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22 states, including Kentucky, join campaign finance fight

jamesrage said:
Things like faxes, emails, letters, signs, bumper stickers, phone calls, and many other things used for political advertising are speech.
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No, they are mediums of speech.

Money pays for those things. Therefore you have a right to use money to pay for those things.
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That may be so, but should you have the right to stuff the campaign coffers of the POTUS and half the members of Congress to the point where they are beholden to you long before they are beholden to Americans of considerably less financial largesse?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
When you have no tax liability then all gov't spending, especially on you, your friends and your familiy are wonderful ideas. If representation were tied to taxation, then we would see a very different attitude about gov't spending. Corporations find themselves in a pickle there, lots of taxes yet no vote at all. A citizen that gets their entire "income" from gov't programs is apt to vote far differently than one that pays 20% (or more) of their private income to the gov't in taxes. It is charity when I choose to help support my neighbor in need, it is tyranny when the gov't forces me to help support your neighbor in need.
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And what do you call it when you are forced to support your neighbor in need at the very same time that you are forced to watch your job being outsourced to India, at the very same time that you are forced to bail out unconscionable Wall Street pirates after they sink the economy through their insatiable avarice, at the very same time that you and your son consign your futures to a mountain of debt in order that he obtain a paper endowing him with some chance of making it in the world, at the very same time as you watch the value of your home sink below what you paid for it, at the very same time that you recognize that you are living in a one-party oligarchy masquerading as a two-party republic, at the very same time that you recognize that half of those Americans of your same socioeconomic strata will surely don the yoke of tyranny while foolishly proclaiming themselves "free" because they haven't the sense that God gave a goat?
 
An op-ed in the NYTimes by the governor of Montana provides the reasoning behind the fight against the Citizens United decision.

Mining for Influence in Montana

Montana’s approach to campaign law began when a miner named William A. Clark came upon a massive copper vein near Butte. It was the largest deposit on earth, and overnight he became one of the wealthiest men in the world. He bought up half the state of Montana, and if he needed favors from politicians, he bought those as well.

In 1899 he decided he wanted to become a United States senator. The State Legislature appointed United States senators in those days, so Clark simply gave each corruptible state legislator $10,000 in cash, the equivalent of $250,000 today.

Clark “won” the “election,” but when the Senate learned about the bribes, it kicked him out. “I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale,” Clark complained as he headed back to Montana.
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Retired Supreme Court Justice Paul Stephens has also recently spoken out concerning the Citizens United decision
Former Supreme Court Justice Stevens says second thoughts likely in Citizens United

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Wednesday night he expects that the court has already had second thoughts about parts of its controversial Citizens United ruling that eased restrictions on corporate spending in political campaigns.

The sharply divided court ruled that independent spending by corporations does "not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Stevens, who dissented from that 2010 decision, said that at some point the court will have to issue an opinion "explicitly crafting an exception that will create a crack in the foundation" of that ruling.
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He also pointed to televised debates when moderators try to allow candidates equal time to express their views. He said candidates and viewers wouldn't like it if there were an auction giving the most time to the highest bidder.

"Yet that is essentially what happens during actual campaigns in which rules equalizing campaign expenditures are forbidden," he said.
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Grizzly Adams said:
Free speech is not fascism.
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You are correct. The error in your post, however, is that speech is no longer free. Its open only to those that bid the highest. Since political power and speech has become concentrated with those with the most wealth (the 1%), we now have fascism.
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
The 1st amendment to our constitution. Media exposure costs money, travel costs money and producing ads, banners and signs costs money. If you are only free to speak on your porch or on a free blog then you are not really going to "get that word out" very effectively. If you are limitted in giving to a challenger, yet the incumbent is free to travel, speak and get 'news' exposure (all on the public dime) then you need some serious financial help just to have a fighting chance to compete with that, much less the additional 'private' campaign funds that the incumbent can raise too.
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Why do you assume that a public campaign finance system would not have mechanisms to equally fund the campaigns of challengers?
 
What if...? said:
The free speech being discussed here is actually quite expensive.

