How much can I buy some free speech for? A letter to the politicians seeking big campaign checks.

[Bjorn Against]

Dear Free Speech Salespeople,

Over the years whenever people have tried to reform our campaign finance system to get big money out of politics you have boldly stood up and said that if we limited wealthy donors abilities to write checks we would be limiting free speech.

Strangely enough I had always believed that free speech was, well free. You have set me straight however, now because of you I know that free speech depends on the ability to write a really big check.

Unfortunately however I have a hard time finding out how much you charge for free speech, so I was wondering if you could give me some rates.

Do you charge by the word, or do you have another method of figuring out how much it costs to be taken seriously? I know that Republican game show host Pat Sajak is on your side on this, so I thought maybe you would use his policy of only charging for vowels. I mean just think, if you charged just $100 per vowel it would only cost me $3900 to get you to take this sentence seriously, what a bargain.

Do you charge more for some words and phrases than you do for others? What is the going rate for me to say something like, oh lets say "please send more money to Halliburton"? What about "we need to cut back on environmental regulations"? "Liberate Iraq and protect the oil fields"?

Please let me know what the cost of something that you say is free is. I look forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely,
A Citizen

(I intend on sending this letter to several politicians, if any DUers are interested in the rates charged by any individual person let me know and I will consider sending the letter to them.)

[DKRC]

1. Dayum! You're on fire today!

:kick: & rec'd for obvious reasons!

:applause:

[donkeyotay]

2. Now I know what to do with those junk mail envelopes

Ala Duke Cunningham, I can send them to representatives so they can put their rates on the back like he did.

Here's another oxymoron to consider. We still pay for government services that have been "privatized". Now outsourcing like this was supposed to be more efficient than paying civil servants or our armed forces. I recently heard someone admit that privatized contracts cost more, but were useful to pay for high-priced labor (presumably mercenaries, not hookers). But surely the contractor has to pay the same rates for this special help, plus add on the cost of bribes to the GOP, bribes to the committee members, his lobbyist's racketeering money, as well as a profit for himself. How could this private contract be cheaper? Plus, who does our government compete with to pay the wages? Are we not bidding against ourselves?

I hope this makes sense. You do. Carry on.

[Bjorn Against]

3. Good points, people do need to realize that government is usually cheaper than the private sector

Those who tell us that privatizing government services will save us money because it will cut back on bureaucracy are dead wrong. Corporations have a great deal of bureaucracy as well and as you say they have to make a profit that government does not.

[InkAddict]

4. Doesn't that fall into the "for everything else" there's ....?

be real careful you pay on time, don't go over limit, and pay your registration fee (a photo ID required).