28th amendment to regulate and limit campaign spending.

[xanzul]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

Not a single mention of "money" anywhere.

Again; money is not speech.

Nobody is saying wealthy people can't speak out in support of their favorite candidate. They can go stand on their lawn and speak as much as anyone else does. That's "speech". Money and the use thereof isn't "speech". Otherwise, what you're essentially arguing is that wealthy people have more free speech than other people.

And yet as defined by United States law, corporations are considered legal entities. But then again I'm not terribly surprised at the amount of head in ass mentality from these forums. It was just a week or so ago when quite a few "patriots" were shrieking and carrying on because god forbid homosexuals could legally get married despite quite a few politicians who were trying to deny them their actual civil liberties.

Here is the thing: when you fight for rights and civil liberties sometimes people you dislike get the benefit. Deal with it.

[Spectral]

They present a far less corrupting affect than that of universal suffrage.

It seems much harder to me to buy the votes of individuals without angering other individuals in an offsetting fashion than it is to buy the Congressional vote of individual reps.

[Thage]

Ted Cruz is like, "everyday I'm upholdin', everyday I'm upholdin', everday I'm upholdin' upholdin' up upholdin'..."

This is bad, liberals should be outraged. Don't be as bad as republicans during Bush. Stand for something longer than 8 years.

Why should I be outraged? I'm in full support of limiting campaign donations because it will mean two things:
1) Political campaigns have to actually think about what they want to put out there. No more bazillion-dollar smear campaigns bankrolled by billionaires. Frankly, I stop giving a shit about what either party has to say a good week into the election campaigns because it's all the same old horseshit: the other guy is a freedom-hating, baby-kicking sociopath who wants to watch the nation burn. Big fucking deal, how about you have to actually get creative and convince me to vote for you for a change, rather than tell me why the other guy is such a monster.

2) It levels the contribution playing field. If you seriously think politicians in both parties aren't bought out by massive campaign donations, I've heard of a killer investment with the Nigerian royal family you may be interested in. If you think that will remain nearly as rampant once everyone is limited to a $100 donation, I've also heard about some oceanfront property in Iowa with your name on it.

But surprise surprise, the poster boy of fellating the 1% came out to speak against it and made hysteric, histrionic, hyperbolic comparisons to how it would kill political freedom or some other stupid bullshit.

[Stormdash]

Corporate personhood is necessary, insofar as corporations need to be able to engage in contracts and such.

They aren't people, though, and they lack a great many of the rights that people have. Corporations have no right to life, for instance. You can own a corporation, but you can't own a person. Etc.

And, again, money is not speech. If it were, you wouldn't be able to criminalize money laundering and the like, since that's all free speech, too, right?

Corporations are artificial persons; of and by their nature they are, though, an exercise of any number of individual rights enjoyed by natural persons, to pool their property and interests, and such. Citizens United stands quite correctly on the premise that those natural persons do not waive their free speech rights vis a vis the corporate form just because they've exercised their other rights in creating the thing.

To take it to its comical extreme, anti-Citizens United reactionaries would have you believe that Bob and Jane and Sally donating $500 each to the same cause is free speech, but that BobJaneSally, Inc. donating an aggregate $1200 (i.e. less) is corporate tyranny.

[obdigore]

According to United States law corporations are in fact considered legal entities under the law much like anyone else. Instead of fucking with actual liberties why not change what defines a corporation instead?

They are not actual citizens and they don't receive the same rights/protections that citizens do. For instance; you can own a corporation, you cannot own a citizen. It is murder to kill a citizen, it isn't such to dissolve a corporation.

[taliey]

They present a far less corrupting affect than that of universal suffrage. If you want to fix corruption, trying to do it with campaign donations would be like trying to solve the deficit by cutting the salaries of congressman. It would be a waste of time with no meaningful effect other than reducing the intensity of support for other measures that may actually have a meaningful effect on the problem in question.


