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Supreme Court Allows Corporations to Buy Politicians
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Yes, yes, but you get my point. Letting faceless collectives do what they want when they want only seems to be a formula for disaster. Hiding behind the veil of "Well, it would happen anyways" is the sort of bullshit that gets us here in the first place. At least, this is my opinion.
"Clean up" in this case is ending things like having a middle man for absolutely no reason in the student loan industry other than to skim billions of dollars. Why does this continue? Because Senators don't want to piss off banks.
The problem is the corporation is a public, (potentially) multinational entity and not covered in the same way as private citizens in the Constitution. Honestly, we need amendments to cover this shit because back when the Founding Fathers came up with this idea, I doubt they would have ever imagined extra-governmental constructs as powerful as the modern corporation. Someone needs to sort out what they can/cannot do, and just saying, "Well, the Constitution says this and we do not know so fuck it" and leaving it at that is counter-intuitive to the entire process of government.
I am not saying that I believe limiting corporations' ability to publicly back candidates will change the entire political schema, I just believe that we need precedents set to curb their ability to influence governmental affairs. Eliminating restrictions on them and further muddying the role of the corporate entity in politics/government is just sort of... stupid?
EDIT: I agree with enlightenedbum's point on banks and the loan industry, as well. It is pointless to even have a government if it is too afraid to stand up to a company/venture that they allow to exist in the first place.
So when the banks say "Give us what we want, or we shoot this kitten*" which is basically their current attitude, you say cave?
*shooting this kitten here means "Destroy the global economy"
And like I said, granting the government authority to decide which political ads do and don't get to air will only increase the incentive for corruption and corporate influence over government.
You are sorely misinformed as to who said what. In many cases it was the government telling banks "I don't care if you think you need it or not, you'll take this money or else we'll nationalize you," but that is a different topic. Hypothetically, banks threatening to destroy the world economy if they don't get lots of money from government? I don't see what that has to do with the discussion.
As to why it's relevant that banks own the damn Senate: this ruling exacerbates that situation.
You don't see how, say, Goldman being able to directly run ads for for example, Richard Shelby (I'd say Dodd, but he's retiring) after he worked diligently to kill financial reform legislation might create the impression that he's owned by the banks and perhaps this is not a good thing for democracy?
Corruption is a serious problem in Congress, and this only makes it worse, or slightly better case: look worse. Either way, it corrodes belief in people's faith in our institutions even more.
Read what? What refutes that corporations are not private citizens and thus not covered by all rules of the Constitution?
That is why we amend the Constitution and put down precedent that makes the entire process more transparent and clears up the ambiguity of the corporation's role in politics. Instead of saying "hurf durf this is a unconstitutional and it would happen anyways hurf durf" and then allowing the practice to go on anyways, fucking DO SOMETHING about it. You seem to be the sort that would lie down and take it as long as life appears to running as normal.
Multinational and foriegn corperations under current law are still prohibted to participate in any way with federal, state, or local elections in the United States, that law was not struck down.
In addition most companies on their face don't want to be directly involved in politics unless they have to as a matter of survival (IE they are being attacked politically by a political party). Supporting a republican or democrat canidate can alianate part of their customer base - doing it out in the open so everyone knows your doing it is probably not the best course of action for the majority of companies. Also this puts them on even footing with interest groups like the AARP, Unions, 527's legally when they want to take action.
-enlightenedbum exactly whats wrong with that ad out in the open for the public to see. Unless your insinuating that ad is apart of a back-room deal or kickback from supporters of Murtha. Regardless if Murtha was corrupt or not, there is nothing wrong with that ad - which is more of an obituary.
I think a key in changing that is public financing of elections, so this decision is disheartening, even though functionally I don't think it changes that. Because it raises the bar to get to public financing to quite possibly requiring a constitutional amendment (or letting the conservative majority die).
