube, etc etc etc to blast a message contrary to the two-party system and you might have a chance.

But guns have nothing to do with preventing a powerful government from issuing general warrants, spying on and tracking every American, and sticking their fingers up your grandma's ass if she wants to get on a plane. If guns prevented tyrannical government, we wouldn't have the government we have now.

Except that's bullshit, because if people really cared about using their guns to defend our freedoms, there would already be a gallows set up on Capitol Hill with half of congress swinging from it. What do you think the founding fathers would have done about getting groped by the TSA, or the general warrants the NSA is issuing?

The NRA crowd wants guns to play pretend soldier and get boners from the smell of gun oil. But when it comes to actually defending freedom, they're worthless.