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The Price of Free Speech--A United States District Court judge has ruled unconstitutional an Arizona Clean Elections law that allowed candidates to get matching public funds when their opponents exceeded a certain amount, and the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that it was a violation of First Amendment rights to free speech, has overturned a federal law limiting the amount of money corporations and unions can spend to influence elections through purchasing advertising. Are these bad rulings? No, I say--at least not theoretically, not in the abstract.
First of all, an abundance of information about candidates and issues is available in newspapers and magazines, on the Internet, and on TV and radio news shows. We can read detailed analyses of all proposed bills and all candidates' qualifications and make an informed decision as to what or whom we are voting for. All it takes is some effort. The fact that most people are not willing to make that effort is irrelevant.
Second, it shouldn' t really matter who is paying for campaign or issue advertising. Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman believes that "Faced with a flood of campaign messages--some factual, some perhaps not--voters and candidates need full disclosure of who is behind these messages." Why? Does the validity of a message depend upon its source? Should we reject--or accept--an opinion in an ad simply because the ad was sponsored by the drug industry, the AMA, a teachers' union, or AARP? (For what it's worth, according to Time magazine, among the top 10 donor organizations from 1989-2010, what we may loosely call business interests donated $109 million and union interests $178 million.) It is the ad itself, not its source, that needs to be analyzed and evaluated by the voter.
Third, a massive repetition of ads made by candidates or issue-backers with deep pockets should not affect one's voting decisions. If I hear 30 ads in favor of someone or something and just one against, why must I believe and be swayed by the 30? If I fall for mere repetition, I have only myself to blame.
What it comes down to is that few of us actually trust democracy and the common man. We believe that only we ourselves are sufficiently skeptical of the specious. If we hear that there is a mass outcry against bank bailouts, stimulus packages, CEO salaries and bonuses, or the theory of global warming, we attribute it to mass psychology and the herd instinct. We think that Joe Average is easily swayed by emotional or illogical arguments. We ourselves, of course, are not so swayed. We are discerning. We make only rational, prudent choices. But we know that the guy or gal next door is just a sucker, an easy mark, a "mad man's" dream.
Flaming the Fans--NBA All-Star games are charades at best, farces at worst. (Ditto the NFL's Pro Bowls.) But what about the fans' selection of the All-Stars themselves? Is that a farce also? At first blush it would seem so. Tracy McGrady has played only a few games this season, is now on a leave of absence, and his team is trying to get rid of him. Allen Iverson's performance has been in sharp decline this year. Yet both gathered huge numbers of votes for the All-Star game, and Iverson is actually going to be an Eastern Conference starter. Does this prove that fans' judgment is terrible and that the media, the players themselves, and the coaches should do the selecting?
No. It's not that the fans have poor judgment, it's just that their purposes are different from those of media, players, and coaches. The fans are voting not necessarily for those who deserve to be called All-Stars this year but for those who they would most enjoy watching play in the game, some of whom are having bad years. Sentimentally, they are voting for career achievement. They are giving thanks to the players who have most excited them over the years, not just to those who are the best players today. Like the millions of Chinese voters who love Yao Ming and want to see him achieve All-Star status for the honor of their country, most fans know exactly what they are doing and in voting are making their own statement.
Better Communication Through Climate Change--Global warming has melted so much Arctic ice that a telecommunications company proposes to lay underwater fiber optic cable between Tokyo and London by way of the Northwest Passage. The system would cut almost in half the time it takes to send messages from the UK to Asia, trimming the delay from 140 milliseconds to 88 milliseconds. As an impatient multitasker who resents the time it takes to get on to the Internet, or go from one website to another, or from one part of a site to another, I'm grateful for global warming. Fifty-two milliseconds is nothing to be sneezed at. (Now if we could just speed up those sneezes so we could get back to our tasks more quickly....)
Stocks, Cars, Sandwiches and Other Bargains--Although you are 30 times more likely to be hit by lightning than to die in one of the Toyota models beset with recently announced brake or gas pedal problems, all which can and will be fixed easily, sales of new Toyotas are off, their resale value is falling, dealers making repairs are offering free washes and oil changes and massages, manicures, pedicures, haircuts, shoe shines, and sandwiches to help make amends, and Toyota is sending its dealers checks of $7,500 or more to help offset their pain and taking out ads that say "In recent days our company has not lived up to the standards we set for ourselves...we're working to regain your trust." It's the neo-classic, by now very tiresome but very necessary, mea culpa defense: we have sinned, we "take ownership" of our sin, we will more than fix the problems, we will be unwaveringly vigilant in the future, it'll never happen again. It's the defense that the world is waiting for Tiger Woods to make. My advice: wait about two more weeks, then buy Toyota stock and a Prius, both at bargain prices, because Toyota makes great products.
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