McCain Feingold 30 day rule: Overturned

oudeis on 22/1/2010 at 18:23

Yeah, I figured this was the way you'd reply.

Was it really necessary to come back with such a broadside attack? I wasn't being condescending. I was basically pointing out that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, for lack of a better cliche coming to mind. A cliche, it's true, but no less true for that fact. And if those people you mention aren't worth a reasoned response how are they possibly worth the persistent and provenly ineffectual raging vendettas you seem to pursue? I'm really not looking for a fight here. I just wish more people would take the high road.

Rug Burn Junky on 22/1/2010 at 19:13

Yes, it was necessary. Because it's tiresome listening to the raging pussies like you who follow me around whining "Why don't you behave the way I want you to?" or "All you ever do is curse people out" (which is really just plain ignorant of reality - you act shocked when I lay down intelligently written technical treatises here, even though I've been doing it regularly for the past ten years).

And yes, it was condescending. You seem to think that you have some sort of right to impose your conception of how I should act.

Well, to put it quite plainly, YOU'RE WRONG.

You also seem to think that my "rage" (your word, not mine) is ineffectual.

YOU'RE WRONG because you assume that my goal is something other than what it is, and you mistake my audience.

At the end of the day, I get to decide how I want to respond to people, and you'll just have to trust my judgment as to who deserves informative, and who deserves a thrashing because, quite frankly, I know better than you.

So yes, you are being a condescending douchebag by following me around like a puppy dog and whining about "not taking the high road." It's offensive. There's no reason not to tell you to shut the fuck up.

So really, I ask my question again: "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?"

Runaway on 22/1/2010 at 21:21

I am a small town college student in prelaw- not the smartest person on the boards. Did you go to law school RBJ?

I find it funny that you mentioned the different organizations with "concentrations of power." My political science teacher was ranting the other day (something the class should have already known, but nice to have reiterated I guess) about how the founding fathers set up the various separation of powers to protect their interests/powers, as competing for power would mean hopefully no one entity could have it.

According to one of my legal classes (I understand it gets a lot more complicated), the government can restrict freedom of expression as long as the expression is content neutral, significant interest that cannot be reached by less intrusive means, and other forums are allowed for the expression to continue through. Restricting campaign ads for 30 days would comply with all these points.

Aerothorn on 22/1/2010 at 21:54

I was waiting for an RBJ response on this issue!

Food for thought: now that the Supreme Court is in the business of tearing down past decisions because they don't like them (largely ignoring stasis whatchamacallit - sorry for being such a rube, I'm totally blanking) does this mean a future Supreme Court could do the exact same thing to this? I feel like there's a bit of an issue here: if a "responsible court" has more respect for past decisions, than the "irresponsible court" (or "activist" court, or whatever you want to call it) has disproportionately more power, because it can overturn the work of its predecessors, but responsible successors can't overturn their work.

Somewhat simplistically phrased, I know, but I think you get the gidst of what I'm saying. Sometimes I worry about the complete unilateral authority of the Supreme Court - the now totally-partisan vetting process doesn't really help either.

Pyrian on 22/1/2010 at 21:58

Quote:

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.

I've never understood why people find this so difficult to wrap their heads around. It's not the label, it's the power, and at the end of the day, it's usually power without accountability that becomes a problem.

A democracy is ideally accountable to its people, and a company is ideally accountably to its clients and its government, and both will do anything they can to escape such constraints as soon as they can get away with it!

Swiss Mercenary on 22/1/2010 at 22:18

Thank you, RBJ, for your analysis of this issue.

heywood on 22/1/2010 at 23:06

Quote Posted by Pyrian

Government bureaucracies often act in their own self-interest much like corporations do. We have to keep a check on both. But the most worrisome abuses of power in capitalist societies arise when symbiotic relationships form between governments and corporations. And that's why mistrust of government should be an argument FOR campaign finance reform, not against. Obviously, the more money it takes to get elected, the more our representatives are accountable to donors rather than constituents.

CCCToad on 22/1/2010 at 23:21

Quote:

And that's why mistrust of government should be an argument FOR campaign finance reform, not against

Exactly, but because of the aformentioned "symbiotic" relationship, its extremely difficult to pass reforms that actually do something significant to control the corrupting influence. Before people jump on a "evil big gubment" or "evil big bizness" bandwagon regarding reform, they should examine whether the legislation will actually make it harder for the "moneyed interests" to influence politicians. The Health care bill example is sure to be a bit controversial.

There were some pretty solid arguments that the original bill would have put pressure on Health Insurers to drive down prices. The current "Buy a healthcare plan or get fined" bill is a disaster. I've looked up a few articles on this thing from both left and right, and both agree that the practical result is that it will actually benefit the interests the bill was originally designed to strike at.

ps: If you think I believe that the Evil Big Gubment = bad and business = good no matter what, you are listening to name calling instead of what I actually say. My actual view is that they are starting to overlap.

CCCToad on 23/1/2010 at 00:18

Ok, lets get first things first. I am an idiot, inbred, ignorant hillbilly with the IQ of a newt for finding this argument moderately persuasive:

(http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2010/01/no-fear-of-citizens/)

Quote:

This brings me to the first example of why Citizens United decreases, rather than increases, the relative influence of large corporations over our elections. This time I’ll point to Professor Volokh’s brief follow-up post, and especially his point 2. Specifically, the result of the decision is that the longstanding monopoly of media corporations on the ability to widely disseminate editorial opinions on elections is at an end. Except for the fact that we may find ourselves annoyed by the even-higher presence of campaign ads on our TV come election season, this is an altogether good thing for democracy.

The second, and to my mind more important, result of this decision will be to make it easier for smaller businesses and non-profits to have a voice in the system. In his dissent, Justice Stevens goes to great lengths to explain how the ban on pre-election political ads by corporations isn’t really a ban because corporations and unions can just act via a Political Action Committee (PAC). He acknowledges that acting through a PAC is a burden on corporate speech, but claims that it is a burden that can easily borne by a sophisticated modern corporation (whether for-profit or non-profit). Ok, fair enough. The trouble is that he assumes that all corporations are sufficiently sophisticated and large to be able to set up a PAC, with all of the attendant regulatory and reporting requirements that entails. Not so. Indeed, as the majority points out, there are millions of corporations in the United States, but less than 2000 corporate PACs. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the types of corporations represented by those PACs, nor does it take a genius to figure out the types of corporations that are not represented by those PACs.

In short, the existing system’s response to free speech concerns (PACs) acts only to ensure that large corporations are already able to have near-unfettered participation in the electoral process, as long as they first overcome some regulatory hurdles that are relatively minor for them but are significant for smaller, less sophisticated enterprises. Smaller corporations are effectively shut out of the system, thereby reinforcing the oligopoly of influence over elections and influence markets enjoyed by their larger, more sophisticated brethren. This changes that. Yes, it removes the bar on direct participation that large corporations had to skirt via PACs, but this was hardly an effective or meaningful bar for those corporations in the first place.

Pyrian on 23/1/2010 at 00:30

I found (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/22/citizens_united/index.html) Glenn Greenwald's commentary interesting:

Quote:

As for the question of whether corporations possess "personhood," that's an interesting issue and, as I said, I'm very sympathetic to the argument that they do not, but the majority's ruling here did not really turn on that question. That's because the First Amendment does not only vest rights in "persons." It says nothing about "persons." It simply bans Congress from making any laws abridging freedom of speech.