American National Government - Essay Example

The Supreme Court had never occasion to rule on freedom of speech issues until opponents of conscription during WWI were prosecuted for sedition. These cases established that speech that presented as "clear and present danger" to the government could be prohibited. This definition has remained the court's operative principle in such cases since that time. Since cases began to be brought before the court in the 1970s concerning campaign financing, the Court has consistently refused any limitation on the right of candidates to spend money, but just as consistently allowed the strict limitation of direct political contributions (so that, for example, an extremely wealthy individual could not single-handedly finance the campaign of any candidate but himself).

The Supreme Court has always held that flag burning, precisely because of its unpopular and wildly politically inflammatory character, is protected speech.Section ThreeExplain how each of the following types of polls works:a. push: A push pool is a sort of telemarketing campaign disguised as a telephone poll in which the political operatives call potential voters and ask them leading or unfair questions meant to alter their political views.b. benchmark: A benchmark poll establishes the popularity of opinion or position among a particular population for the purpose of tracking that population's change of opinion over time through later polls of the same group, particularly in response to campaigning.c. pseudo: A pseudo poll (or voodoo poll) is one run by a media outlet or website in which only self-selected individuals call in or vote online.

Because of the lack of randomization, it has little evidentiary value. For instance, conservative political organizations will frequently place pseudo-polls on websites where respondents will likely show support for the teaching of creationism in public schools or similar issues, whereas the scientist and blogger P. Z. Meyers will direct his thousands of readers to crash the site and skew the result in the other direction (e.g.: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/maybe_wed_get_better_answers_i.php), demonstrating how worthless such polls are for sampling public opinion.

In fact, they are more likely useful in attempts to manipulate public opinion.