A nail in the coffin: Campaign-finance limits violate free speech

[ResearchMonkey]

Sure you can, that what brought this case to the SCOTUS. A group of people made a movie the politicians didn't want you to see. Now you can see it.

 

[spike]

I think every Amercian should have a side arm on their hip and rifle over their fire place.

Wow, forced gun ownership an conformity. Way to take away some more of our freedoms.

I bet in three years time crime rates would be cut by at least 50%.

Wishful thinking, I bet in 3 years time crime rates would triple.

Sure you can

No, she can't. The We the People don't have the money to compete with corporate influence over our government.

that what brought this case to the SCOTUS. A group of people made a movie the politicians didn't want you to see. Now you can see it.

Wrong again.

"A federal court ruled that "Citizens United could not run ads for its negative film on Hillary Rodham Clinton without disclosing the ad’s donors."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United

So it seems you are against disclosure. That means you would be for George Soros producing political ads and films without having to disclose that he funded them This seems in contradiction to your earlier statements.

Your logic does not hold up to scrutiny.

 

[valkyrie]

I think every Amercian should have a side arm on their hip and rifle over their fire place. Castle law as defacto and public hangings in the town square.

I bet in three years time crime rates would be cut by at least 50%.

The right to own a gun is in our constitution already. No one wants to remove it (contrary to what many on the Far Right are saying to scare up support for their side). Castle law is pretty much already in place in Texas. You have the right to protect yourself and your property from someone who would attempt to unlawfully take it from you.

I see no benefit to public hangings other than to harden people further to the value of human life. If you watch people die you become callous to death. I would never attend a public execution. I don't live in some 3rd world country.

 

[valkyrie]

Sure you can, that what brought this case to the SCOTUS. A group of people made a movie the politicians didn't want you to see. Now you can see it.

Yes, I know what brought the case to trial. It was a stupid political movie against Hilary Clinton during the presidential campaign. One that I do not care to see. (For the record, I didn't see the stupid movie about Bush either, nor have I seen any of the stupid movies made by Michael Moore.)

The fact remains, my voice will not be heard over the CHACHING of the millions of dollars pumped into our political system.

I do not believe that much will change, though. Most of these big corps donated already by giving to groups of charitable organizations that in turn gave to politicians. The money was politically laundered.

Keep those donations transparent to the public and there will be accountability.

 

[valkyrie]

<snippety snip>
Wishful thinking, I bet in 3 years time crime rates would triple.
<snippety snip>

Actually, comparisons of crime rates between countries involving private gun ownership, those countries which allow private gun ownership have lower crime rates. It may be a deterrent to a criminal who knows that he may be breaking into a house where the owner can shoot him/her.

Wrong again.

"A federal court ruled that "Citizens United could not run ads for its negative film on Hillary Rodham Clinton without disclosing the ad’s donors."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United

So it seems you are against disclosure. That means you would be for George Soros producing political ads and films without having to disclose that he funded them This seems in contradiction to your earlier statements.

Your logic does not hold up to scrutiny.

Thanks for posting the details. I'm all for disclosure! It tells a lot about how you should view what you're watching.

 

[spike]

Actually, comparisons of crime rates between countries involving private gun ownership, those countries which allow private gun ownership have lower crime rates. It may be a deterrent to a criminal who knows that he may be breaking into a house where the owner can shoot him/her.

I don't know about all crime in all countries but homicide rates are lower in some countries with less guns and some countries with more guns.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

Canada also generally has lower crime rates and stricter gun controls.

However, RM wasn't talking allowing gun ownership he was talking about every single American having two guns within easy reach. That's a different story and it appears it was mainly an attempt to change the topic from the attacks on civil liberties that you mentioned.

 

[valkyrie]

I don't know about all crime in all countries but homicide rates are lower in some countries with less guns and some countries with more guns.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

Canada also generally has lower crime rates and stricter gun controls.

However, RM wasn't talking allowing gun ownership he was talking about every single American having two guns within easy reach. That's a different story and it appears it was mainly an attempt to change the topic from the attacks on civil liberties that you mentioned.

Admittedly there are many cultural variables which must be taken into account when gathering and interpreting statistics of this nature.

It may or may not have been a conscious attempt to steer the thread from the main subject... or some random blurtings from a raving maniac. Your choice.

 

[spike]

Once you get past the hysteria of the commies, anarchist and those who don't quite understand or appreciate the Constitution, you find that freedom of speech is not as evil as they would like you to believe.

Incorrect. Nobody said free speech is evil.

Whether it's symbolically burning your draft card on the steps of the courthouse or passing out anonymous fliers in the neighborhood, it is your right to (and duty) to have your say in these United States.

