NYgs23
01-24-2010, 06:13 PM
Okay, I promise this is my last thread on this subject. After this, I give up. But let me just try one more time...
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overturned major portions of the McCain-Feingold Act that prohibit unions and corporations (profit and non-profit) from spending money from their treasuries on political advertising, as well as two previous Court decisions (from 1990 and 2002) that allow the government prohibit such spending. It also overrules does NOT allow corporations to donate directly to candidates.
This is a good thing.
1. Corporations are not evil "creations of the state." Corporations are associations of people structured in a specific way for economic and legal purposes. In the current system, corporations do receive certain state privileges. Most of the state privileges they receive, such as limited liability, could be produced in the free market through private contracts.
2. Corporations are not all Exxon and Goldman-Sachs groups. Various smaller businesses are corporations. Most non-profit and advocacy groups are corporations. The ACLU and NRA are corporations. Corporations do not all agree on everything. Also, this ruling applies to unions, as well as for-profit and non-profit corporations.
3. For-profit corporations provide major benefits to the economy. Limited liability (which could occur in the free market) allow corporations of acquire large pools of capital from investors necessary to engage in large investment projects.
4. Although certain corporations, like certain individuals and non-corporate groups, lobby for government largess, the corporation per se, as a method for individuals to associate and pool their resources, either for for-profit or not-for-profit reasons, is more to be celebrated than scorned.
5. "Corporations are PEOPLE!" (like Soylent Green?). Corporations are NOT people, no one considers them people, the law does not consider corporations people. This is a ridiculous cartoon strawman invented by left-wing anti-business types. So-called "legal personhood," is simply a construct by which this association of people is considered, hypothetically, as a composite person for the sake of convenience for certain, specific legal purposes. It does not mean the law considers corporations people, like you a me. I repeat: the law does not view and never has viewed corporations as real people. It considers them a group of people, which it treats as a composite "person" in certain legal matters, for the sake of convenience.
6. Citizens United was not based on the idea of "corporations as people" either. It was based on the reality that corporations, while not people, are made up of real, live, flesh-and-blood people. Thus, the money in the corporate account is money owned by real, live, flesh-and-blood people. Thus, these real, live, flesh-and-blood people have the natural and Constitutional right (under the First Amendment) to spend that money (their money) for political advocacy. Specifically, the money in the corporate account is owned by shareholders, but they have delegated control over their money and how it is spent to the corporate Board, which therefore has a the right to allocate that money as it sees fit, including for political advocacy.
7. The fact that the shareholders may disagree with what the Board spends it doesn't matter. They already delegated the Board that authority over their property, with certain stipulations that the shareholders can exploit if they don't like what's going on.
8. The fact that corporations receive certain state privileges doesn't matter. Most people and groups receive certain state privileges. Unions do. Civil employees do. Welfare recipients do. People with marriage licenses. They should all are allowed to spend their money on political advertisement.
9. Once again, the ruling does not allow corporations to donate money to candidates. It just allows them to spend money on private political advertising.
10. "Campaign finance reform" is a boondoggle intended to give the government more power. Should that be surprising? McCain-Feingold, which is the major law this ruling guts, is the worst of the worst. Remember:
a) McCain-Feingold was designed by Congress. Do you trust Congress to define the campaign rules governing their own job security? Isn't this like the fox guarding the henhouse?
b) McCain-Feingold is enforced by a govt agency, the FEC. Do you think the FEC enforced it and other campaign finance laws fairly and consistently? Ever heard of regulatory capture?
c) Bigger and richer interest groups would be better able to exploit CFR loopholes than smaller, less well-connected ones. Therefore, shouldn't CFR help bigger, richer groups?
d) CFR has gotten stricter and stricter since the first CFR law, the Tillman Act, signed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907. Has the US gotten more pro-freedom since that time? Has the govt become less controlled by special interests?
e) This ruling only takes the law back to what it was in 1989. Have we become more free in the twenty intervening years of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama? Do big corporations have less influence now then they did in 1989?
f) Utah and Virgina already allow corporate advertising. Are they more controlled by special interests than other states?
g) France and Britain have extremely rigid campaigning laws. Are they bastions of liberty compared to the US?
