If by "practical applications" you mean the government and politicians get involved in them and bastardize what the original principles stand for, then I agree. But the answer isn't to curtail the freedoms. It's to curtail the government.
Legislative purchasing power isn't a free speech problem. It's a problem of corrupt government who trade legislative favors for money. Johnson has advocated hard for term limits, saying he believes it's the "silver bullet" to end crony capitalism. I agree with him. When the politicians forget they represent their electorate, and instead focus on how best to keep the DNC or RNC in their back pocket and keep the donors money flowing, we cease to have a representative government, and the whole thing falls apart. Some people think well the government needs to regulate more to fix that... Regulate speech, regulate the markets... Regulation is why we are where we are now. More regulation only perpetuates the problem.
Term limits does nothing in regards to limitless anonymous donations. It may prevent people from making a career out of being a corrupt politician but that's about it. It could also turn a marathon into a sprint to the finish in that these corrupt politicians now have limited time to sell their support.
I think it's pretty obviously that if you want to keep reps out of the back pockets of corporations that you need to remove the incentive. Giving them less time to sell out doesn't remove the incentive, but preventing them from selling out does.
Speech probably the most important right we have... Which is why it is the first amendment. When the government starts telling people how much of their own money they can and can't spend on political speech, we will quickly head down that slippery slope to revisiting sedition acts.
The government already tells people how much they can donate. Limits are already in place on an individual level and we aren't currently revisiting the sedition acts, are we? Pretty sure I've heard Johnson say he's okay with limitless contributions so long as they are tagged with 100% transparency. What if I don't want people to know who I have donated to? Don't I have that right?
Again, the bottom line is that we give as much freedom as we possibly can while living in reality, and then we place limitations on things that are deemed to be more harmful to society as a whole than good.
Again, purchasing any legislation, whether literally or figuratively, is a government problem, not a free speech or free market problem.
Then we'll disagree. As there are two parties involved in the transaction, I think it's fair to say it's a problem on both ends. Whether you're buying or selling legislation with excessive contributions, you're still pissing on the foundation that a democracy was built on. You can assign blame solely to the government but if someone is operating with the understanding that their money will benefit them, then we're arguing the difference between implicit and explicit contributions. Explicit contributions (bribes) are not okay as far as I know, but implicit contributions are?
Would you be okay with bribes?
So wait a minute... You don't like that Johnson supports a bill "nobody has read." Does it bother you that Hillary or Trump don't support a bill "nobody has read?"
Depends on their reasoning. I have no clue as to the rationale that either has given because I don't give a fuck about either. They have both demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are not fit to be president, and I wouldn't trust either of them to actually honor any statement that they made.
As for politicians in general, if they don't support it because they don't have access to it then that's reasonable. If they don't support it based on some fucked up principle, that's not reasonable. Not any more reasonable than supporting it based on some fucked up principle without having ever seen it.
My guess is if Johnson admitted he hasn't seen the bill he didn't categorically state he supported it. My guess is that he said generally he's for any agreements that promote free trade. He's not one to shoot off on things he's not educated about, unlike the other two who will make any outlandish claim if they think it's what people want to hear.
There are some policies of his I don't like... But the two primary alternatives are so distasteful I stomach it. Plus, as he's stated many times... He's not running for King or Dictator. He's not realistically going to be able to do everything he would like to do. He has to go through Congress to do most of his work. And if things like TPP are not passed by Congress, he's not going to be able to implement it.
And he could have made such a distinctions. "I'm generally in favor of free trade, but I have not seen the bill so I can neither support nor oppose the bill". I get it. He's not Trump and he's not Hillary. I also just don't believe that the free market can solve all the problems the county faces because the fixed market we currently have is largely part of the problem, and I think his policies would just allow things to be more fixed.
ok