Libertarian Take On Supreme Court Free Speech Ruling

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Janky Red

 

Dude, do you just get your talking points from HuffPo and paste them here or do you take a moment to roll the ideas I've presented around in your brain first before commenting?

Do you understand the arguments I am making?

You are not addressing them in your post.

Yes you believe this decision would not effect us if the government only practiced its constitutional role.

In short you are saying it doesn't matter if the corporations fund and employ all of our elected officials because they won't beable too do anything negative, since their role will only be to "prosecute fraud"....

But your entire argument is unrealistic, passive and is the same as doing nothing, ignoring the pressing issue... Your solution does not take in to account the FACT that corporations WILL INHERIT A LARGE AND SWEEPING GOVERNMENT, this will prevent the hopes of your solution EVER taking hold or being possible, DON"T CHA GET IT?

If David a conservative and Janky Red a Communist swine are both presenting the same argument it might indicate that there is a fundamental far sweeping implication you are ignoring. You are so busy sticking to ideology that you will be subjugated while you are busy sticking to your rhetorical dogma.

NOT to mention any way you slice it, these bought politicians WILL CONSTITUTIONALLY
inherit the power to declare war. What will prevent our military from being used as a tool of conquest and corporate imperialism?

There are so many BAD repercussions I could not even begin to fathom or list them all.

What are you thinking??? I mean do your ideas mean more to you than the spirit in which this nation was founded? The FACT of the matter is BIG GOVERNMENT IS HERE,
NOW [/]... Now the power to buy and USE a as such is here, voters be damned,
NATIONALITY be damned.

I don't say this often but, wake up, today, drop the theory and look at some reality, please.

Originally posted by inthesticks
What can we do? what can we do? Nothing. It's too late. That won't work.

For cryin' out loud, the SCOTUS ruling is NOT the end of the world! Whether you bellyachers like it or not, their ruling WAS correct! McCain/Feingold was unconstitutional and really didn't do a stinkin' thing to stop corporations, unions and special interests from buying votes. I remember when it was passed and seems to me things are more corrupt now than then.

That said, it is a total crock that corporations are given the same standing as people, no doubt about that. But I don't know that there is anything we can do about that. But, there are things we can do to try and stop the vote buying. So, stop the bitching and go to Public Citizen - Clean up Washington, get informed and get involved.

Go to Fair Elections NOW, read and sign the petition, call your Senators and Reps, write them a LETTER and send them an email and let them know how you feel. Send everybody you know an email and encourage them to do the same.

I don't care if you are conservative or liberal, if we don't stop this whining, put aside whatever differences we may have and JOIN together to fight this corrupt government, and DO SOMETHING, well then, stick a fork in us, we're done!

All this moaning and groaning on ATS will do NOTHING to solve the problem.
There are solutions out there - you just have to get involved and USE THEM!

You might as well insert your finger in you ass now and take a vacation... This not whining sir, this is phase one, trying wake up people who are the public support of this monstrosity, a whole lot of you, including yourself are the largest obstacle...
Low and behold just like the IRAQ war " BUT IT IS LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONALLY SOUND, CONGRESS APPROVED"

ALL OF YOU

JUST BECAUSE IT IS LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONALLY SOUND DOES NOT MAKE IT SMART OR RIGHT OR IN THE SPIRIT OF THE CONSTITUTION AS INTENDED, THINK FOR YOURSELVES, DO ANY OF YOU THINK THE FOUNDING FATHERS WOULD APPROVE OF THE WHOLE SALE TRADE AND SALE OF OUR POLITICIANS AND THEY MACHINE THEY HELM?

THIS IS NEOCON, NOT CONSERVATIVE

[edit on 24-1-2010 by Janky Red]

[edit on 24-1-2010 by Janky Red]

Gonna go ahead and show you the first corporate sponsored ad. Simply put "Don't waste your vote on a third party." or "The polls have the third party candidate at .5%, please, don't waste a vote." How long will they even have to run an ad like this for it to seep in? This evened the field with republicans and democrats and killed every third party candidate in the nation.

Originally posted by ventian
Gonna go ahead and show you the first corporate sponsored ad. Simply put "Don't waste your vote on a third party." or "The polls have the third party candidate at .5%, please, don't waste a vote." How long will they even have to run an ad like this for it to seep in? This evened the field with republicans and democrats and killed every third party candidate in the nation.

OR - (stick with me)

Parent companies raise the ad rates so high on political spots, only to
use subsidiaries to place ads on the PARENT COMPANIES NETWORKS FOR

FREE


YA


THIS IS NOT FASCIST

Originally posted by Janky Red

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Janky Red

 

Dude, do you just get your talking points from HuffPo and paste them here or do you take a moment to roll the ideas I've presented around in your brain first before commenting?

Do you understand the arguments I am making?

You are not addressing them in your post.

In short you are saying it doesn't matter if the corporations fund and employ all of our elected officials because they won't beable too do anything negative, since their role will only be to "prosecute fraud"....

A million pages of regulations will never stop corporations from trying to pay off politicians. Yes, the campaign financing laws help prevent that, but only to a point and at a great cost.

It is therefore the job of voters to figure out whether what their politicians are doing is in their best interest. The voters need to get smarter and not vote for people getting $5M checks from Goldman Sachs. The faster fascists get into power, the faster voters can learn not to vote for them any more.

What campaign finance laws say is basically: "sorry voters, you cannot be trusted to make decisions by yourself about who is eligible to be voted for". And that is wrong. Voters need to have the power to make mistakes and then correct those mistakes. The sooner voters figure out that they are the ones with the power, that is when things will start getting better.