h) Ross Perot and Steve Forbes were rich enough to "drown" other speech out, yet they lost. Corps who sink their money into losing candidates will be hurt.
i) Media corporations, including the empires of Murdoch and Turner, are already allowed to pour as much money as they want in political speech, under the First Amendment freedom of the press! Why shouldn't other corps and unions get the same freedom?
j) Shouldn't nonprofit political advocacy corporations like the ACLU be allowed to engage in political speech?
k) The case surrounding Citizens United didn't have to do with a giant multinational "drowning out everyone else with dollars," but with a tiny nonprofit advocacy group with one anti-Hillary video, which was being harassed by the ever-so unbiased FEC. Is this the sort of thuggery we as libertarians support?
l) In response to this, leftists have been proposing constitutional amendments imposing limits on the First Amendment, prosecuting five Supreme Court justices for treason, having Obama stack the Court like FDR once did, and imposing a 500% tax on corps engaged in "political speech." Are we as libertarian comfortable with this?
m) Once you start making exceptions for things like free speech, don't be surprised if it comes back to bite you.
11. The fact that this ruling overturns the heart of McCain-Feingold has many benefits.
a) It will allow us to more easily see which candidates which corps and unions support, allowing us to oppose candidates supported by corps we don't like and boycott corps that support candidates we don't like.
b) It weakens the monopoly of the MSM, a small group of corps who are already granted unlimited free speech of the First Amendment.
c) It weakens the major political parties, part of whose strength comes from the fact that they're able to pour money into political speech.
d) Likewise, it weakens the strength of incumbency. McCain-Feingold was nicknamed the "Incumbent Protection Act" because it's nearly difficult to compete with incumbents when corporations, which make up most political advocacy groups, are unable to run ads against them in the months before an election.
e) PACs, 527 groups, and "soft money" will have less power, since they all sprouted up as sneaky, loophole ways to get around the CFR laws.
f) The power of the FEC, along with the power for the FEC to pick and choose who it enforces the laws against (e.g. a tiny anti-Hillary nonprofit), is weakened.
g) Less leeway for Congress to make laws assuming loophole exceptions in the First Amendment.
Okay, that's it. I'm done. This is my last thread on this. I promise.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overturned major portions of the McCain-Feingold Act that prohibit unions and corporations (profit and non-profit) from spending money from their treasuries on political advertising, as well as two previous Court decisions (from 1990 and 2002) that allow the government prohibit such spending. It also overrules does NOT allow corporations to donate directly to candidates.
This is a good thing.
1. Corporations are not evil "creations of the state." Corporations are associations of people structured in a specific way for economic and legal purposes. In the current system, corporations do receive certain state privileges. Most of the state privileges they receive, such as limited liability, could be produced in the free market through private contracts.
2. Corporations are not all Exxon and Goldman-Sachs groups. Various smaller businesses are corporations. Most non-profit and advocacy groups are corporations. The ACLU and NRA are corporations. Corporations do not all agree on everything. Also, this ruling applies to unions, as well as for-profit and non-profit corporations.
3. For-profit corporations provide major benefits to the economy. Limited liability (which could occur in the free market) allow corporations of acquire large pools of capital from investors necessary to engage in large investment projects.
4. Although certain corporations, like certain individuals and non-corporate groups, lobby for government largess, the corporation per se, as a method for individuals to associate and pool their resources, either for for-profit or not-for-profit reasons, is more to be celebrated than scorned.
5. "Corporations are PEOPLE!" (like Soylent Green?). Corporations are NOT people, no one considers them people, the law does not consider corporations people. This is a ridiculous cartoon strawman invented by left-wing anti-business types. So-called "legal personhood," is simply a construct by which this association of people is considered, hypothetically, as a composite person for the sake of convenience for certain, specific legal purposes. It does not mean the law considers corporations people, like you a me. I repeat: the law does not view and never has viewed corporations as real people. It considers them a group of people, which it treats as a composite "person" in certain legal matters, for the sake of convenience.