This ruling is does not effect those things.

we have silenced millions of people who also have a vested interest in these United States: that is the people who provide jobs, produce the oil, food and other goods that has made this nation great

No, we have not silenced them. All the people that work for them get to vote, speak, donate, etc. By allowing the corporations themselves to dominate our government we are effectively silencing the people of this country.

We used to have some limits and disclosure keeping large corporations from drowning out the voice of We the People that have made this nation great. Now we are turning over our voice to corporate interests.

McCain-Feingold rules are, the Teamsters could run ads but McDonalds couldn't.

Incorrect. It barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads.

The Court’s Blow to Democracy

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission radically reverses well-established law and erodes a wall that has stood for a century between corporations and electoral politics. (The ruling also frees up labor unions to spend, though they have far less money at their disposal.)

The founders of this nation warned about the dangers of corporate influence. The Constitution they wrote mentions many things and assigns them rights and protections — the people, militias, the press, religions. But it does not mention corporations.

In 1907, as corporations reached new heights of wealth and power, Congress made its views of the relationship between corporations and campaigning clear: It banned them from contributing to candidates. At midcentury, it enacted the broader ban on spending that was repeatedly reaffirmed over the decades until it was struck down on Thursday.

This issue should never have been before the court. The justices overreached and seized on a case involving a narrower, technical question involving the broadcast of a movie that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign. The court elevated that case to a forum for striking down the entire ban on corporate spending and then rushed the process of hearing the case at breakneck speed. It gave lawyers a month to prepare briefs on an issue of enormous complexity, and it scheduled arguments during its vacation.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., no doubt aware of how sharply these actions clash with his confirmation-time vow to be judicially modest and simply “call balls and strikes,” wrote a separate opinion trying to excuse the shameless judicial overreaching.

The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

The majority also makes the nonsensical claim that, unlike campaign contributions, which are still prohibited, independent expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” If Wall Street bankers told members of Congress that they would spend millions of dollars to defeat anyone who opposed their bailout, and then did so, it would certainly look corrupt.

After the court heard the case, Senator John McCain told reporters that he was troubled by the “extreme naïveté” some of the justices showed about the role of special-interest money in Congressional lawmaking.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the ruling not only threatens democracy but “will, I fear, do damage to this institution.” History is, indeed, likely to look harshly not only on the decision but the court that delivered it. The Citizens United ruling is likely to be viewed as a shameful bookend to Bush v. Gore. With one 5-to-4 decision, the court’s conservative majority stopped valid votes from being counted to ensure the election of a conservative president. Now a similar conservative majority has distorted the political system to ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections.

Congress and members of the public who care about fair elections and clean government need to mobilize right away, a cause President Obama has said he would join. Congress should repair the presidential public finance system and create another one for Congressional elections to help ordinary Americans contribute to campaigns. It should also enact a law requiring publicly traded corporations to get the approval of their shareholders before spending on political campaigns.

These would be important steps, but they would not be enough. The real solution lies in getting the court’s ruling overturned. The four dissenters made an eloquent case for why the decision was wrong on the law and dangerous. With one more vote, they could rescue democracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/opinion/22fri1.html

 

[valkyrie]

Actually "burning your draft card" is a crime.
US vs O'Brien 1968
http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-v-o-brien
(Not intending for us to take this off topic. Just want to correct the statement that Spike quoted below and replied to. It IS a crime to burn a draft card, a.k.a. selective service registration certificate)

 

[spike]

One of the worst parts of this ruling is that even foreign corporations will be able to ave unlimited influence on our government.

Grayson has a petition. Sign it.
http://salsa.mydccc.org/o/30019/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4&tag=012009_email

 

[MrBishop]

Actually, comparisons of crime rates between countries involving private gun ownership, those countries which allow private gun ownership have lower crime rates. It may be a deterrent to a criminal who knows that he may be breaking into a house where the owner can shoot him/her.

.

I believe that Spike was talking about public hangings.

 

[valkyrie]

I believe that Spike was talking about public hangings.

There were 2 subjects. One was public hangings (my response was "I see no benefit to public hangings other than to harden people further to the value of human life"). The other was gun ownership.

RM felt people should carry guns as mandatory. Spike did not. I don't believe it should be mandatory either. I support anyone's desire to own a gun and be responsible with it.

 

[spike]

Corporation Says It Will Run for Congress
By CATHERINE RAMPELL

Following the Supreme Court decision implicitly granting corporations the right to free speech (by determining that political spending is a kind of speech), a corporation has decided to take what it believes to be “democracy’s next step”: It is running for Congress.

With more than a twinge of irony, Murray Hill Incorporated, a liberal public relations firm, recently announced that it planned to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.

Here is the company’s first “campaign” ad:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/corporation-says-it-will-run-for-congress/

 

[MrBishop]

k-ripes

 

[valkyrie]

LOL! That's a great ad! Murray Hill Inc has my vote!