Supreme Court ruling on money and free speech
POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 25, 2026 22:50
VIEWED: 10274
PAGE 7 of 20
I find myself excited and challenged when I read threads like this. Maybe this stuff is not new, but some of it is new to ME. I kinda like the idea of having an archive of all of this.
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This Supreme Court decision is just plain wrong. Free Speech?? How is BUYING ads FREE?
I have not even liked the current system too much. We get bombarded with crap that we really don't understand, and we don't know who is behind it. Corps will not attach their names to these things; they will hide behind "coalitions" or other catchy phrases intended on mis-leading the public. We already get too much of that now, our election oversight is crap, and it will only get worse. Very disappointing!
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Quote:
Do yourselves a favor, think it all the way through before you set a political act in motion, and make damned SURE you fully comprehend the side effects and consequences of what you're asking first.
That's the part that people miss out on, seemingly every single time. Case in point: Republicans are calling for Harry Reid's ouster as Senate majority leader in light of some unfortunate word choices he made over a year ago. I'm no fan of Reid, so I say "Sure, let's get rid of him!"
Of course, we both have different motives. THEY think they'll hamstring the party, and some of their more dimwitted followers have this misconstrued notion that if Harry Reid were no longer majority leader, the Democrats would somehow not still hold the majority.
I, on the other hand, want him gone because he's a quisling, a milquetoast, a do-nothing. He's the least dynamic leader I can recall, and I think if we boot his worthless ass, we might have a chance to install a die-hard liberal firebrand more in the mold of the late Ted Kennedy or House Speaker Tip O'Neill.
So... different motives, same goal. The Republicans can't see past the fact that Reid's a Democrat and they want him gone for that. I see their blind fury as an opportunity. You want him gone? Okay, I'm with you. But you might not like who we replace him with. :)
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
This Supreme Court decision is just plain wrong. Free Speech?? How is BUYING ads FREE?
I have not even liked the current system too much. We get bombarded with crap that we really don't understand, and we don't know who is behind it. Corps will not attach their names to these things; they will hide behind "coalitions" or other catchy phrases intended on mis-leading the public. We already get too much of that now, our election oversight is crap, and it will only get worse. Very disappointing!
I agree 12,000 percent. :)
Right now, the best person I've seen at digging down and finding who's REALLY behind this crap is Rachel Maddow. And even though she's trying to put it in Cap'n Dummy talk, it's still hard to follow sometimes, because it's so convoluted.
Simplify. If you're going to allow corporate money, then force the corporation to attach its name to its ads. If GM wants to endorse of oppose something, put GM's name on it, not "The Harley Earl Foundation For American Change In Progress".
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Corporations, OTOH, have ONE and ONLY one motive: the highest amount of profit possible. Pay the least possible, and charge what the market will bear...They're answerable to nobody except (maybe) their shareholders, whose interests are the same as theirs: greater profitability, higher dividends, higher stock prices.
And if we were to replace all the Corporations with, say, Cooperatives, the members of the Co-ops wouldn't want greater profitability, higher dividends to the members, and higher value for the Co-op? Wouldn't they want to pay the least possible for raw materials and charge what the market would bear? Mightn't a Co-op be willing to pay campaign contributions to get favorable treatment from a legislator or get their man into office?
Corporations and Cooperatives and pretty much any form of business enterprise you can set up are, at the end of the day, just bunches of people. They want better, or what they consider better, for themselves and family, and rank the common good somewhat below that. Until you can make fundamental changes in human nature, you're stuck with it, though you bring all the corporations down.
That being said, doing something about Corporate "personhood" does seem a good idea.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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After reading further through what the decision states, I come away with this.
1. Corporations and special interests are allowed to donate as much money as they want to the manufacturing/production of political ads.
2. Corporations are NOT allowed to donate money directly to a candidate. (i.e bribes)
3. Ads for a candidate may run right on up to the election.
But... its still on the people to decide who to vote for.
Hate Walmart? Don't vote for the candidate they are promoting.
I have no intention of destroying the governments tyranny to only have it replaced by a corporate one.
Its hard to make a call on this one.
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Where they're losing me on this argument is that they keep making the argument that corporations have all the same rights as an individual person, while somehow retaining NONE of the responsibilities of those people.
Let's take the infamous Ford Pinto debacle as a case in point. Ford had a problem with the Pinto (they tended to explode, to put it simply); Ford KNEW they had a problem with the Pinto; Ford, as a corporate decision, decided to do nothing to fix the problem, deciding that it would be cheaper (and therefore more profitable for them) to simply pay off the families of any victims of their exploding cars, since it was going to add something like $14.83 to the bottom line of each Pinto to enact a solution.
So, knowingly and with malice aforethought, Ford continued selling cars that it already knew were killing people.
I'm not sure about you, but last time I looked, Felony Murder charges seem to apply. Ford knowingly committed a crime, and people quite clearly died as a direct result of that crime.
So, if a corporation is indeed a person, shouldn't the entire corporation have been on trial for Felony Murder?
Or take a more recent case: Blackwater. Instead of trying the people involved in the murders of 17 Iraqi civilians, charge the company as a whole. They set the tone, Eric Prince calls himself a holy warrior and a crusader; let's take the corporation at its word, and charge the entire board and all its shareholders.
Hey, if you're going to speak for all your people when you want to buy a Senator, you have to take responsibility for the actions of those individual people, too. Right?
Now all we need is a daring prosecutor with the stones to try something bold. Too bad we don't know any of those. I wonder what it would cost to buy one, since it's completely legal to do so now.
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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I guess we'll be seeing a lot of this kind of thing all year :
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/01/025329.php
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Nice call Jong, I've been pushing this vid out to everyone I know for the last few weeks.. (I think I even posted it here, earlier.)
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