6. Citizens United was not based on the idea of "corporations as people" either. It was based on the reality that corporations, while not people, are made up of real, live, flesh-and-blood people. Thus, the money in the corporate account is money owned by real, live, flesh-and-blood people. Thus, these real, live, flesh-and-blood people have the natural and Constitutional right (under the First Amendment) to spend that money (their money) for political advocacy. Specifically, the money in the corporate account is owned by shareholders, but they have delegated control over their money and how it is spent to the corporate Board, which therefore has a the right to allocate that money as it sees fit, including for political advocacy.
7. The fact that the shareholders may disagree with what the Board spends it doesn't matter. They already delegated the Board that authority over their property, with certain stipulations that the shareholders can exploit if they don't like what's going on.
8. The fact that corporations receive certain state privileges doesn't matter. Most people and groups receive certain state privileges. Unions do. Civil employees do. Welfare recipients do. People with marriage licenses. They should all are allowed to spend their money on political advertisement.
9. Once again, the ruling does not allow corporations to donate money to candidates. It just allows them to spend money on private political advertising.
10. "Campaign finance reform" is a boondoggle intended to give the government more power. Should that be surprising? McCain-Feingold, which is the major law this ruling guts, is the worst of the worst. Remember:
a) McCain-Feingold was designed by Congress. Do you trust Congress to define the campaign rules governing their own job security? Isn't this like the fox guarding the henhouse?
b) McCain-Feingold is enforced by a govt agency, the FEC. Do you think the FEC enforced it and other campaign finance laws fairly and consistently? Ever heard of regulatory capture?
c) Bigger and richer interest groups would be better able to exploit CFR loopholes than smaller, less well-connected ones. Therefore, shouldn't CFR help bigger, richer groups?
d) CFR has gotten stricter and stricter since the first CFR law, the Tillman Act, signed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907. Has the US gotten more pro-freedom since that time? Has the govt become less controlled by special interests?
e) This ruling only takes the law back to what it was in 1989. Have we become more free in the twenty intervening years of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama? Do big corporations have less influence now then they did in 1989?
f) Utah and Virgina already allow corporate advertising. Are they more controlled by special interests than other states?
g) France and Britain have extremely rigid campaigning laws. Are they bastions of liberty compared to the US?
h) Ross Perot and Steve Forbes were rich enough to "drown" other speech out, yet they lost. Corps who sink their money into losing candidates will be hurt.
i) Media corporations, including the empires of Murdoch and Turner, are already allowed to pour as much money as they want in political speech, under the First Amendment freedom of the press! Why shouldn't other corps and unions get the same freedom?
j) Shouldn't nonprofit political advocacy corporations like the ACLU be allowed to engage in political speech?
k) The case surrounding Citizens United didn't have to do with a giant multinational "drowning out everyone else with dollars," but with a tiny nonprofit advocacy group with one anti-Hillary video, which was being harassed by the ever-so unbiased FEC. Is this the sort of thuggery we as libertarians support?
l) In response to this, leftists have been proposing constitutional amendments imposing limits on the First Amendment, prosecuting five Supreme Court justices for treason, having Obama stack the Court like FDR once did, and imposing a 500% tax on corps engaged in "political speech." Are we as libertarian comfortable with this?
m) Once you start making exceptions for things like free speech, don't be surprised if it comes back to bite you.
11. The fact that this ruling overturns the heart of McCain-Feingold has many benefits.
a) It will allow us to more easily see which candidates which corps and unions support, allowing us to oppose candidates supported by corps we don't like and boycott corps that support candidates we don't like.
b) It weakens the monopoly of the MSM, a small group of corps who are already granted unlimited free speech of the First Amendment.
c) It weakens the major political parties, part of whose strength comes from the fact that they're able to pour money into political speech.
d) Likewise, it weakens the strength of incumbency. McCain-Feingold was nicknamed the "Incumbent Protection Act" because it's nearly difficult to compete with incumbents when corporations, which make up most political advocacy groups, are unable to run ads against them in the months before an election.
e) PACs, 527 groups, and "soft money" will have less power, since they all sprouted up as sneaky, loophole ways to get around the CFR laws.
f) The power of the FEC, along with the power for the FEC to pick and choose who it enforces the laws against (e.g. a tiny anti-Hillary nonprofit), is weakened.
g) Less leeway for Congress to make laws assuming loophole exceptions in the First Amendment.
Okay, that's it. I'm done. This is my last thread on this. I promise.