The name isn't "May Day", it's Mayday.

I agree with that. I can speak about political issues, you can speak about political issues, that's fantastic. Look, we're doing it right now with zero threat of retaliation from the government. I do not see that as even in the same ballpark as me or you paying a hundred million dollars to have our opinion shown on prime time TV for the purpose of swaying local elections in jurisdictions that we have nothing to do with. Let those people decide who they want to elect without our influence.

Great. The market cap of the NY Times company is 2.28 billion dollars. If Adelson wants to pay that in order to run an ad that would really only have marginal impact, and would obviously be seen as opinion, then let him do that. I'm willing to have him pay $2 billion to run his ad instead of a few million. $2 billion might make him actually think about whether he really wants to do that, and what he is going to do with the company after he runs the ad.

Did the times get paid to run the editorial? If they just want to run the editorial, fine, that's what they do. If they get paid to run it, that's an ad.

I'm focusing on money. I want to stop people from being able to purchase political influence. If Sheldon Adelson wants to buy the entire newspaper and then run whatever he wants, fine. What I don't want to see is him giving a politician a bucket of money, or spending money to run ad or smear campaigns.

Not at all. If someone wants to run an ad saying "guns are bad, so vote for people who want to ban them", then that's fine. If they say "guns are bad, so vote for this person", that's not fine. If they just show pictures of candidates when discussing what is good or bad about an issue, that's also not fine. If the ad is seen as supporting or attacking any specific candidate then I do not think it should be allowed.

I've never met a faceless person, regardless of their job. I suppose a federal judge would work for that role, though. That is what they do, after all.

I'm perfectly ok with the highest level of judicial scrutiny. I'm even ok with a department and court specifically to regulate political speech. In fact, the highest level of judicial scrutiny is exactly what political speech and political campaigns and politicians require, and today that doesn't exist. I believe that political speech is in a different class than all other speech because of how it affects every single one of us, I think it is a core issue in a representative democracy. It has swayed entire elections, people have been brought to power by gaming the system and the voters instead of by actually having the most support. Just ask President Gore.

Replace the word "especially" with "except" in that, and I agree.

I agree.

Today that's not possible. That's the problem. And even so, if there's one thing we need less of in politics and media in general, it is shouting matches. What we need is a volume limiter.

Get this: I identify strongly with most of the Libertarian ideals, and I still think that it is right to regulate political speech. Politicians have been fucking over anyone and everyone as long and as much as they can, and I want to see them get fucked back. I want a politician to win on their merits, not because of a clever advertising campaign, or because they outspent their opponent 100 to 1 because they got paid by oil and pharmaceuticals. I want to see Democrats and Republicans on the same stage as candidates from all of the other parties, on prime time television, and watch them try to scramble and explain to the public how they're so different from each other, and how their ideas and only their ideas can lead the country forward instead of any other candidate on that stage. I want the Ds and Rs to be shaken from their comfort position of having a 50% chance of winning the election, and drop that down to 12%. Then we'll see who has the best ideas and who is full of shit. I frankly don't really care what my neighbor thinks about any candidate. I want to hear it from the actual candidate. Not my neighbor, not a campaign, not a corporation, not a special interest group, but the person actually running. I want to see Gary Johnson on stage telling Mitt Romney and Barack Obama exactly why they are full of shit.

In the last presidential election I watched the televised debates. They were nothing but a circle jerk. Then I watched the independent debates online. Those debates actually had substance. They had difficult questions which the participants were not given beforehand. They had people who genuinely and strongly opposed the beliefs of the other candidates, and would say why and argue their point. It was an actual debate, the kind that the American public deserves, not a pair of frat brothers who agree with each other about everything except the little wedge issues that they want to focus on and distract people with. It's a fraud, and it needs to end. We deserve better.

You'll also have to prove that the NSA actually searched your phone.

Does "weigh in" involve the New York Times giving a politician a bucket of money? If so, then yes I'm willing to tell them that. If not, then we are not talking about the same thing. I am talking about politicians and their campaigns receiving cash. I'm also talking about people running advertisements for or against a campaign. I am NOT talking about anyone giving their opinion on who would make a better leader, I don't care if they do that on TV or radio or in a newspaper or whatever. But when that opinion becomes nationally televised by means of purchasing air time, or spread by means of purchasing space in a newspaper, or when the person speaking was paid to say that, then that is advertising and not just opinion.

Because Greenpeace is a corporation. Where is your confusion? Let Greenpeace send their members $100 each and let those members send that money to the candidate, IF THEY WANT TO.

