Ron Paul Rages "Campaign Finance Reform? Don't Make Me Laugh!"

[Swordsmyth]

Campaign Finance Reform Helps Special Interests

One of the new Democratic House majority’s top priorities is so-called campaign finance reform legislation. Contrary to the claims of its supporters, campaign finance reform legislation does not limit the influence of powerful special interests. Instead, it violates the First Amendment and burdens those seeking real change in government.

The First Amendment of the Constitution forbids Congress from interfering in any way with any citizen’s ability to influence government policies. Spending money to support candidates and causes is one way individuals influence government policies. Therefore, laws limiting and regulating donations to campaigns and organizations that work to change government policies violate the First Amendment.
One very troubling aspect of campaign finance reform laws is forcing organizations involved in “electioneering” to hand over the names of their top donors to the federal government. Electioneering is broadly defined to include informing the public of candidates’ positions and records, even if the group in question focuses solely on advancing issues and ideas. Burdening these types of organizations will make it harder for individuals to learn the truth about candidates’ positions.
America has a long and distinguished tradition of anonymous political speech. Both the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist papers where published anonymously. As Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in NAACP v. Alabama, where the Supreme Court upheld the NAACP’s right to keep its membership list confidential, “Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.”
Supporters of groups with “dissident beliefs” have good reason to fear new disclosure laws. In 2014, the IRS had to pay 50,000 dollars to the National Organization for Marriage because an IRS employee leaked donors names to the organization’s opponents. Fortunately, the Trump administration has repealed the regulation forcing activist groups to disclose their donors to the IRS. Unfortunately, Congress seems poised to reinstate that rule.
In recent years, we have seen the rise of authoritarian political movements that think harassment and even violence against those with differing views are acceptable tactics. Can anyone doubt that activists in these movements would do all they could to obtain the lists of donors to groups that oppose their agenda? They may be able to obtain the lists either by hacking government databases or by having a sympathetic federal employee “accidentally” leak the names.
As long as businesses can profit by currying favor with politicians and bureaucrats who have the power to reward or punish them via subsidies and regulations, powerful interests will find a way to influence the political process. These special interests seek out and reward politicians who support policies favoring their interests. So foreign policy hawks can count on generous support from the military-industrial complex, supporters of corporatist health care systems like Obamacare can count on generous support from the health insurance-pharma complex, and apologists for the Federal Reserve can count on support from the big banks.
Special interests do not favor free-market capitalism. Instead, they favor a mixed economy where government protects the profits of large business interests. That is why big business is more likely to support a progressive or a “moderate” than a libertarian. Campaign finance and donor disclosure laws will make it harder for grassroots liberty activists to challenge the corporatist status quo. Those wishing to get big money out of politics should work to get politics out of all aspects of the economy.


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...-make-me-laugh


We have a few people here who think it is a good idea.

[James_Madison_Lives]

So Paul is in support of Citizens United? If so disagree with him here. Corporations are not people and should not be accorded the same rights as people. Also disagree that money is speech. We should not confuse the megaphone with the speech. Of course all this is irrelevant because we have electronically rigged elections anyway.

https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/Ge...e-for-Cheating

[Swordsmyth]

So Paul is in support of Citizens United? If so disagree with him here. Corporations are not people and should not be accorded the same rights as people. Also disagree that money is speech. We should not confuse the megaphone with the speech. Of course all this is irrelevant because we have electronically rigged elections anyway.

https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/Ge...e-for-Cheating

Corporations are groups of people and money to buy speech is speech, allowing government to control who is allowed to speak makes the oligarchs stronger because they always have access to the politicians.

[Occam's Banana]

So Paul is in support of Citizens United? If so disagree with him here. Corporations are not people and should not be accorded the same rights as people. Also disagree that money is speech. We should not confuse the megaphone with the speech. Of course all this is irrelevant because we have electronically rigged elections anyway.

https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/Ge...e-for-Cheating

Meh. As far as this issue is concerned, I don't really care whether corporations are "people". Nor do I care whether money is "speech". It simply doesn't matter.

The fundamental problem with the so-called "reform" of campaign finance is that it treats a symptom while the disease causing the symptom rages on unchecked.

As long as the US government and its officials (elected or otherwise) continue to arrogate to themselves such vastly overweening authority over society in general and the economy in particular, cronyism and influence peddling will continue unabated. The only question is, "What are the forms in which this inevitable cronyism and influence peddling will manifest?" At best, campaign finance reform can do nothing except change (some of) those forms. It does not and will not eliminate them. (IOW: Campaign finance reform is little more than an exercise in rearranging deck chairs ...)

Pass whatever "reforms" you like. It doesn't matter. You'll just end up advocating for yet more "reforms" after it becomes apparent that the previous ones didn't work and electoral cronyism and influence peddling are still just as rampant as they were before.

[acptulsa]

Pass whatever "reforms" you like. It doesn't matter. You'll just end up advocating for yet more "reforms" after it becomes apparent that the previous ones didn't work and electoral cronyism and influence peddling are still just as rampant as they were before.

This. The hundred fifty years of propaganda doesn't even pretend government "participation" in the market isn't evil. The official line merely has people convinced that it's a necessary evil. Of course, Coolidge proved otherwise. But people reject those lessons out of hand because Coolidge didn't do anything.

He actually did quite a lot. He protected us from government corruption by preventing government participation. Then Hoover, a major progressive, screwed everything up and Coolidge was framed for half the blame because they were both Republicans (though Coolidge considered Hoover an idiot).

We all want to believe the truth will out. But we're clearly going to have to help it out.