Justices Reject Campaign Finance Limits

[RetiredGySgt]

The issue is that now corporations can fund campaigns.

Your post is a strawman.

Your post is irrelevant.

Campaigns get funded. And elected politicians still tend do whatever the hell they believe is most likely to help

them.

Sometimes this leads to bad things like corruption. Denying free speech to corporations has not prevented that.

Giving free speech to corporations will not end it or make it noticeably worse.

OMG people. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.

Before the Supreme Court made this ruling, corporations could not give unlimited funding to a political campaign.

Now corporations can give unlimited funding to a campaign.

Don't you see what this means? Can you imagine that corporations would fund a politician that will vote for the rights of the people or that they will care about the constitution?

They will fund politicians that will vote for corporations interests, not our interests.

Once again Corporations can not FUND anyone. They can not give money to any INDIVIDUAL Candidate.

 

[Queen]

What I love is all this garbage about how they are gonna give money to candidates. They can NOT do that. This decision did not change that fact. Corporations STILL can not donate money to an individual candidate.

The issue is that now corporations can fund campaigns.

Your post is a strawman.

Get your facts straight and use proper English when discussing them. Corporations can NOT give money to Individual Candidates. Claiming they can is a LIE.

Claiming that I said that is a lie.

Stop lying about what I said.

We are talking about corporations funding campaigns. Your dishonest post about giving money to individual candidates is a strawman argument.

Proper English is being used.

I won't argue your strawman. You cannot make me, as hard as you might try. Argue honestly and without strawman arguments. And don't tell lies about what others say.

 

[Queen]

Your post is irrelevant.

Campaigns get funded. And elected politicians still tend do whatever the hell they believe is most likely to help

them.

Sometimes this leads to bad things like corruption. Denying free speech to corporations has not prevented that.

Giving free speech to corporations will not end it or make it noticeably worse.

OMG people. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.

Before the Supreme Court made this ruling, corporations could not give unlimited funding to a political campaign.

Now corporations can give unlimited funding to a campaign.

Don't you see what this means? Can you imagine that corporations would fund a politician that will vote for the rights of the people or that they will care about the constitution?

They will fund politicians that will vote for corporations interests, not our interests.

Once again Corporations can not FUND anyone. They can not give money to any INDIVIDUAL Candidate.

You can keep repeating this strawman argument.

The fact is, corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money funding politicians campaigns.

What's the point of your strawman argument?

 

[Avatar4321]

Just read Justice Thomas' dissent. He has quite a powerful argument why the disclosure laws should be overturned too. Ill have to think about that as well.

 

[Avatar4321]

You can keep repeating this strawman argument.

The fact is, corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money funding politicians campaigns.

What's the point of your strawman argument?

Could to tell me which Corporation has unlimited amounts of money? Id like to do some work for them.

 

[Queen]

The issue is that now corporations can fund campaigns.

Your post is a strawman.

Get your facts straight and use proper English when discussing them. Corporations can NOT give money to Individual Candidates. Claiming they can is a LIE.

True. But a person using a corporation, or a group of individuals in any other association, now, can combine their efforts, their energy, their speech (and their assets to disseminate their speech). And a DVD like the "Hillary" one at issue in the case the SCTOUS just decided -- pure political speech -- CAN be made and diostributed and heard and seen by anybody interested in doing so. And the FEC cannot, now, threaten to arrest, prosecute, imprison and bankrupt such individuals, associations or corporations (which ARE just associations of people) for having the temerity, in the United States of America, to engage in POLITICAL speech!

Right, so any corporation with enough money to buy or ruin a candidate can make any kind of propaganda and put it on the air and there is no limit on how much they can spend.

Billions will spent and the richest of all will get their candidate elected and that politician will vote to help that corporation make even more billions and all the money that was distributed to the top 5% during the Bush admin will seem like a mere bag of shells.

ALL the money will be distributed to the top and the middle class will disappear altogether.

Without the middle class, there is no democracy. Without the middle class we are a third world country. Without manufacturing we are a third world country.

 

[Queen]

You can keep repeating this strawman argument.

The fact is, corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money funding politicians campaigns.

What's the point of your strawman argument?

Could to tell me which Corporation has unlimited amounts of money? Id like to do some work for them.

Another strawman.

No one says they have unlimited amounts of money. They have billions of dollars and they can spend any amount of it on a campaign.

Do you guys want to have an honest debate or are you going to keep throwing strawmen at this?

 

[uptownlivin90]

Personally if it were my world people wouldn't be allowed to vote unless they read ALL the candidates in the race's websites and watched all the debates... and can show documentation that they did. But Hell whatever. I think these "get out the vote ads" are the most dangerous ads on TV. I'd rather have 5 people with sense enough in their heads to actually read what the candidates are about vote, then millions who are just voting because P Diddy was in a commercial.

That being said... again. If they want to say things, let them say things. THAT'S THEIR RIGHT. If you want to believe what they say... believe it. If you don't, don't. THAT'S YOUR RIGHT. Now if your too f-ing lazy to get off your ass and investigate shit before you vote that's not they're fault... and the whole "I don't have time" bullcrap doesn't fly, because if you don't have time to vote wisely you shouldn't vote.

Stop voting because it's your "American duty", it's not. Your American duty is to not infringe on anybody else's rights.

Another up side to this is everyone now still has their good ol' enemies to rely on to cover up their own shortcommings. The Libs got the evil Walmarts of the world and the cons got moveon and the unions. We should all be happy... for once.

 

[Avatar4321]

You can keep repeating this strawman argument.

The fact is, corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money funding politicians campaigns.