Who gives a shit? It's not like banks are all of a sudden going to say "oh, we don't want to manage money anymore, since we can't do it with the wet, sloppy blowjobs from the government." Fuck them. If they don't want to do it, someone else will step in from the free market and take care of it.
But see, we need their expertise! And if we threaten them, they'll all move to Galt's Gulch. Or whatever.
They're a bunch of assholes.
All regulation pisses off banks. Regulations help us, the little guys. Regulations that should have been in place to prevent banks and credit rating agencies from fucking us all over. So if you adhere to the maxim of not pissing off banks then you must also feel that us little people deserve a good ass raping every 5 to 7 years.
The Consitution is about the federal government and what it is and isn't allowed to do. There's not much of a hard line anywhere that says "this only applies to things involving individual private citizens who are not operating with any association to any group or other entity whatsoever." This is particularly true considering how much the First Amendment references things that aren't an individual, like "press," "assembly," "speech," and "religion," and what the government can't do regarding those things, and how little it mentions individuals and what their personal rights are.
Both of those sentences are naive, immature and incorrect.
Yeah, this is a different topic, not here.
I bet banks hate paying taxes, following laws, stopping for stop signs, and cleaning up after their own dog poop.
So let's outlaw taxes, laws, stop signs, and pooper scoopers.
Are you fucking serious? I want my government to be full of people that aren't afraid of fucking anyone. You can't govern if you're afraid of interest groups.
i don't think anyone did, they just gave up because its really hard to argue with a guy who refuses to even admit your main point exists
The first sentence is absolutely true.
72% is the lowest level since the crash! 72%!
The second is more a cynical assumption based on how obvious the banks (in particular) are being about how they think they own the Democratic Party and now that Obama is saying mean things about them maybe the Republicans will get their money in the future, so the Dems better watch out. And the Republicans are eagerly wooing them.
I used it as an example of how things fail miserably when corporate influences become too great (you know, Kennedy's argument in dissent).
Mayor Quimby's characterization is what it is for a reason, you know?
WRONG on every level. You couldn't be further from the truth.
Corporations exist only because the government allows them to. The definition of a corporation necessitates the existence of government. If there is no government, there is no legal liability. If there is no liability, there is no purpose to limiting liability. And in order to start a corporation, government approval is necessary, and the government can dissolve corporations.
Additionally, the US government does not derive any of its legitimacy from corporations or any of its power on a philosophical basis from corporations. The concept didn't even exist as it does today during the Founding. The concept that in some way conglomerations of property provide some basis for a body politic is ludicrous on its face.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Why?
You know what really pissed off Canadian banks? When our government bent them over a table and rammed regulation up their asses while they squeled like little pig bitches.
Guess who walked out of the financial crisis with the most secure banks in the world?
Yeah, I don't give a shit if the banks are pissed off. They'll get over it.
i understand where you are coming from but i just disagree. i dont need you to show me the benefits of free speech. i am convinced of its value. i am not as convinced as you 1) that financial support should be equated to actual speech, or 2) that corporations should be allowed to spend on behalf of politicians. we can couch it in terms of "free speech" if you like, but the truth is we're really just talking about money.
no one is debating whether or not execs can privately make a statement endorsing certain politicians - what we're talking about is whether or not that an exec can take the company's money to support a politician. this is a big difference and im sure you can appreciate why i and everyone else cares much more about this than about bill gates spending 5 million of his own dollars to support some politician.
on a side note, i also find it interesting that you believe me to be a principled moralist (perhaps you believe so because i am not a utilitarian?). not only am i a moral relavitist, but i also believe that morals simply dont apply to many situations (most recent example and discussion would be one of committing acts of torture against someone who harmed your child or family - i have no qualms about using torture in such a situation and believe such action is outside the moral sphere, amoral if you will). whatever the case, this is a totally different discussion. all i can say is i have always been more interested in the practicalities of morality as opposed to principles or absolutes.
a good point and one i need to consider further.
