I for one agree with you on your point about granting corporations the rights of citizens... this is a serious subject and how we as a nation address it will shape our lives in the coming century.
I don't, however, see how that applies to this web site. No one is forcing your or I to come to this web site. The operator is providing a service, and it sounds like it has been at considerable expense to himself over the years. He finally decided to try and make it pay for itself. But, even now he is not forcing you to look at the ads... he has provided a way for you contribute a small sum and avoid the ads all together. I haven't been that active in this site, but maybe if more of us would have contributed to it's operation before the ad's came along, he wouldn't have had to resort to such a measure. If anything, we should blame ourselves for taking from the community but not giving back.
Originally Posted by randya
I'm not gone, I'm just disgusted at how easily most members of our society (and this web page) passively accept the constant barrage of tens / hundreds / thousands of advertisements that they are subjected to on a daily basis. I don't care how 'benign' or 'well designed' the ads themselves are. I don't think the founding fathers had 'the freedom to constantly barrage the populace with stupid inane ads they really aren't interested in' in mind when the authored the constitution and later the bill of rights, nor do I think the founding fathers would have been very amused by the granting of the rights of citizens to corporations, nor by the granting of first amendment protections to corporations for the right to falsely advertise most any stupid product they so desire, first and foremost (but certainly not alone) the almighty motor vehicle...