Friday, August 04, 2006
No, I'm not talking about the non-standard spelling of her first name.Lately, Cindi Scoppe has been obsessed with squelching the free speech rights of anyone interested in participating in South Carolina politics. This time, she's going after convenient bogeyman SCRG for daring to fight for the rights of South Carolina children with out-of-state money. The horror! Finally, someone is sending money into South Carolina. Clearly, nothing good can come of this.
Any rational person who saw those postcards, particularly the ones that were attached to plastic pink pigs, would consider them an attempt to “influence the outcome” of the primaries — which triggers state reporting requirements.
Here's the problem. There's nothing wrong with trying to influence the outcome of elections. In our democracy, we the people govern ourselves. But only after widespread campaigning, cajoling, debate and deliberation. As citizens, we owe each other reasons for wanting to pursue this policy or that one or electing this politician and not the other. Participation in politics should not be a taboo—it's closer to being a duty. (But it's not actually a duty; I don't advocate throwing pepole in jail for not voting.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh that's right. Those postcards. Here's the deal.
Cindi, sweetheart. You work for a private corporation. A private, out-of-state corporation. A private, out-of-state corporation that tries to influence the outcome of elections. The private, out-of-state corporation that you work for spends quite a bit more money in production and distribution costs than SCRG, even if sometimes to a lesser effect.
Now what if the State Elections Commission were to come to The State and say, "Look, we've had some pretty close elections lately. We know you've been spending a lot of money to influence those elections. We know you're out-of-state company. We just want to make sure that everything is done fair, according to the book. We just want to know the names of all your investors and the exact amount you use to publish your daily newspaper with its endorsements and pronounced left-wing political coverage."
What do you think the reaction to that would be? Scoppe and Warthen would complain that it's a violation of freedom of speech since under the Constitution, people have the right to speak without prior restraint. And you know what? They'd be right.
Oh, but Cindi's not done yet. There's also this beauty of a column from yesterday. In it, Ms. Scoppe equates Tommy Moore's decision to take money from the Chemical and Nuclear Waste industry to Mark Sanford's acceptance of contributions to fight for every child's chance to attend a school that works for them.
Just to recap: According to Scoppe...
Shilling for the Chemical and Nuclear Industry to Import Waste into South Carolina = Fighting for Every Parent's Right to Send Kids to a Safe, High-Achieving School.
Does that seem right to you?
Posted by Bill Smith at 12:03 PM |
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