i dont see this as a slippery slope because i dont believe denying corporations the ability to make political commentary is something that will lead to denying corporations the ability to make any kind of speech. i simply dont believe this is the danger that we should be focused on. as ive stated before, i dont think the speech of corporations is in danger of being stifled - in fact, i believe we are in quite the opposite scenario.
again, my issue with this decision is not that it's the wrong decision per se, but rather that it's the wrong decision in the context of our society. perhaps that's where we are missing each other. the progression of technology that has allowed more voices to be heard is something i like and fully support. i feel this decision (for all it's alleged protection of free speech) goes against that.
perhaps the difficulty we are experiencing is that my point is only valid if the empirical assumption that it's based on comes true (i.e., that this decision will allow big biz and big labor to drown out the little guys). if that assumption never comes true, then all my fears and distaste dissolve.
however, if the future shows this decision to be one of the factors that has led to further consolidation of power and influence by the super rich, then im not sure how anyone could ever support it (regardless of what "free speech" requires).
Yeah, I guess. It isn't the money I'm focusing on, though. I'm focusing on speech. What you're advocating is when you don't like what someone said, you can audit them until you find a funding irregularity. So much for money not equal to speech. A local Wendy's manager lets Cindy Sheehan eat for free during a demonstration, and boom, now the government can swoop in and shut down her entire movement at the barrel of a gun. Extreme example, sure, but not so different from what happened here.
I guess it was someone else who argued so vehemently that morality was about principals like honor and courage and not about practical happiness.
I think you misunderstood. All I'm saying is that if you fear too much corporate speech or too much corporate involvement in politics, giving the government more control over speech only increases the incentive for a corporation to get involved and influence politics and control what speech gets allowed and what doesn't.
McCain-Feingold has only been around since 2002, and SCOTUS has almost always ruled in favor of free speech in these matters. You act like we've rewritten the Constitution here.
1. No they could not. There is no law on the books that does anything like that and no proposed law to that effect.
2. This is why we have courts, to adjudicate what is and isn't reasonable.
Yes, and the Court focused heavily on this line of reasoning in their decision, as they often do. The problem is that if you just say "let the courts sort it out in each case" then you have de facto silenced speech. The right to air a political ad becomes a gauntlet of lawyers, filings, audits, and so on, and most certainly only the richest corporations will win. If I create a video critical of a politician and put it on YouTube, an opposing viewpoint with expensive lawyers could sue me and YouTube into a maelstrom, citing YouTube's expenditure of resources to provide me a free platform to reach viewers as "corporate campaigning." Maybe the judge would rule against it - but just like in this case, that ruling would come after the video had been removed and the election long over. And furthermore, that ruling, while addressing the case I just made up, would only likely open up whole new grounds and technicalities and specificities upon which the next lawsuit would be waged. Would we ever get to the point where every possible issue had been settled and the very best perfect concept of "approved" free speech was in place, or would political advertising just become a neverending lawyer-war, constantly feeding itself with new rulings that only pave the way for future lawsuits against anyone sought to be silenced by a high-priced lawyer? Your proposed system of requiring courts to rule on each and every political message is precisely the kind of system the First Amendment is trying to prevent. Which is why this ruling had to be broad. A narrow ruling would not ahve addressed the free speech issue before the Court.
None of these things are happening now. No such laws exist that allow what you claim or did exist at the time of the decision. It doesn't matter if the corporate funding was "negligible". Not only was that argument (that the fact that it was negligible mattered) rejected by the court, that is no an argument to state that these things are happening or that any law on the books would let these things happen.
There is also no glut of political advertising being stopped by this nor is there any evidence of litigation relating to this except this singular case which was created partially to specifically challenge this law!
I mean shit, if we just get to fucking make up evidence to suit our argument like SCOTUS has just done then i might as well say that SCOTUS was paid money directly by interested corporations to make this decision, that Citizens United was entirely funded by corporations, and that corporations are now legally paying bribes directly to congress people's bank accounts as a result of this decision.