A person seeking elected office, an elected official, an official appointed by an elected or appointed official, or any group representing or working for those people. Federal employees who were hired and not elected or appointed are not politicians. Exceptions can be made for some military ranks.

Yes, the same rules regarding receiving money must apply to all politicians. These rules must be tight, and necessarily different from the rules regarding anyone else receiving money. Like I said, politicians and lobbyists have earned this new set of rules based on their conduct.

Umm.. no? Thanks for taking the initiative to call the discussion over and everything, but it's really not.

I understand what you're saying, but none of that relates to what I originally said:

I'm talking about computing power. Not price, not convenience, not flexibility, etc. OP said that XBox 360 is more powerful than a current PC, which was what I was addressing. That's the only thing I was addressing.

It's not bias, it's money. Networks want ratings, because ratings are money. If a network gives air time to a candidate from a smaller party, then the Commission On Presidential Debates, which is controlled by Democrats and Republicans, will not allow their candidates or debates on that network. It's basic blackmail. Ignore everyone else, or else you won't get the people that bring in the most ratings. Less voices heard. Why do the Ds and Rs get the most ratings? Because they're on TV, people know them, name recognition. That's the cycle.

You really have to wonder what is going on when the Democrats and Republicans have agreed on this issue for the past 26 years. It's not about choice, it's about keeping themselves in power. The TV media plays along because they don't really have a choice if they want to keep playing the game.

I don't care if it's Koch or Soros or any other douchebag, foreign or domestic. I want them out of my election system. I don't like the idea that foreign entities can pay whatever they want in order to influence the election in my state. That does not sit well with me, I want my voice heard. The same goes for people in other states, I don't want them influencing my state elections either. Or my federal elections. I strongly believe that politicians deserve a completely different set of rules for receiving money than everyone else. Politicians have earned that distinction with the stellar work they've done the past few decades. They get one set of rules, everyone else gets another. That means that I don't want corporations or foreign entities contributing at all to campaigns. Private individuals, fine, but there should be a limit on how much they can give to help ensure that a single person cannot outspend millions of others. If a million people decide to give Gary Johnson $100 each, I don't want George Soros or anyone else stepping in to give a D or R a billion dollar check. It's not representative.

That's disingenuous. Microsoft makes money on the actual games, which allows them to discount the cost of the hardware. They sell the hardware at a loss and recoup the money with games and peripheral licensing. I'll be happy to spec out a computer with the same capabilities that you can build yourself though, since this discussion is about power and not price. And then I'll spec out one with twice the power. Then three times. I've got one in my living room right now, and it can do a lot more than the Xbox One. In fact, it can do everything that a PC can.

My faith in humanity is so low these days.

I'm confused about whether that is a serious post or a troll. It has to be a troll. 3 apostrophes used, all incorrectly. 3 uses of your/you're, all incorrect. And the assertion that a console built on PC hardware is more powerful than "the current PC". There's no way that can be a serious post.

I don't have to, they already do run. But they and all other smaller party candidates get little to no exposure based on the fact that the commission on presidential debates does not allow any small party candidates to debate on national TV. That's the major thing I want to get changed, I want control of the debate process out of the hands of any political party.

Sure do. Have you not been paying attention to anything I've said? Have I qualified any statement with a political affiliation?

You are a really stupid person, you know that? You have championed the debate tactic of mis-representing someone's position, and then trashing it. Why bother with the actual substance of the debate when you can just claim that your opponent supports one thing, and trash it?

Here's a hint: if someone like George Soros wants to have his voice heard, then he is more than welcome to join the same group of people as everyone else like him, contribute his $1000 like everyone else did, and go about the rest of his day. Like everyone else. If he instead wants to spend 100 times as much as that group of people in order to drown them out, then he can go fuck himself along with your debate tactic.

Who the hell is complaining about one side? I want it all to end. In fact, I want every single person in Congress right now to be kicked out on their asses and replaced with completely new people. Every one of them. I also want some Libertarian candidates on the ballots, but one thing at a time.

Yeah, that's pretty fucked up, isn't it? Do you think they should be allowed to do that? I sure as hell don't, and I sure as hell never said I did. Take your straw man somewhere else.

The straw is really flying here. No, that is NOT what I have a problem with. People can say anything they want, wherever they want. What I DO have a problem with is a single voice drowning out the voices of millions of others. Notice how I did not qualify that statement with any sort of political affiliation whatsoever. Take your divisive "you liberals" bullshit somewhere else, I'm not interested in politicizing this issue.