Aug 24
Of course the American people have the constitutional right to meet secretly and plot the overthrow of government by means ofelections and coordinated political speech. But in recent years, “campaign finance reformers” have imposed various rules making such secret plotting and funding of political speech illegal. Governments everywhere have always demanded that anyone who publishes …
Jul 04
Every claim made by campaign finance reformers is untrue. In the recent New York Democratic primaries, a 28-year-old bartender named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated the 4th-ranked Democrat in the U.S. House, Joe Crowley. Crowley outspent Ocasia-Cortez by a margin of at least 18 to 1. Crowley was widely thought to be in line to be the …
Mar 18
“Climate change” hysteria is the quintessential issue of wealthy elites; yet those who promote it present it as a grass-roots movement fighting ‘big money’ corporations. Government trusters know their fanatical apocalyptic climate claims are unsupported by voting majorities. So they employ various techniques to try to get around this problem. They frequently claim that evil …
Feb 19
Government claims about climate change seem to be closely linked to government claims about “campaign finance.” Every claim of campaign finance reformers is untrue. Election outcomes are barely correlated with campaign ad spending; and to the extent there is any correlation, it is likely that political success (or perceived likely success) CAUSES the spending rather …
Nov 16
Forget the Alien & Sedition Act prosecutions. Forget Lincoln’s arrests of pro-secession newspaper editors. Forget the Palmer Raids of World War I, the “Red Scares,” the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs or the McCarthy Hearings of the 1950s. By far the greatest threat to freedom of speech and press that America ever faced was and …
Jun 27
For years, government-trusters and pro-government journalists have ran with stories that (private sector) money in politics corrupts election outcomes. But every aspect of the “campaign finance reform” movement proves to be untrue. In fact, Donald Trump managed to defeat Hillary in the recent U.S. presidential election despite BEING OUTSPENT BY MORE THAN 2-TO-1. So the …
Jun 18
The Associated Press is reporting that “Scores of dairy farm workers and activists marched Saturday on a Ben & Jerry’s [ice cream] factory to push for better pay and living conditions on farms that provide milk for the ice cream maker that takes pride in its social activism….. See here. Although we at Lysander Spooner …
Dec 11
“Austerity” means cuts in government staff or welfare spending. The word appears often in false news, speeches of government trusters, and reporters. But austerity exists almost nowhere outside such rhetoric. None of the governments of the western world have done much cutting of their budgets. When George W. Bush won the presidency, the Republicans controlled …
Oct 02
Governments worldwide have always sought to control the message. In recent years, a fake “grass roots” movement to give government more control over election ads has arisen, calling itself the “campaign finance reform” movement. This while government agencies spend hundreds of millions annually on ads, messages and propaganda (on top of all the other ways …
Feb 01
Every claim of “campaign finance reformers” is false. Every single claim. For-profit corporations actually contribute almost nothing to political campaigns. Common law rules of corporate governance (i.e., the rule that corporations must seek profits as their primary interest) prohibit for-profit corporations from wasting money on politics. (And shareholders could sue them if they did waste …
