Money As Speech

Money is not Speech, and free money is not free speech.

If there is free speech, and the Supreme Court sees speech as equivalent to money, there should be free money, too, somewhere. But there is no such thing. One might say that there is a right to make as much money as possible, but that is not the same thing as the exercise of "free money".... whatever that might be.

The idea behind the free exercise of speech was that all people have equal rights to speak in all public forums. But when one person has millions and another has not, then the voice of the one with less money is drowned out.

The forum of speech used to be the forum, the town square, the assembly, wherein all people could give voice to their ideas.
However, the forum now is the intrusive cable TV, which by its very nature is commercial and profit driven and requires money. This commercial nature of the public forum is vastly different from the open and free town square.

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