Gosh, John, could you make your traps a little more subtle? I feel a bit like the Roadrunner reading a sign that offers “Free Burd Fud”.
Allow me to offer a counter-trap. If we are to assume that corporations are totally persons, endowed by their Incorporator with certain unalienable rights, does that include the Second Amendment? Do they possess the right to keep and bear arms, just like all the rest of us persons do? After all, with their organizational charts and hierarchy, they are a lot more like a “well-regulated militia” than your brother-in-law, yes? May we expect Comcast to be packing heat?
And Shirley they must have the right to refuse self-incrimination, yes? No more embarrassing e-mails from stock “analysts” gloating over how they are screwing their customers? If they are endowed with First Amendment rights, who’s to say they don’t have all the rest?
Might have well been relevant when corporations were groups, but now they are persons. Person is a singular noun. By the miracle of legalistic absurdity, they are individuals.
They always were. I know people are struggling with this fact, but legal personage is not a new concept. Corporations have always been legal persons. They were legal persons before any of us were born.
Wow your entire argument has been reduced to pluralization? You do understand that in English, when speaking of an “entity” which the legal fiction of a company or heck even a country…you refer to it in the singular.
This does not mean that they are “robots in disguise” The legal fiction of a “corporation” is an entity that is a fictional person. And it has been so for far longer than any campaign finance laws have been in place.
When you speak of a union, county, city etc… you use the same language.
I like how you ducked the question on why it was better that Fox news given the right to political speech but the ACLU, unions and non-profits were gagged.
What is with this “gagged” codswallop? Has anyone here put forth that corporations ought have no “speech” rights? (Forgive my weakness at reading between the clichés.)
I was talking about the rule of law that was overturned, Fox would be allowed to advertize for political “movies” thoes other orginizations were gagged.
Let me make it less exciting for you to read, John
The vast majority of corporations are by design amoral greed machines whose only concern is making more money
Giving such organizations political free speech rights, especially coupled with unlimited SuperPAC funding means that such organizations have the ability to drown out most other voices in the mass media, which runs on money, which is what the greed machines have in spades.
Therefore, our current definition of personhood for legal entities has led to a predictable takeover of our political system by greedy corporations and the plutocrats that control them. (Hello, President Romney!) The present status of corporations, however REASONABLE by your standards, will lead to an America that will make the Gilded Age look positively egalitarian. Anyone who cares about democracy must oppose it.
It’s called wit. Helps make arguments fun to read. Feel free to quote Animal Farm if the spirit moves you, though you should be aware that some quotes are more equal than others.
To put perhaps too fine a point on it all, the rise of the SuperPAC has made the whole argument more or less academic. Before all this kerfluffle, the Koch Brothers had about a gazillion times the political power that I did, or you did, Now, its still pretty much the same.
One possible ray of sunshine, still dim, but possible: there are some signs that political advertising doesn’t have the clout it used to have. Perhaps one day soon our Corporate Insect Overlords will begin to think that such massive outlays of cash are not cost effective. Of course, that will mean they simply move that money into more effective lobbying, but still…
I think you may be confusing “corporation” with “publicly traded Delaware Corporations” but that is a policy issue and not an issue with Corps as a concept.
SuperPAC’s legality was not related to Citizens United, they are also still open to regulation but the FEC has been slow to act. Direct contributions to candidates by corps is still Illegal. AS to the airspace, big players had an option, just buy a media company then you are not under restrictions. This was not an option for citizen groups.
You have given no evidence for this outside of broad sweeping conjecture.
Note that Americans wasted more on one week of lottery tickets last year than the entire amount spend on lobbying in the year.
The political will of the people will never be expressed if they expect it to happen through apathy. Some of the most powerful lobbies in DC are groups of citizens who are not rich. E.G. the NAR, AARP, NRA and Teachers and labor unions.
But I will ask you, if you are in favor of gagging “corporations” do you also support gagging ABC/CBS Fox, News Corp and the New York times? If not by what standard to you exempt them?
The McCain–Feingold Act prohibited corporations and unions from using their general treasury to fund “electioneering communications” within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election.
It exempted media corps like Fox or News Corp.
That is a gag rule…but seeing as you have admitted you have no interest in the truth I know this will fly over your head again.
Money isn’t speech, it is simply a means to increase the volume of speech. I accept that regulating that inequity is a tricky business, and must be very carefully done, so as not to do damage to core principals.
If I can only afford to “speak” in my normal talking voice, and my opponent is free to bring in a sound truck that would deafen a mountain, how “free” my speech may be loses all meaning. Equality of speech is an essential component of free speech, if you can be drowned out, you are essentially “gagged”, whether you are still free to make ineffective gestures of speech or not.
If the wealthy patrons of the Forces of Darkness truly believe what they say, if they truly believe that their arguments are persuasive and intelligent, why do they fight so fiercely to keep an unequal advantage? Either they don’t really believe it, or don’t really care if its true or not, and it is nothing more than a cynical and ruthless grasp for power.
Money talks, and money votes. We’d like very much to change that, and could use your help, if you’ve nothing better to do…
The 1st amendment also includes the right to publish (the press) that is what was restricted.
And if your idea of improving things is by restricting my ability to start an organization or to donate money to an organization to amplify my individual voice to a level where it is heard. I have no interest in helping you.
Money in politics is not the problem, voter apathy is.
Your rules would remove the voice of groups I support like the Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU, FFRF etc…
Your attempt to punish some erroneous definition of a “corporation” will hand power to mass media and the rich.
Also I have zero interest in helping you out with your goal…it is antithetical to my basic morals to quell the speech of others I disagree with. Both due to ethical concerns and also because once the balance of power swings (which it will) those same laws will be used against me.
You know, this gets really tiresome. We’re debating here. As many folks have noted time and again, your normal prose is often impenetrable. If you don’t want people to ask you to clarify your position, why don’t you just make your position clear in the first place? This isn’t about “traps”. We’re having a debate about free speech rights, and then you launch into some lecture about economics and the nature of unions vs corporations. Not sure why you are baffled by people who wonder what that has to do with the free speech rights of either types of organizations. That is, afterall, the topic of this debate.
Allow me to nip that straw in the bud. No one is arguing that.