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No one is stopping that person from buying anything; they just have to register first.
by hudibras 8y ago
No one is stopping that person from buying anything; they just have to register first.
- chrismcb 8y agoSo if you don't register, your free speech is abridged. The first amendment doesn't say you have to register before you are given free speech.
- hudibras 8y agoI don't know what to tell you, other than that the Public Disclosure Commission and the Fair Campaign Practices Act have been Washington state law since the early 1970s.
- CamperBob2 8y agoI don't know what to tell you either, but the authors of the First Amendment had some pretty strong ideas on the subject about 200 years before that. They didn't seem quite as ambivalent on the subject as most people here. I wonder why?
- hudibras 8y agoIs a law prohibiting me from secretly giving an elected official a briefcase full of one million dollars constitutional? If so, why is it not the same if there's a law that says I can't secretly provide $1,000,000 in services to the same elected official in the form of political advertising? The authors of the U.S. Constitution had some pretty strong ideas on the idea of bribery; in fact, it's explicitly listed in Article 2, Section 4 as an impeachable offense. The public has a right to know when its politicians and government officials are receiving money (or goods and services) from outside entities.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoYou also can't hand out legal or medical advice without being registered. Is that a violation of free speech?
- 0xffff2 8y agoYou can't? There's literally a subreddit called "legaladvice". Someone should tell them. You can't claim to be an attorney or a doctor if you're not one, but as far as I know that's the limit of any restrictions.