Far more than the average individual can afford.
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Equivocation fallacy. Do you also believe that, since a feather is light, it cannot be dark?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Mass media advertising is NOT free and never has been. While what you say is free, getting it said is not. ;-)
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You can stand on a street corner and speak freely all you like. You just won't reach as wide an audience. The size of your audience does not qualify the speach.
 
Grizzly Adams said:
Equivocation fallacy. Do you also believe that, since a feather is light, it cannot be dark?
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A bad analogy in this instance


No one is saying Americans can no longer speak their opinions in public, what is being said concerns the reality of the way in which money allows one person's opinions to be heard by a vastly larger audience than the street corner preacher's.

As the history behind Montana's laws regarding corporate expenditures show, the vastly larger sums of money available to corporations has allowed them in the past to control governments.

Does a libertarian really want that to happen in the US? What if it were groups - unions, ACLU, Soros-funded - with goals you disagree with? Do you want us "wacko lefties" owning the politicians? Do you honestly think corporate-controlled government would be better for you and your ideals?
 
Somerville said:
A bad analogy in this instance


No one is saying Americans can no longer speak their opinions in public, what is being said concerns the reality of the way in which money allows one person's opinions to be heard by a vastly larger audience than the street corner preacher's.

As the history behind Montana's laws regarding corporate expenditures show, the vastly larger sums of money available to corporations has allowed them in the past to control governments.

Does a libertarian really want that to happen in the US? What if it were groups - unions, ACLU, Soros-funded - with goals you disagree with? Do you want us "wacko lefties" owning the politicians? Do you honestly think corporate-controlled government would be better for you and your ideals?
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Freedom of Speech does not mean equivalency in audience.
 
Somerville said:
Not not much of a reply - are you sure you are a libertarian?

double "Not" to emphasise my feelings
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Not much of a reply was required. Not sure what that has to do with Libertarians, or why you think I think I am.

Single "Not"'s to emphasize my lack of feelings.
 
Somerville said:
A bad analogy in this instance


No one is saying Americans can no longer speak their opinions in public, what is being said concerns the reality of the way in which money allows one person's opinions to be heard by a vastly larger audience than the street corner preacher's.
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Which means the claim that free speech isn't free because you have to pay for it is a fallacy of equivocation.

In other words, a perfect analogy.

Does a libertarian really want that to happen in the US? What if it were groups - unions, ACLU, Soros-funded - with goals you disagree with? Do you want us "wacko lefties" owning the politicians? Do you honestly think corporate-controlled government would be better for you and your ideals?
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No. Which is why I favor reducing the influence of corporate money in politics by reducing the power of the governments the corporations are trying to influence. If the government no longer has the power to subsidize or drive out of business a corporation, the corporation no longer has incentive to ensure a legislator isn't pissed at them.
 
Grizzly Adams said:
Which means the claim that free speech isn't free because you have to pay for it is a fallacy of equivocation.

In other words, a perfect analogy.


No. Which is why I favor reducing the influence of corporate money in politics by reducing the power of the governments the corporations are trying to influence. If the government no longer has the power to subsidize or drive out of business a corporation, the corporation no longer has incentive to ensure a legislator isn't pissed at them.
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This is absolutely the dumbest excuse for reducing government size I have ever read.
 
jamesrage said:
Corporations are an assembly of people,something the 1st amendment says you have a right to do. The right of the people peaceably to assemble is a constitutional right.



They apply to both because individuals make up groups and individuals can make up groups. Your rights do not disappear just because you form a group nor do they disappear just because you choose not to be part of a group.



Those people in that corporation can vote in their designated polling places.



No were not. You choose to ignore facts.When you ignore facts of course you can say "wait a minute this **** doesn't make sense". The fact is corporations are a peaceful assembly of people. As a peaceful assembly of people they can pool their money together to buy ads, make campaign contributions and so on just like any other group of people can.
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But to me it seems they are granting powers that are greater then the sum of its parts. You and I have 2 voices however if you and I form a corporation/organisation then we have you, I, and our corporation/organisation voice. I have worked for a few corporations and never once did they ever ask for my opinion or my input when making decisions on political matters. That was reserved for a few at the top that "spoke" for all of us and portrayed a representation that simply was not there in order to gain more political muscle.
 
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