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In a world full of unemployed copy editors, you couldn’t hire one?

Peak my interest, huh?

Based on the clip, it seems fitting that Patton Oswalt was the voice of the lead character in Ratatouille.

Here:

Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days that they are no longer the party of community and order.

What the hell is this guy talking about?

Will Wilkinson kindly posted our video to his blog and probably drove some substantial traffic our way.

The problem with trying to make short and punchy videos is that, well, you always don’t get to make all the arguments you want and, sometimes, you don’t get to make them very well. I think we hit a decent balance of touching on key issues while displaying a few of the galling statements by the government’s lawyer while offering something entertaining to people who care about the human rights of free speech, the free press and free association.

One of Will’s commenters suggested that our interviewees were “worrying too much about the remote, if potential, problem of an assault on the first ammendment, instead of focusing on the very real problem of government corruption by special interests.”

First of all, that sounds an awful lot like John McCain’s statement that he would prefer a “clean government” to one “where, quote, First Amendment rights were being respected.” Kinda makes my skin crawl when I hear McCain say it. Listen for yourself.

I wouldn’t deny for a moment that government is regularly corrupted by special interests. What I don’t see is how regulating how, when and where groups of people may communicate about politics is meant to ameliorate the problem. Before you say I’m massaging words to make giant corporations sound less threatening, please consider what follows.

Almost every book publisher is a corporation. Most groups that want to advocate effectively on an issue or candidate will take the form of a corporate organization to pool resources and systematize their advocacy. It’s not cheap to buy ads in a campaign season, but campaign season is when speech can change things the most. Is it any wonder why McCain-Feingold singles out the weeks before an election as especially restrictive on free speech. Pooling resources and urging people to contribute to your effort is a good way to get a message to the public.

Anyone who has watched the last several presidential elections play out should be at least dimly aware that campaign finance laws are, in fact, merely tools to advance special interests. Who is best equipped to comply with and stretch the boundaries of campaign finance laws? Well, it’s usually entrenched interests that can afford campaign finance lawyers. Examples: giant corporations or unions with money to burn to keep their profits humming.

If you tell people that they can’t uniquely combine their rights of free association and free speech to be more effective spokesmen, then you are essentially telling them that they must choose to either associate freely or speak freely. No matter what, you are telling them that they can’t do either well enough to effect change in the world around them.

This is a case of the federal government asserting (pdf) the ability to ban essentially any corporate-or-union-funded book, print publication or any transmission via broadcast, cable or satellite that the FEC construes as “express advocacy” favoring or opposing candidates.

That’s a “very real problem” in my mind if you believe in the power of grassroots advocacy to effect real change.