Justices Reject Campaign Finance Limits

[Oddball]

Free speech = Corporate control?

Hooooobooie!

You're absolutely right Dude, because if history has taught us anything, it's that huge amounts of wealth never have an effect on government.

And when that wealth is held by individuals who can use it in a way that they will not face any legal consequences for, it DEFINITELY won't have an effect on government.

Right...And we all know that if gubmint has virtually infinite wealth (via the ability to just print up money) nobody will come around looking to get in on the scam.

You're blaming the buzzards for the rotting corpse.

Foo.

 

[uscitizen]

Got strawman?

Nope it is all relevant to you attitude on this.


Now that is not to say that many dems do not also still have faith in their party, it does not seem to be a much as of a lockstep thing as the republicans are.

I am speaking of citizens not politicians.

I'm neither a "conservative" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean anymore) nor a republican.

You lose, señor strawman.

What I realize and you don't is that we ALL lose on this issue of a corporate controlled government.

 

[Yurt]

Barack Obama will try to close the deal with American voters tonight with an extraordinary half-hour, prime-time television address – the first advertisement of this duration to be broadcast by a presidential candidate since the early 1990s.


The Democratic candidate can afford to make his ambitious pitch because he has already surpassed all expectations by raising more than $600m (£380m). He is spending the money in an attempt to reach the 25 per cent of US voters who are registered as independent.

Obama cashes in on huge war chest with prime-time address - Americas, World - The Independent

 

[Liability]

Wtf are you babbling about?

How do you imagine a corporation COULD be incarcerated?

No. For deliberate (and proved) violations of the criminal law, the corporations can get fined and possibly disbanded. Their officers can face convictions and incarceration.

Shareholders are, of course, the beneficiaries of their limited liability. (Otherwise who the fuck would ever invest in capitalist enterprises?) But shareholders CAN lose the entirety of whatever capital they invested IN the corporation if the sanctions cause the corporation to go out of business.

For all your rather incoherent criticisms, you don't come across all that clearly on rational alternatives.

What would you propose as an alternative to the current corporations'-system, which would serve to both permit the formation of companies (in order to foster capitalist ventures) and yet also serve the needs of those who would make such investments?

Meaning that shareholders could have the corporation hire someone for a hell of a lot of money, have that person kill whomever they wanted, and only the mass murderer and possibly the CEO would be liable, allowing the shareholders to get off scott free to start up another corporation.

I hate to burst your fantasy bubble, lad, but if I am a shareholder and hire someone to work for the company with the specific purpose of killing anybody else, I would be a conspirator, and aider and abettor of the murder. I would be an accomplice. And my limited liability shareholder status would have nothing to do with the prosecution I would get treated to.

Helpful hint just for you: If you want to debate, real world examples only help you if your argument actually does make sense.

 

[uscitizen]

Barack Obama will try to close the deal with American voters tonight with an extraordinary half-hour, prime-time television address – the first advertisement of this duration to be broadcast by a presidential candidate since the early 1990s.


The Democratic candidate can afford to make his ambitious pitch because he has already surpassed all expectations by raising more than $600m (£380m). He is spending the money in an attempt to reach the 25 per cent of US voters who are registered as independent.

Obama cashes in on huge war chest with prime-time address - Americas, World - The Independent

Umm did you look at the date on that article? It was tonight quite a while ago.

 

[Liability]

Talk about activist judges.

Applying the actual words and meaning of the Constitution is NOT what "activist" means.

 

[Bfgrn]

What would you propose as an alternative to the current corporations'-system, which would serve to both permit the formation of companies (in order to foster capitalist ventures) and yet also serve the needs of those who would make such investments?

HOW about what our founders allowed ???

-------------------------------------------------
The Constitution only mentions two entities: We the People and the government. The people are on one side of a line, and we are sovereign and have individual rights. On the other side of the line is the government, which is accountable to the people and has specific duties to perform to the satisfaction of the people. We delegate some of our power to the government in order to perform tasks we want government to do. In a representative democracy, this system should work just fine.

A word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when.

*Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process.

*Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years.

*But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge.

*And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.

 

[ihopehefails]

Thank goodness. A corp. has rights just like anyone else. The constitution makes no distinction between the rights of any person and a giant corporation and if you don't like it then change the constitution.

 

[Avatar4321]

let me get this right...you support a candidate having a campaign war chest of 600 million dollars (which was oodles more than mccain), but you don't support unions and corps spending money on tv ads.....

that makes no sense

Actually it makes perfect sense. They dont like people and groups having the freedom to speak on their behalf. If they do that then it's more likely to hurt their anti capitalist movement.

 

[Liability]

What would you propose as an alternative to the current corporations'-system, which would serve to both permit the formation of companies (in order to foster capitalist ventures) and yet also serve the needs of those who would make such investments?

HOW about what our founders allowed ???

-------------------------------------------------
The Constitution only mentions two entities: We the People and the government. The people are on one side of a line, and we are sovereign and have individual rights. On the other side of the line is the government, which is accountable to the people and has specific duties to perform to the satisfaction of the people. We delegate some of our power to the government in order to perform tasks we want government to do. In a representative democracy, this system should work just fine.

A word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when.

*Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process.

*Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years.

*But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge.

*And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.

The Founders and the Framers, as you just noted, did not "allow" nor did they "disallow" (i.e., forbid) anything in that regard. Where the Constitution itself is silent on such issues, the power and authority remain with the States and/or with the People.