What's the point of your strawman argument?

Could to tell me which Corporation has unlimited amounts of money? Id like to do some work for them.

Another strawman.

No one says they have unlimited amounts of money. They have billions of dollars and they can spend any amount of it on a campaign.

Do you guys want to have an honest debate or are you going to keep throwing strawmen at this?

Hard to spend unlimited amounts of money you don't have.

I stopped trying to have an honest debate with you when you demonstrated that you arent reading a darn thing we've said.

 

[Borat]

5 out of 9 Justices determined that the First Amendment actually means what it says.

4 out of the 9 expressed deep concern that free speech has implications. And they are right. It does.

There are appropriate ways to deal with the concerns expressed by the dissenters. Stifling free speech is not one of them.

Bravo for the integrity shown by this slim majority!

You're a fucking idiot.

We don't have any free speech in this country you moron.

All they did is legalize bribery.

 

[Borat]

I cant believe people are happy with corporations having more influence on an election than any voters.

i can't believe you think this is new.

it's not new.

what happened is the crisis caused people to become more politically aware than they have normally been so people's influence started to increase.

corporations countered by increasing their own influence.

 

[Borat]

I cant believe people are happy with corporations having more influence on an election than any voters.

I cant believe how upset you are that people actually have free speech

i can't believe that you've 100% bought into the idea that corporations are people.

do corporations have empathy ? compassion ? did a corporation ever love its mother ? do corporations believe in god ? do corporations recite the pledge of allegiance ? IS A CORPORATION CAPABLE OF SELF SACRIFICE ?

go fuck yourself !

 

[Borat]

I cant believe how upset you are that people actually have free speech

corporations aren't people.

Then the right thing to do is to stop taxing them as if they are.

i agree. but the government is like a crackhead looking for a fix - they tax anything that moves.

 

[Borat]

"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."

I don't know how clearer it can be. Black and white. Even a Lib can figure it out

if you really care so much about free speech and if you really think corporations are people then you will agree those corporate funded election ads should end with statements like:

" i am ExxonMobil, and i approve of this message! "

let's see how many people will want ExxonMobil as their senator etc.

maybe Liability would vote for them.

 

[Borat]

Forget liability and his insane logic that Corporations don't have any feelings and not much in the way of responsibilities yet should have more rights to influence elections than real people who are to be limited to $2,300.

I understand that hes and idiot and wants to appear a brave crusader for free speech even though he himself has no slightest idea what free speech has to do with it and simply has accepted that view from his favorite radio talk show because he is afraid to use his own brain.

But how did the rest of you allow yourselves to be convinced that this is a partisan issue ?

I love how whenever washington needs to screw the american people they do it with one party and represent it as a partisan issue when in fact it is an issue of the people getting raped by the government.

Is it not ludicrous that the disastrous health care bill is being pushed by democrats while republicans are saints and the equally disastrous corporate contribution shit is being pushed by republicans while democrats are saints.

The two parties simply pass each other the torch with which we are set on fire and instead of putting them all behind bars where they belong we, like retards, watch in suspense as they perform their ritual dance.

 

[jillian]

I cant believe how upset you are that people actually have free speech

corporations aren't people.

Then the right thing to do is to stop taxing them as if they are.

That may be one of the goofiest things you've ever said. They have income. They get taxed.

Would you like to give corporations the vote, too?

Your argument is absurd.

Corporations aren't people. And all you've done is assured that this pretend "we the people" construct you have will be perverted even further because of unlimited corporate influence.

it's like you have no understanding of what this ruling means.

Now go complain about "lobbyists".

:lol

 

[goldcatt]

Next they'll be asking for the right to marry, the ingrates. And of course if they're "people", isn't the fact that they're owned and controlled by other "people" a clear 13th Amendment violation? Let's give corporations and unions driver's licenses while we're at it. The right to vote. Make 'em register for the draft. And how many of them are minors signing contracts and doing other no-no's at their tender age? What do we do, invalidate them all?

Yep, it's absurd isn't it? So is extending individual rights to a Thing that only exists because a piece of paper somewhere says so. Might as well declare my chair deserves equal protection in the political arena or it's being relegated to second class citizen status. This is still ridiculous. And I can't believe who some of the people are defending this decision.

 

[editec]

Giving organizations which theoretically will live forever the same rights as citizens in a democratic repulic is nuts.

It's the kind of nuttiness that only someone who doesn't get what democracy actually means could love.

 

[Sarah G]

Giving organizations which theoretically will live forever the same rights as citizens in a democratic repulic is nuts.

It's the kind of nuttiness that only someone who doesn't get what democracy actually means could love.

It's a Republican scheme like redistricting. They can't win without help.

Oh well, we'll see how this unfolds, the Democrats had better start getting the message out there so people really understand what happened yesterday.

 

[goldcatt]

Giving organizations which theoretically will live forever the same rights as citizens in a democratic repulic is nuts.

It's the kind of nuttiness that only someone who doesn't get what democracy actually means could love.

It's a Republican scheme like redistricting. They can't win without help.

Oh well, we'll see how this unfolds, the Democrats had better start getting the message out there so people really understand what happened yesterday.

To be fair, there are a lot of true conservatives and libertarians who understand it and don't like it either. Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, Hamilton...they're all clear on the subject. So is the historical common law of corporations. So is the natural law theory. Several of the Framers' statements on the subject have already been posted in this thread, their position and reasoning is clear. And you won't often see the day I'm defending an originalist position. But when they're right, they're right.

Sadly, some of those who trumpet Originalist interpretation apparently don't have the slightest idea what it really means and abandon their "principles" as soon as they're told "It's good, mkay".