You didn’t make this economic decision because it isn’t your money. It’s your vote. You are free to cast it however you wish, and the amount of money someone else contributes to some guy only affects your vote as much as you let it. It also only affects the votes of others as much as they let it. If it does affect their vote, then they have chosen to let it do so as they choose to let any number of other things of trivial impact affect their vote. That most certainly is a personal decision on the part of those who actually make the decisions that affect all of us that you refer to (those who vote).


One thing that people seem to mistake about the First Amendment when they wish to use it to support things such as this amendment is that the First Amendment guarantees free speech. It in no way, shape, or form guarantees that everyone’s speech will have equal impact. Nothing about the First Amendment implies (much less states) that someone’s speech should be curtailed simply because he has the power to speak louder than someone else.

I wonder why people are more alarmed with government exercising powers, than corporations exerting influence.

Is there something intrinsic that consequences from government actions are much worse than consequences from corporate actions?

I'm just wondering about the disconnect of entities being able to exert a large degree of influence, where one entity is received with paranoia, the other entity, with calls that it be given more leeway, and shouldn't be confronted at any point in time, in the case of a major transgression.

[obdigore]

And yet as defined by United States law, corporations are considered legal entities.

That doesn't mean they hold the same rights as citizens, nor should they. Stop being wrong. Here is a quick refresher for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

Corporate personhood is the legal concept that a corporation may be recognized as an individual in the eyes of the law. This doctrine forms the basis for legal recognition that corporations, as groups of people, may hold and exercise certain rights under the common law and the U.S. Constitution. For example, corporations may contract with other parties and sue or be sued in court in the same way as natural persons or unincorporated associations of persons. The doctrine does not hold that corporations are flesh and blood "people" apart from their shareholders, officers, and directors, nor does it grant to corporations all of the rights of citizens.

[Stormdash]

We should also make sure that the FEC monitors and regulates the amount of time volunteering individuals do -- it's unfair that some people have more disposable time for political activities after all, either because they are independently wealthy, or financial dependents with no obligations on their time.

Pretty much the exact same reasoning; it's unjust that some people are better positioned to leverage the political class than others! We must smack everyone back into line! More control will fix!

[Endus]

And yet as defined by United States law, corporations are considered legal entities.

Corporations are artificial persons; of and by their nature they are, though, an exercise of any number of individual rights enjoyed by natural persons, to pool their property and interests, and such.

To repeat myself; corporate personhood is a legal fiction that exists as a necessary tool through which corporations can engage in contract law and the like.

There is no suggestion that they are "people", in any greater sense. They do not have a right to life; you can close a corporation you own at pretty much any time. They are essentially slaves; they are owned and operated for the benefit of their shareholders; they have no right to liberty. Etc. Plenty of absolutely fundamental rights that actual people have, and corporations, rather obviously, do not.

I'm not saying corporations shouldn't have any rights. But their rights should only exist in ways that are necessary for the conduct of their business. And they don't automatically have whatever rights real people have.

Because they aren't actually people.

[Garnier Fructis]

You didn’t make this economic decision because it isn’t your money. It’s your vote. You are free to cast it however you wish, and the amount of money someone else contributes to some guy only affects your vote as much as you let it. It also only affects the votes of others as much as they let it. If it does affect their vote, then they have chosen to let it do so as they choose to let any number of other things of trivial impact affect their vote. That most certainly is a personal decision on the part of those who actually make the decisions that affect all of us that you refer to (those who vote).

I would agree with this if it wasn't for the simple fact that people are, in general, retarded and cast their votes based on how many ads they see on TV and receive in the mail.

It pisses me off to no end in California when we have a poison pill on the ballot and everyone sticks their heads up their anuses and votes for it because the mail flyers told them "this proposition will do X." If they had read the actual text of the proposition (which is usually like, 2-3 pages long) they would find that the bill does the exact opposite of what the flyers said.

It happens every ballot cycle here. Money buys the ad spam buys the votes.