There is not a thing UnConstitutional, therefore, about Corporations.

And as long as States continue to recognize that corporations "exist" as "persons," for such things as owning property, buying stock in other corporations, giving to charity, entering into contracts, etc., etc., etc., then there is no Constitutional basis to deny to corporations the RIGHT of free speech as articulated quite clearly in the First Amendment.

 

[Oddball]

Nope it is all relevant to you attitude on this.


Now that is not to say that many dems do not also still have faith in their party, it does not seem to be a much as of a lockstep thing as the republicans are.

I am speaking of citizens not politicians.

I'm neither a "conservative" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean anymore) nor a republican.

You lose, señor strawman.

What I realize and you don't is that we ALL lose on this issue of a corporate controlled government.

You have it exactly backwards, Scooter.

The federal gubmint, known as "District of Columbia" (per 16 stat 419, enacted in 1871), is THE pre-eminent corporation in America.

All the lesser corporations are mere capos to the federal Don Vito.

You lib betwetters can't even get the flow chart right.

 

[Yurt]

Barack Obama will try to close the deal with American voters tonight with an extraordinary half-hour, prime-time television address – the first advertisement of this duration to be broadcast by a presidential candidate since the early 1990s.


The Democratic candidate can afford to make his ambitious pitch because he has already surpassed all expectations by raising more than $600m (£380m). He is spending the money in an attempt to reach the 25 per cent of US voters who are registered as independent.

Obama cashes in on huge war chest with prime-time address - Americas, World - The Independent

Umm did you look at the date on that article? It was tonight quite a while ago.

no, really....an article about obama's campaign war chest is from some time ago....i'm shocked....

the date of the article is irrelevant to the point. but i am not surprised you missed the point.

 

[Avatar4321]

Bribing government officials has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Who on earth is talking about Obama's tactics to pass this health care monstrousity? We are talking about freedom of speech.

Once again, the right has sold out America to the corporate interests. It is the reason we have the most expensive healthcare in the world that preys on the sick.

You are seriously paranoid here.

God, I hate Republicans.

Well, why shouldnt you? You've been seriously decieved.

 

[Vast LWC]

Right...And we all know that if gubmint has virtually infinite wealth (via the ability to just print up money) nobody will come around looking to get in on the scam.

You're blaming the buzzards for the rotting corpse.

Foo.

And individual members of government have the ability to have the government print money to fund their campaigns and get people elected?

All that money that government gave the banks, can be used to get whoever the banks want elected, thanks to this court ruling. Don't you see that?

Is John McCain some sort of socialist tool to you? He WROTE McCain/Feingold.

 

[ihopehefails]

What would you propose as an alternative to the current corporations'-system, which would serve to both permit the formation of companies (in order to foster capitalist ventures) and yet also serve the needs of those who would make such investments?

HOW about what our founders allowed ???

-------------------------------------------------
The Constitution only mentions two entities: We the People and the government. The people are on one side of a line, and we are sovereign and have individual rights. On the other side of the line is the government, which is accountable to the people and has specific duties to perform to the satisfaction of the people. We delegate some of our power to the government in order to perform tasks we want government to do. In a representative democracy, this system should work just fine.

A word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when.

*Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process.

*Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years.

*But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge.

*And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.

True. corps are creation of state government but since the first amendment specifically states that the federal congress can't pass any laws mentioning speech then fiengold is unconstitutional because it is a federal law.

However, if you pass a similar thing on the state level then it should be fine in a constitutional sense even though it would still be a limit on free speech.

 

[Avatar4321]

Meaning that shareholders could have the corporation hire someone for a hell of a lot of money, have that person kill whomever they wanted, and only the mass murderer and possibly the CEO would be liable, allowing the shareholders to get off scott free to start up another corporation.

This has got to be the dumbest scenario I've ever heard. Could you please cite an instance of this ever occuring?

 

[Avatar4321]

The cons still have faith in their party.
Misplaced though it may be.
They had faith in bush too for about his first term and a half.
A bit slow to catch on I suppose.

How on earth is supporting free speech faith in their party? Why on earth are you so opposed to free speech?

 

[Oddball]

Right...And we all know that if gubmint has virtually infinite wealth (via the ability to just print up money) nobody will come around looking to get in on the scam.

You're blaming the buzzards for the rotting corpse.

Foo.

And individual members of government have the ability to have the government print money to fund their campaigns and get people elected?

All that money that government gave the banks, can be used to get whoever the banks want elected, thanks to this court ruling. Don't you see that?

Is John McCain some sort of socialist tool to you? He WROTE McCain/Feingold.

Absolutely.

Any more silly questions?

 

[Vast LWC]

no, really....an article about obama's campaign war chest is from some time ago....i'm shocked....

the date of the article is irrelevant to the point. but i am not surprised you missed the point.

You're using Obama's campaign war chest as an argument for this court ruling???

He amassed that with just individual donations. Now those war chests will be many times larger. And individual donors will have no say at all.

 

[Avatar4321]

Meaning that shareholders could have the corporation hire someone for a hell of a lot of money, have that person kill whomever they wanted, and only the mass murderer and possibly the CEO would be liable, allowing the shareholders to get off scott free to start up another corporation.

I suspect they'd pierce the corporate veil for an act like that.

I would suspect that they wouldnt even use any sort of business law for it and just charge everyone involved with the conspiracy with murder, conspiracy and theft from the corporation.