This case is itself a perfect example, how can you possibly say "none of these things are happening" when this very case is exactly it happening. CU was not sued because of any concern over corporate money in politics... there was very little corporate money here and it was overwhelmingly funded by individuals. The law was being wielded as a tool to for one side silence political opposition. That much ought to be plainly obvious. And the law as written allows it and all manner of things to be silenced over political disputes. Did you read in the decision where it lays out everything a PAC must do to be "legal"? It is a bureaucratic maze, and each turn is a target for lawyers who want to scare someone into shutting up with the government at their back.
It's kind of a non sequitor that you bring up "inventing evidence," I have no idea where that came from and it's amusing that you think SCOTUS "invented evidence" and that's how they got to this ruling.
"CU was not sued because of any concern over corporate money in politics... there was very little corporate money here and it was overwhelmingly funded by individuals. The law was being wielded as a tool to for one side silence political opposition. That much ought to be plainly obvious. And the law as written allows it and all manner of things to be silenced over political disputes. Did you read in the decision where it lays out everything a PAC must do to be "legal"?"
No, that is exactly what it was about.
Or are you saying that the Republican Administration wanted didn't want Hilary Clinton as the opponent? You're saying that the republican administration silenced politically friendly speech because they just thought it would be fun? Seriously? Hilary was the easiest target they had by a mile.
The laws that are "preventing PAC's from speech" must be really fucking easy in the case of evidence. I don't care how many hoops SCOTUS claims they have to jump through, the amount of money they spend is massive!
im fine with this, but im not fine with the below portion.
or, maybe people can just follow the rules. i have a feeling that youre saying that just because the rules may be hard to follow means that we shouldnt have any rules. or that because it's possible to abuse the rules, we shouldnt have any rules.
i dont see how you can consider this a valid stance.
possibly. or you may be remembering wrong.
we were discussing what we believed to be axiomatically good. to summarize in a few sentences (and do injustice to both of us), you said you believed happiness was the only axiomatic good whereas i said that i didnt think happiness was the only axiomatic good. examples of other axiomatic goods were things like justice and fairness (and in fact, i valued those higher than happiness). in short, i would prefer a fair world over a happy world.
none of which has anything to do with principled absolutism as far as im concerned. but perhaps this is a discussion for another thread.
although i can see where you are coming from, i disagree. i think there is already enough incentive for corporations to get involved. i do see your more important point though: the devil is in the details. regardless of what happens here, it will depend on how things are enforced.
im not so melodramatic, am i? ive stated various times that it is likely that not that much changes. still doesnt mean this isnt a step in the wrong direction.
whatever the case, i have a feeling you and i may be done here.
CU was not sued at all. CU was barred from distributing its film because of a concern over corporate money in politics. CU then sued to distribute the film. CU was the plaintiff in this case, the FEC was the defendant.
My understanding of the structure of funding for the film was that it was 100% corporate money. The corporation funded the film, and individuals funded the corporation. Given that all corporations are ultimately funded by individuals, that seems like a pretty important distinction to me.
No one side was silencing the other. Campaign finance reform was a bipartisan effort and corporations supporting both sides of every issue were subject to the restrictions of McCain-Feingold. No one in this case alleged that the law was being used to silence one side or another of a particular debate. Rather, the key distinction was the source of the funding for the speech.
And yet the court said that Congress can enact pretty much whatever reasonable disclosure requirements it likes. That seems like a problem for your argument.
It's very clear that Justice Kennedy makes at least one crucial factual assertion in the opinion, namely that corporate speech is no threat to democracy. Congress, at least, seems to disagree, as does public opinion, as did the District Court, as did the President who signed the law. Normally appellate courts aren't supposed to make these kinds of factual findings, but the rules pretty much got thrown out the window on this case.
Are you claiming that the district court of DC barred CU from distributing its film? Because that would be retarded. It was the FEC. A little about the FEC. No more than 3 of the commissioners can be of the same party and at the time of CU all of them had been appointed by W.