[taliey]

We should also make sure that the FEC monitors and regulates the amount of time volunteering individuals do -- it's unfair that some people have more disposable time for political activities after all, either because they are independently wealthy, or financial dependents with no obligations on their time.

Pretty much the exact same reasoning; it's unjust that some people are better positioned to leverage the political class than others! We must smack everyone back into line! More control will fix!

I think that spending money to influence others, has a much more tangible effect than someone volunteering their time.

An exchange if you will - a commercial transaction.

The difference between paying, and not paying (volunteering) in terms of influencing others, is that paying creates a mindset that you have to reciprocate, whereas volunteering, no such obligation arises.

That's how I think of it.

[xanzul]

1 - he's right and you're wrong. Corporations are not and should not be considered people... he's not saying they're not considered that by law now... he's saying the current law saying they are people is wrong - one most people are agreeing with.

2 - he's a mod on a World of Warcraft site. Honestly having a working love of world of warcraft and knowing how to uphold forum rules is all you need to know.

3 - read his other posts sometimes... I've seen college professors who pale in comparison. :P

I like how you insult me in order to be "right".

Look, the issue here is because of various freedoms in this country some people actually do have the ability to say and do things even when we don't like it. That is pretty much the entire point. At this point I'm pretty much over people squealing about freedom without even understanding the full implications of what that word means.

[Sunseeker]

Money is not speech. The end.

[taliey]

I like how you insult me in order to be "right".

Look, the issue here is because of various freedoms in this country some people actually do have the ability to say and do things even when we don't like it. That is pretty much the entire point. At this point I'm pretty much over people squealing about freedom without even understanding the full implications of what that word means.

Name dropping freedom is such a buzzword and a overall running joke in America.

[Canpinter]

And yet as defined by United States law, corporations are considered legal entities. But then again I'm not terribly surprised at the amount of head in ass mentality from these forums. It was just a week or so ago when quite a few "patriots" were shrieking and carrying on because god forbid homosexuals could legally get married despite quite a few politicians who were trying to deny them their actual civil liberties.

Here is the thing: when you fight for rights and civil liberties sometimes people you dislike get the benefit. Deal with it.

legal entities are not the same thing as people. Walmart cant run for president, I as a person can. why is it so hard to understand that different things get treated differently.

[dehotz]

The SCOTUS decision on the matter is disgusting. Not just wrong, but outright disgusting. I strongly encourage everyone to read it. Roberts essentially states that not only does Congress not have any power to regulate such, but that they shouldn't even think about it. He goes on to indicate that the only form of corruption that's relevant is if there's an explicit description of what's to be done in exchange for the money. Our Supreme Court Justices are scum.

This, and it's really the most ridiculous part of the decision. Dan Carlin has done a nice synopsis of the effects of the decision on his Common Sense podcast if you can't be bothered to read the actual decision.

http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/c...money-politics

[Wells]

They present a far less corrupting affect than that of universal suffrage.

How is everyone having the right to vote a corrupting influence on voting?

If you want to fix corruption, trying to do it with campaign donations would be like trying to solve the deficit by cutting the salaries of congressman. It would be a waste of time with no meaningful effect other than reducing the intensity of support for other measures that may actually have a meaningful effect on the problem in question.

What do you think fuels corruption?

[Spectral]

This, and it's really the most ridiculous part of the decision. Dan Carlin has done a nice synopsis of the effects of the decision on his Common Sense podcast if you can't be bothered to read the actual decision.

On that note, everyone would benefit from listening to Dan Carlin. Always. Even if you don't agree with him, you'll still get a great perspective and a very entertaining show.

[dehotz]

On that note, everyone would benefit from listening to Dan Carlin. Always. Even if you don't agree with him, you'll still get a great perspective and a very entertaining show.

I cannot echo this statement enough. Both his podcasts, Common Sense and Hardcore History, well worth the look.

[Sunseeker]

This is a needless violation of economic liberty.

You have NO RIGHT to buy politicians.