Democrats on the Federal Election Commission Vote to Punish Political Speech

07 Apr, 2016 by Dave Blount

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The campaign by Democrats to criminalize political speech with which they disagree did not end with the Citizens United decision, even if they fail to overturn or overrule it. Big Government has countless means of regulating speech. Abuse of these means is only mitigated by constant resistance:

The three Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, in their latest and boldest move to regulate conservative media, voted in unison to punish a movie maker critical of President Obama after he distributed for free his latest work, Dreams of My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception.

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert, owner of Highway 61 films, has produced several independent politically-themed movies and sent Dreams out to millions of voters in key swing states prior to the 2012 election.

While he acted on his own, and with no ties to political groups or parties, an FEC complaint was filed claiming he violated reporting rules, prompting him to seek the standard media “exemption.”

When you rely on bureaucrats to give you exemptions in order to express yourself, you may only be allowed to say what they want to hear.

[D]espite giving the same exemption to liberal movie makers like Michael Moore and Daily Kos, the Democrats recently voted against Gilbert in a February action, reviving their bid to punish conservative media…

This time the authoritarians were stopped:

Lucky for Gilbert, the three Republicans on the FEC also united to vote to give him the exemption. The tie vote blocked any action, and was followed by a unanimous 6-0 vote to close the file. Had he lost, Gilbert would have been required to report who helped fund the anti-Obama movie.

Conceivably, the funders would have been targeted for prosecution in turn, under laws of the sort used to make an example of political film-maker Dinesh D’Souza.

When enough laws pile up, virtually anyone can be arrested. We stay out of prison by not incurring the government’s disfavor, rather than by not breaking laws. That’s how tyranny works.

The latest Democratic move on conservatives comes as some Democrats in Congress, and liberal publications, are pushing to end the even split between Democrats and Republicans on the FEC, a move conservatives have warned would lead to punishing new rules on right-leaning media and candidates.

The more power Democrats are given, the more they will take.

Gilbert’s movie promotes the theory that Obama’s father was not an African communist but an American communist — namely, his mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who was an unsavory character to put it mildly. Whether Gilbert’s movie has any merit has no bearing on his right to distribute it as he sees fit, but here’s a trailer.

On tips from Stormfax, Torcer, and J. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.