That doesn’t cite your claim. That cites something much narrower. Nobody says the specific thing you claimed. You’re wrong.
Yes it does.
If you don’t agree, please explain why.
If you need me to go find a new citation, fine. It’s so easily found that I’m surprised you even question it. Heck, try this - google “get money out of politics.” See what you find.
Hi-yo Gish, awaaaaayy!
Oh, bullshit. He can handle it. What, he’s allowed to make lots of arguments but I’m not allowed to respond to all of them?
You claimed that “some people insist that ALL corporate participation in public policy, and ALL use of corporate money to do that, is wrong.” You cited a movement to prevent corporations from claiming constitutional rights, with the implied movement to prevent corporations from donating to political campaigns.
If you think that the only way for corporations to participate in public policy is to donate to political campaigns, you’re wrong. If you think that the Move to Amend movement would prevent corporations from speaking out on issues they believe in, you’re wrong.
Your cite is embarrassingly terrible. Will you sheepishly rescind the cite, or will you double down and insist it supports the point it so clearly doesn’t support?
No I didn’t.
Read it again. It’s not just about donations. In fact, Citizens United had nothing to do with donations.
No I’m not.
The Move to Amend movement asserts that corporations have NO rights, including the right to speech: “human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.”
Your response is terrible and another person would be embarrassed to offer it. Will you sheepishly rescind the response, or will you double down and insist it supports the point it so clearly doesn’t support?
Yes. Do you understand the implications of that? That corporations may be regulated in how they communicate? That a call for regulation does not equal a call for blanket silencing?
At this point, I’m back to what I realized years ago, though, so I think we’re done here. I should have followed my initial inclination to ignore this too-stupid-for-words claim. Here on out I’ll stick to that initial wisdom.
It’s a call for the government to have the power to blanketly silence them. It’s very clear - they say corporations should have NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
I’m a very intelligent person who understands this issue very well.
It’s quite possible that you are either confused, don’t understand my point, or are just plain wrong. If you want to stop discussing it because you can’t handle those possibilities, and want to take the easy way out, I can’t stop you.
I don’t understand what Move to Amend or Citizens United have to do with the criticism by some corporations of these discriminatory state laws – if Citizens U were overruled, or Move to Amend succeeded, how would such corporate criticism be stifled? By what possible law could the government sanction a corporation for sending a press release or a letter to a governor?
Back to my OP - the POINT was that it is hypocritical to complain about corporations using their money to influence public policy (which many liberals have undeniably done, and it’s silly to demand a citation for that) while cheering them for doing just that in Georgia.
What utter, ignorant silliness.
You seemed to claim that “liberals” think corporations have no right to refuse to do business in a state. Birds, squirrels, and wind currents are not persons protected by the constitution. Do you think “liberals” think birds, squirrels and winds have no right to cross state lines?
Right-wingers are so amusing. Wallowing in their own hypocrisies they desperately pretend to find hypocrisy in others.
But the methods are extremely different – corporations secretly paying for ads for candidates that help their bottom line, or secretly paying for lavish dinners and vacations for politicians to influence them, is different then corporations publicly and very openly advocating against discriminatory laws. Maybe at some point some liberals have criticized corporations publicly and very openly advocating for or against something, but I believe that’s much, much less common and significant than the criticism of under-the-table funding of SuperPAC ads, luxurious retreats for lobbying congresscritters, and the like.
No I didn’t. That’s nonsense.
I’m just amazed that so many people are unaware that there are lots of people out there making the ridiculous, stupid argument that I explained. Face reality instead of denying it. It’s okay - you won’t get hurt by calling out people on your own side of the political aisle for being stupid. I’m doing it right now–I’m a liberal too.
There are people out there - lots of them - who say that corporations have no rights. Deal with it.
And, again, that’s a bit off topic anyway - the POINT is that they complain about corporations using money as leverage in public policy, and now they’re cheering them for it.
Do you think birds, squirrels and wind DO have rights? Can they sue you in court?
Yes, I’d say those liberals think birds, squirrels and wind have no rights because they are not people, and that corporations also have no rights for the same reason.
And?
As noted above, I’m not a right-winger, pal.
Do you have an actual response to my post, or not?
Oh please.
These people think corporations should never use their money to influence public policy. Ever. Even when they openly by ads. (And buying politicians dinner or retreats may happen, but it’s a violation of ethics rules on the federal level so it doesn’t happen very often).
Utterly false. They have been very clear and few have made a distinction between corporations running ads openly or secretly. They want corporations to be forbidden from running ads period. (The only reason you see some of them calling merely for “disclosure” is because that’s all they can get).
Writing letters and issuing press releases isn’t using money to influence policy, it’s using influence to influence policy. It doesn’t cost any money to write letters or issue a press release.
So what does this have to do with corporations writing letters and issuing press releases criticizing individual state policies?
Of course it costs money to write letters or issue a press release. Someone is paid by the corporation to do those things.
But the money involved here is the threat of corporations to pull their business from Georgia. That’s the power of money I was referring to. Corporations used their money to throw their weight around to directly influence public policy.
That’s a trivial use of money. Yes, a corporation spent $3 on paper and ink and a stamp (or not, if they used an email), and they had someone already on staff stop making coffee and type the letter. But it’s ridiculous to compare that to millions spent on SuperPAC ads.
That’s not the power of money that is typically criticized – typically criticized are secretive SuperPAC donations and advertisements. Perhaps that’s typically criticized by using language similar to “get corporate money and influence out of politics!”, but when we dig down, it’s not hard to find that this is a shorthand way of criticizing secretive SuperPAC donations, advertisements, and similar, and not public press releases and open letters to politicians.
I’ll make a note to liberal activists suggesting that they carve out rhetorical space for this kind of positive use of corporate influence when criticizing the oversized influence of corporate spending in politics.
I know, just making a point.
EXACTLY. That’s my point. It’s still the power of money, and to criticize it in one case but cheer it in another is hypocritical.
Let’s be clear - they are just as unhappy about OPEN donations and ads as “secretive” ones.
But see, that’s just the other massive hypocrisy that happens when the vast majority of people who say that corporations shouldn’t use money to influence policy say that they should be banned from doing so because…they have no speech rights at all. Even when NOT spending money.
Well there is this notion that corporations have too much power in our society. A lot of it does have to do with lobbying and campaign finance, but issues like this indicate corporate power as well. In essence, it is a different form of lobbying, but it is lobbying none-the-less.
What this shows is that you ignore what many have pointed before to make a very silly point. Corporations are indeed bad when thanks to their economical power can and do influence the government for issues that cause more harm than good.
But the biggest error in the OP comes from the idea that there is no nuance, the OP just implies that there is nothing good whatsoever being done by corporations. And/or that there are many liberals that cannot tell the difference. I think many do, thank you very much.