Rug Burn Junky on 22/1/2010 at 03:43

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Christ, you're thick. This isn't something that a google linkfest would illuminate in any way that common sense doesn't. Just because it has increased, doesn't mean it wouldn't have increased at a greater rate but for the restrictions. But again, you're firing the lifeguards to prevent drowning and nobody with half a fucking brain in their skull would suggest that the campaign restrictions didn't limit the types of acts that corporations should take. It is a childish and ignorant stance.

There are no statistics to show how much corporate funding would be there if there weren't restrictions - because THERE WERE RESTRICTIONS. But just because you can't prove a counterfactual doesn't mean you can't figure out the results using basic logic.

Rug Burn Junky on 22/1/2010 at 04:22

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What about the people who say that Unicorns cause all of our problems?

Runaway on 22/1/2010 at 06:05

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I agree that having no stance against special interest control in Washington makes the government appear that they are approving the conduct. Should government restrict special interests' freedom of speech in attempts (success or failure) to limit their control? The issue seems a fight of whether the government will stand for the individual or special interests. It is unfair for corporations to be able to spend ridiculous amounts of money on ads to try to manipulate individuals with emotional, barely informative ads just to elicit votes for a candidate that they hope to buy off. I admit that I do not know exactly how the government views corporations in light of them being a group of individuals or it's own individual entity. If anyone could give a general rule I'd be appreciative.

Even if seen as an entity separate from a group of people, it still slightly bothers me that the government is restricting free speech- just the idea they can tell people what to say. However, I feel less inclined to say so when money, especially from "evil" means, makes one individual/corporation's free speech more influential than another's. Either way I don't think the government is the only one responsible in this issue. Shouldn't people be educated enough/have enough conviction about their political stances not to take campaign ads to heart? I think there might be more benefit to investing in that. Basic contentions I know.

Btw, I'm going to call myself a fucking moron so I don't stand out in this thread :thumb:

Rug Burn Junky on 22/1/2010 at 16:42

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That's the crux of the matter, and it's a fairly complex question (it's one of the bedrock classes in law school, and for many people the most intimidating).

Because of the intricacies of English Common Law in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, corporations couldn't just be spun out of whole cloth. They had to fit within the law as it stood then, and the only way to do so was to invent the legal fiction that a corporation was not merely just a separate entity from its member individuals, but that it is a "person" with rights and responsibilities attending thereto. The somewhat tortured logic used to make this possible was necessary so as not to upset other principles of common law. But it was, at its heart, a band-aid. An attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole by sanding down the sides a bit.

So if you operate from the assumption that a corporation is a "person" who has "rights," then mustn't it necessarily have all rights and be treated exactly as a single individual person? Reasonable people would say "of course not" and in general most corporate law - including campaign finance law until yesterday - reflected this. It's a legal fiction borne of necessity, but let's not get carried away - it's still not a round peg.

The problem is that there are always people that get hyperliteralist and take everything to its ridiculous extreme, ie. "Since a corporation is a person, therefor they have ALL rights of a person, otherwise it's too complicated and I can't understand it." (and far worse are the ideologues who only take this stance to its extreme in favor of their pet causes, ie. "I don't really believe that a corp should always be treated as a person, but I'm going to say they should because I want to extend my corporate influence.") This framing of the question is at odds with reality, but it for some reason can be said with a straight face (The ludicrousness of it could be seen very easily if you substitute it into say, the gay rights campaign, and ask why corporations need complicated M&A agreements when they could just get married).

So all of the handwringing over the free speech aspects necessarily rely on the premise that we are dealing with a "person." If so, the question "Does a [person] have the right to absolute free speech in this arena" is rather academic and the answer follows easily under First Amendment law." The reason why anyone would approach it with only this question is that either they have a vested interest, or they are simpletons like our dear CCCToad. One group is cloaking shit in sugar, the other is eating it up with a spoon.

The question, however is more complex and subtle than that, and that's what gets lost in the blunt force legal arguments and the minds of the feeble. The question is NOT about the free speech rights, but to what extent an institutional group such as a corporation is entitled to rights as a person at all. When you approach it from that angle, and in spite of the rather thorny limited free speech problems posed, the answer becomes clear in light of the standing precedent of the court.

That's not to say that there aren't legitimate issues with McCain Feingold - groups actually concerned with free speech attacked it as well, but limited their objections to the narrow free speech issues, instead of the much broader attacks by Citizens United. However, in striking down the Austin decision, the court overreached egregiously, and really ignored the true questions at play in order to set up the academic free speech question.

The other factor at play is the ignorant doofuses who laud this because they hate the gubmint. What they fail to realize is that the problem isn't merely "the government" but any concentration of power that can control the lives of the citizenry. In the middle ages it would be a feudal lord, or the church. In our capitalist society, large corporate entities hold just as much sway, and in many instances, more so than the government. The government is actually the lesser of these two evils, since there is greater access to its control by any given citizen.

But there is a power dynamic at play, and there needs to be a check on the potential power of capitalist institutions. The balance of power has begun to shift in that direction again, and really does need to be addressed. Why there is such a shortsighted fear of "the government" is beyond me, because there's no way that the government is currently the most direct threat to "freedom" and it is really the only tool that we, the citizenry, have to prevent complete takeover by corporate multinationals. That's why we have antitrust law - to break up the Robber barons from the turn of the last century. The same principles are at play here, and even more so, since it implicates direct capitalist intervention into the machines of government.

Finally, it's nice to think that people will make the right decision based on information at hand, but when bad information overpowers the good, bad decisions will be made. When there is the high likelihood of propaganda tilting towards a small segment of society to the extent that it would drown out legitimate discourse, this is a real worry and concern.

You can safely ignore CCCToad's infantile attempt at sarcasm. It is the product of a naive cynicism borne of ignorance and a logic faculty akin roughly to the underwear gnomes. In actuality, he is the product of - to borrow your words - someone not being educated enough, but having too much conviction in his political stance, and a shining example of the dangers of propaganda over legitimate discourse.

Rug Burn Junky on 22/1/2010 at 18:00

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Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out, you condescending dickhead.

There are people on whom such informative replies are wasted, and therefore I need not waste my time trying to educate when only scorn is deserved. I have remained consistent in this regard through-out my time on the forums, and anyone that knows me will attest to this.

I give most people the benefit of the doubt, and it is only after a poster has proven themselves to be a jackass that I provide them with the derision that they practically beg for. My judgment in this regard is generally pretty spot on, and I rarely if ever smack around anyone who doesn't deserve it.

But I must really question why you feel the need to be a douchebag and pop yourself into this thread where you provide nothing of value yourself. Run the fuck along.