My stance used to be that anyone should be able to give as much as they want to any political group or candidate. They earned the money – and the First Amendment means ESPECIALLY that political speech should be free from government inteference. Yet, we have seen politicians, both at the national level and here in NH on BOTH sides of the political aisle, do all they can to obfuscate, “convolate”, and otherwise make it harder for ordinary people to have their say. BOTH Parties have create minefields of regulations that make it all but impossible for an ordinary schlub to get together with some buddies and make a political stand with some money. It all can be called “Incumbent Protections Acts”. So I used to think “hey, just use the ‘Net and list who the donors are if you really have to know.
And then CA’s Prop 8, to roll back homosexual marriage, happened. Donors were publicly listed and the militant gays went after most of them (see here from Heritage). We’ve seen the Obama campaign go after donors to Republican donors and use the force of Government to harass and otherwise use the “Progressive Chicago WAY” of politics to silence them. Thus, I openly advocate that NO donors should ever be forced to be revealed for instead of achieving the goal of more open and transparency in election, Progressives have used opposition donor list as retributive “hit’em hard” lists. And now US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, Progressive-MA) is showing that full on again:
I’m generally for more disclosure in campaign finance, but the best argument against requiring full disclosure by groups engaged in political speech is that politicians sometimes retaliate against their critics. Sen. Elizabeth Warren inadvertently made that very argument this week.
As told by Ben White at Politico, a group called “Third Way” criticized Warren. Warren apparently suspected that Third Way’s criticism of her was funded by banks. So she wrote a letter to bank CEOs demanding they disclose which political groups they’re funding.
Warren sits on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. She’s basically telling the entities whose livelihood her committee controls to stop criticizing her. This is bullying — and it’s the best argument for allowing companies and individuals to anonymously criticize politicians.
So we see, up close and real, the Progressive mantra that the Political is the Personal. Warren has no power to demand what she is asking, no legislative power, no committee power. Just the threat of what she could do to their businesses, their livelihoods (and thus, their families) because of her position on that committee.
This IS a great example of what “Progressives” mean when they talk about their “democracy” – “how DARE you oppose me! how DARE you DEFY me!”. More and more we are transitioning, not to a more open and transparent government, but to that of Strong Men within a Potemkin Republic. In my mind, she is an exact image of Obama in outlook, temperment, and ideology.
Folks like this, who simply expect others to bow down simply because of their position, are dangerous to the rest of us. Their view of their personal power, and their inability to see that power should be limited (heck, they RAIL against how little they have vs how much they believe they should have). That Politics has become the Personal means the lessening of established procedure and protocol, of The Rule of Law, and an acknowledgement that there is a Power and Personage greater than themselves that has granted them a humbleness of stewardship of governance for a short while.
So, let such a person as Warren, and others of her ilk, have access to the opposition donor lists? Only in their dreams and my nightmares.
(H/T: Washington Examiner)