And if that doesn't really work, then we need to get rid of democracy because the people are just voting for fascism and that isn't acceptable. Either you can trust the voters to not screw everything up or you can't. So far they've screwed everything up. But with the internet age we have now maybe there is capacity for smart voting some time soon.

I see a bunch of people in here claiming I said corporate sponsorship of politicians is a good thing.

I never said that.

I said free speech is a good thing.

My main point was, if you want to be mad at something, be mad at the fact our politicians have thrown the constitution in the trash.

If government was limited to its constitutional duties, corporations would not bother to sponsor politicians because the politicians wouldn't be able to give them any special favors.

Originally posted by ventian
Gonna go ahead and show you the first corporate sponsored ad. Simply put "Don't waste your vote on a third party." or "The polls have the third party candidate at .5%, please, don't waste a vote." How long will they even have to run an ad like this for it to seep in? This evened the field with republicans and democrats and killed every third party candidate in the nation.

Why?

Why would a corporation run such an ad?

Why do corporations bother to fund campaigns at all?

Will someone answer me that?

Perhaps because our bloated unconstitutional government provides them kickbacks, tax breaks, favorable "regulations", subsidies, and contracts?

Perhaps if our government wasn't engaged in violating every single clause of the constitution corporations wouldn't have a reason to fund political campaigns?



[edit on 26-1-2010 by mnemeth1]

An "individual" and a "entity" must be two different "things" in so far as politics is concerned.
Corporation do not represent the opinion of their employees. This is a goverment for the people by the people, not a Goverment for Walmart by Walmart etc.

Your gonna see some real changes as the labor costs here in America grow comparable to those of the Chinese laborer. You will see product quality fall on a scale unseen in modern history. And that is just a start. This law was in place because of the unscrupulous activity Companies have shown n the past I.E. creating labor farms where the workerss were always indebted to the company etc. This is bad bad news! You may even see a reemergence of the debtors prison. When you give these organizations the ability to write their own law you open the door for the destruction of America as you know it.

Those Justices who were ignorant enough to see a corporation on the same level as an individual should be touted for what they are. IDIOTS, or CROOKS!!

It is completely plausible that you, your children and your children’s children have just been sold to corporate interest here and abroad.

[edit on 27-1-2010 by Donkey_Dean]

reply to post by Donkey_Dean


I see you are perfectly comfortable with having the government decide what speech should be allowed and what speech should not.

So If myself and 10 of my friends get together to shoot a political movie about how bad Obama is as a president, then sell that movie right before election night, the federal government should arrest me right?

I just want to be clear that you feel I should be arrested for that.

reply to post by mnemeth1


This was decided due to past transgressions. Once there were debtors prisons here in America and companies that held all of their employees in debt. Quit and face prison at hard labor. Many lives and countless moneys were spent bringing the corruption to an end. This is a government by the people and we certainly should maintain checks and balances that ensure our continued way of life.

You and ten of your friends campaigning is a political organization. You would represent your opinions. A corporation does not represent its employees, only its bottom line. You and 10 of your friends would not be arrested for that. This move opens the door for companies and international interests to decide the law of these United States.



[edit on 27-1-2010 by Donkey_Dean]

reply to post by Donkey_Dean


Oh no no no!

Myself and 10 of my friends formed a private movie production company to produce our movie.

We are a for-profit organization with a S-Corp charter.

We wanted to release our movie to theaters just prior to election night.

You would have me arrested for that.

"Corporation-American" - LOL.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4979e067e2fe.gif[/atsimg]

reply to post by mnemeth1


So you would be in the business of swaying elections? Would you cater to the highest bidder? If so yeah screw you and your friends.

Originally posted by Donkey_Dean
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

So you would be in the business of swaying elections? Would you cater to the highest bidder? If so yeah screw you and your friends.

That's all I wanted from you.

An open admission you'd have me arrested for speaking my mind.

reply to post by watcher73

The bill of rights does not enumerate the rights of organizations, they have none. Except those given by we, the people. I know religion, not necessarily an organization. Besides if these rights apply across the board to entities other than individuals why arent churches allowed to endorse candidates for office?

I totally agree watcher.

They should be moving in the opposite direction. Less political ads will force people to actually register on ATS and do some *bleeping* research on political candidates! Instead we will get a longer (drawn out) election process which A) is distracting for politicians who trying to do a job we appointed them to do, and B) will dumb down the selection process even more than it already is.

A corporation, a church, or any organization is made up of INDIVIDUALS. We as individuals should have rights. Organizations should not have the same rights. Period.

reply to post by mnemeth1

Perhaps because our bloated unconstitutional government provides them kickbacks, tax breaks, favorable "regulations", subsidies, and contracts?

Perhaps if our government wasn't engaged in violating every single clause of the constitution corporations wouldn't have a reason to fund political campaigns?

Good point OP. Unfortunately 1/2 of businesses would fail instantly if we cut 100% of gov't contracts. Unemployment would explode like a volcano. That just isn't an option, although watered down versions of your ideas might be something to take into consideration.

I work for the gov't and I'm always shocked at how much money the gov't gives to private businesses. Years ago, I surveyed an entire storm drainage system for a city of approximately 55k-60k people. The job took over a years time. The city made the wise choice of hiring me and one other guy to do it for $14 an hour. We ended up completing the job in just over a year and saved the city from a private company who would have done the exact same thing for about 900k more. Yes, 900k more. No typo.