freedom of speech, an idea whose time has passed?

Well, yeah. Right now, it's against the law. Also, "any local transit system (receiving fed funds)" is fair. They are paying the transit systems, so why should they be allowed to try to subvert the government?

I don't think freedom of speech is being curtailed at all. You are free to buy ad time or post posters any where elese that the government doesn't fund.

I am sure that Donald Trump wouldn't let ads for competitors hang in his halls either.

"Subvert the government?" It's our government. We have the right to say what constitutes our government, or at least have some input into it.

damn, and here I thought "We the people" are paying the transit systems. Just goes to show you how us liberals are misled thinking the government is spending "our" money.

Yes, it is ALL of ours. Vote for politicians that will make marijuana legal. Until then, the law is the law.

This law is a tactic to subvert free thought and speech. Law makers always vote what they percieve will get them votes. The way to change their mind which way to vote is raise public awareness so the politician sees the advantage to change his vote. If they suppress the public right to know this way there can never be a fair consensus.

They are not suppressing anything. They are simply saying that they don't want ad's contrary to current US law placed in facilities funded by the government.

McG you offer an interesting propositon for what I assume to be a conservative, that the government has more right to free speech than does an ordinary citizen.

All animals are equal; some animals a more equal than others.

All speech is free; government speech is freer than yours . . .

just attempting to follow McG's logic here:
1. My home is on a public water system
2. The public water system was partially funded by Fed grants
3. I use the water to maintian my lawn
4. The govenment puts a sign on my lawn that I disagree with.
5. I object by placing a sign next to it offering my objection
6. I have committed an illegal act.
damn, I hate to get into free speech and campaign finance reform, that could drive McG over the edge with paradox's.

Dys
Dys, I really want to pour gasoline on burning embers with your posit.

What about all the land-grant states (from the great western land race across the country) and how this law would effect their citizens?

Or anyone who bought a home with a federally funded mortgage?

Or anyone who lives in a HUD funded rental unit?

BBB

well BBB if the occupants don't put up any signs that the Bush Admin disagree with they should be fine, after all free speech is only meant to be for the one's that decide what is allowable free speech. (I can't say anymore than that)
For our next entertainment, let us adress other interests of conservative views like
1. right to privacy
2. due process

Dys
Dys, will this sign pass the Bush test? VOTE FOR DEAN.

BBB

Sounds like McG is saying that since the law of the land says that abortions are legal -- ads that head in the other direction should not be allowed.

McG -- even though I disagree with damn near everything you say -- normally I consider your thoughts to be of a higher caliber than this.

This bunch of dolts currently in power are clueless!

BBB as long as it's prescreened for approval.

Dys, can you post a link so I can be better informed as to the veracity of your claim...

Now that's more like it!

I uphold the right of a private business concern to decide what they will allow as far as free speech but the government gets into "1984" territory quite quickly. It is our tax money and the politicians are merely adminstrators. I see them overstepping their bounds here and it's just another indicator of the authoritarianism and control this administration would like to place on society. The longer they are in there, the more the will try to accomplish this agenda.

US House of Reps Omnibus Spending bill, passed 12/08/03

When given the proper view of this bit of news, you can see both sides of the story. I don't feel that this is any great forfeiture of freedoms that Dys would have you believe.

"I'm familiar with arguments that some illegal substances provide therapeutic relief for individuals with certain ailments conventional treatments haven't cured," he said. "But it doesn't change the fact that the substances are illegal ."

HOUSE BANS TRANSIT DRUG-REFORM ADS


Local transit agencies allowing medical-marijuana and other kinds of drug-reform advertisements would be denied federal funding under a bill passed Monday by the House of Representatives.

Deep within the $373 billion omnibus spending bill is a paragraph that says no money from the bill can go to any bus, train or subway agency "involved directly or indirectly in any activity that promotes the legalization or medical use of any substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act."

That includes marijuana, which voters in California and nine other states have decided should be available for medical use.

Drug reform advocates call the provision censorship, pure and simple. Bill Piper, associate director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, noted the same bill gives the White House $145 million to run anti-marijuana ads in 2004.

"The government can't spend taxpayer money promoting one side of the drug policy debate while prohibiting taxpayers from using their own money to promote the other side," he said. "This is censorship and not the democratic way."

Some Bay Area lawmakers agreed.

"We don't believe it is appropriate for the federal government to use the federal purse string to stifle the free-speech interests of states and local jurisdictions with regard to this issue," said Daniel Weiss, chief of staff to Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who didn't vote on the spending bill.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who voted against the bill, said, "With federal funding for mass transit already abysmally low, this measure makes a bad situation even worse."

But Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who voted for the bill, had no problem with the provision.

"I'm familiar with arguments that some illegal substances provide therapeutic relief for individuals with certain ailments conventional treatments haven't cured," he said. "But it doesn't change the fact that the substances are illegal ."

Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., inserted the provision into the catch-all spending bill after growing irked at marijuana-decriminalization ads placed in the Washington, D.C., Metro transit system by Change the Climate, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit.