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Democrats argue it is fine to ban book promotion

By: Soren Dayton (Diary)  |  September 4th, 2010 at 09:33 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The “Young Guns” have a book. They also have a promotion tour and a video. Now, the Democrats could engage in a battle of ideas. But that’s not what they do. (are you surprised?)

Instead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee files a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that promoting the book violates election law. Really. By their interpretation, a book publisher cannot promote a book if it is political.

What is the mechanism? The publisher posts a  video by the authors about their book that contains a link to a website that takes political contributions. It is after all, a political manifesto.

Restating, Democrats use the power of the federal government to attempt to prohibit the political speech and promotion of speech by their political enemies. That’s the kind of thing that lead to the American Revolution. Tea Parties make perfect sense in this context.

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COMMENTS

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  • NeoKong

    I thought we settled that.

    • lukematthews

      This is the entire Citizen’s United case in a nutshell. This is the enactment of restricting political free speech before an election. Their argument, that Simon & Schuster is giving a political party a ‘freebie’ as in a promotional video, is disingenuous at best. So, now book publishers have to keep a calendar of election events before promoting a book? What are they supposed to do to promote their product? The 1st Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” so even if it does fly in the face of federal law, that law is blatantly unconstitutional on its face. If political speech is not the very most protected of speech, there is no point to the amendment whatsoever.

  • RedBeard

    When they can’t make a case intellectually, they retreat to the spit-wad throwing mode.

    Small, small people.

  • Achance

    Doesn’t matter if the DCCC is right; they get the FEC to make some order, the Ds control it, and then it is months or years before the courts sort it out. They’ll do this to company publishing conservative/Republican material or contributing to conservative/Republican causes and they’ll cow these companies and individuals into not offering support or publishing conservative materials, TV/radio ads, etc. It’s the political version of the SLAP and the only remedy is to turn it on them and counter-sue and take actions against Democrat supporters and front groups. I’ve been arguing for years that every Republican governor/AG in the Country ought to be challenging the constitutionality of union dues structures and political expenditures and the tax-exempt status of D-leaning non-profits but apparently they all think that would be partisan and mean-spiriited. Well I suppose some of them are dumb enough to think that not doing it will get the unions and other Democrat fronts to support them.

  • mark1957

    But didn’t Sen. Obama promote his book “Dreams of My Father” while he was running for president?

  • Next93

    I mentioned this in a thread a couple of days ago, but it seems to me that the Left has become much more interested in shutting down the means of dissent than in actually providing counter arguments. They seem to be far more focused on attacking the messanger than they are on attacking the message, and I suspect this will be the primary strategy moving into the elections.

    First they ridiculed us. When that didn’t work, they tried to marginalize us. When it got too large to write off as a frige, they accused us of racism and raised vague but dire warnings of “future violence”. They tried salting the ralies with agents provocater. amd tjat didn’t work. So now they’re trying to use the law to keep us from being heard.

    All of this seems to be proving something I noticed about the liberal movement a while back: progressivism isn’t really compatible with democracy. It’s all based on using the power of the government to coerce people into approved thought and behavior patterns (for thier own good, and the good of the collective, of course). The good of society

    • acat

      It’s about re-branding the ruling class, because most of the writing about it comes from ruling-class euro-trash in the last century.

      It all sounds pretty and modern and egalitarian, but .. when the power to make decisions about the everymans’ life is no longer in the hands of the everyman, it’s a ruling-class and under-class system, plain and simple.

      And they’re going to use every trick to try to keep on top of the food pyramid. Every one, except looking at the truth.

      Mew

    • taxpayer1234
    • walter_hanson

      The proof that they are like that was because of their mad desire to restore the fairness doctorine. Talk radio has been a big sort of opposition for their liberalism. The fact that the Democrats put out their version of talk radio which failed shows why they have to force it down our throats!

      Walter Hanson
      Minneapolis, MN

    • momofthecastle

      began to be used at the same time in American history–and they meant the same thing.
      Before Woodrow Wilson, Presidents used the word “republic” to describe the government of the United States. Because that is the government we have.
      Progressive, democracy, it doesn’t matter…either word will keep us from understanding the danger of losing a republic.

  • Douglas Erley

    Is it just me, or is it a bit presumtuous to call yoursel a “young gun”. It’s sort of like me referring to myself as “the lion in winter”, or “the pro from dover”. These guys, and it’s not just them, always do the easy part. They talk about it. Never any action. Never challenge anything until it’s “the law of the land”. Cantor is not a conservative. He just says he is, and not very convincingly. He is my congressman, and his contribution to his district is to have Job Fairs. That’s it. No town halls. He talks to Laura Ingraham like she’s a kid. He’s just another ruling class RINO. Young Guns huh, where were you guys two years ago. Pretty easy to be a Young Gun when the Tea Party did all the heavy lifting.

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    ‘Ceptin’ we have much better muskets now.

    A piece of truly caring advice to the Democrats……. Don’t make us prove that statement I just made……. Don’t ever……… None of us want that.

  • daleg

    On one hand the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) apparently wants to stop the promotion of this book of which Rep. Ryan authors about a third and in which he highlights his Roadmap for America’s Future.

    On the other hand, TIME Magazine has an article on-line about Ryan and his Roadmap (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2011924,00.html) quoting Maryland Democrat Representative Chris Van Hollen as saying the Roadmap, “is a gift. I totally respect Paul’s courage for putting this out there. But we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about how we’ll be fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare.”

    The thing is, Mr. Van Hollen is currently serving as Chairman of the DCCC. Seems he should want the book to be a best seller rather than wanting the promotion of the book curtailed.

  • johnt

    But the inner fascist is too powerful a beast to control for long. So we have these amazing contradictions, warnings actually, as to the nature of the filth we’re dealing with.

  • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

    The video does not attack any politician or ask or tell voters to vote for a certain politician…

    So this video violates ‘the rules’ just how?

    A couple of the attorneys that our local, newly formed PAC has been consulting have basically told us that the FEC and FPPC (CA) rules are written so that ‘nobody’ can really comply and they can cite/prosecute whomever they wish and leave alone whomever they wish.

    Rule of law. Right.

  • http://www.helpawhiteguy.com livefreenh

    This concept keeps coming up, with different terms:

    Loving what is right and not who is right
    Attack the messenger and not the message
    Hate the game, not the player

    This tactic where the person is slandered, the ‘party’ is maligned, the tribal warfare is provoked — it always seems to miss the important part. Is it best for the country? Is it best for the voters, taxpayers, citizens, The People?

    If someone wants to avoid the facts, that would be a good time to suspend the discussion, and address THAT issue before going on.