http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/15/500435/mccain-corporations-not-people/?mobile=nc Surprising to hear this from a Republican. Sadly his opinion is of a minority in government today...
i can understand if someone thinks romney would make a better president. but how can you not be really really damn suspcious of all the billionaires in his pocket? its been said many times (unless there are truly people that think everything is as it should be) that this countrys government is broken and not sure its fixable even something horrible were to happen to spur a movement. you need normal people not tea party people. and maybe sitting in a tent by the stock exchange is all the normal people have. because voting for one of these two parties is really a toss up. and voting for obama is really just voting for the lesser of the (only) two evils. i feel for my son one day and what could happen.
Super PACS are great, political speech the media and politicians can't control. They freak out all the right people.
Judy Woodruff and John McCain engaging in political speech on a show funded by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/aboutus/funders.html Spoiler AT&T is paying for John McCain's political speech! Just remember, Their corporate funded speech: good Sheldon Adelson's corporate funded speech: destroying democracy
Wow, can't believe McCain didn't tow the party line here. Well, it's also political speech that non-billionaires and millionaires can't control either.Unfortunately, I don't come from super rich family. So pacs don't exactly say anything I wish either. But if I had billions of dollars, I would also love Super Pacs.
If money is free speech, then why can't people use money to donate to campaigns? Now, there are concerns about say, foreigners donating to campaigns or something like that. That's something to think about, and perhaps something mandating disclosure could be considered, though that has problems of privacy. But that's not what McCain's railing against here. Corporations at the end of the day, have to be the beneficiaries of human rights and that includes the right to free speech.
I don't know if it was in the original link, but McCain actually is railing, in part, against foreign money: http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...h-super-pacs/2012/06/15/gJQAFirPfV_story.html McCain says foreign money influencing US elections, sneaking in through super PACs WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain said in an interview posted online Friday that “foreign money” was helping fellow Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential hopes and singled out one of his ally’s most generous supporters. McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee, suggested casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s $10 million contribution to a pro-Romney super PAC was a conduit for Adelson to use profits from properties in Macau to shape American elections. McCain also criticized the Supreme Court ruling that allows individuals and corporations to make such unlimited donations to nominally independent political action committees. ...
Well, that is something to think about, but on the other hand, there's the real issue of privacy. Perhaps something like "If you donated, it should be shown that you donated, but you have every right to refuse to disclose who you donated to." I should probably need to think harder about that.
I'm not sure privacy is particularly important here - contributing to a political organization is a voluntary act. If we're linking money to free speech, there's no right to be able to speak without anyone being able to identify you.
Uh, there is a strong concept of anonymity in free speech. When Deep Throat pulled his crap, no one forced him to reveal his identity. When an "anonymous source" tell us that this time, Dwight Howard really wants to go the Lakers as opposed to the Mavericks last week, no one raises a fuss about demanding that said source names himself. Same thing with this. Now, there isn't a "right" to it. If people discover that Exxon Mobil donated 10 billion to the Romney campaign while not breaking any laws in the process, then they have a right to disclose that information. But just because there isn't a right to it means that you're forced to disclose it yourself.
Corporations are not people, and money is not speech - no matter how many times the billionaire-funded "grassroots" organizations try to redefine those things.
That's true, but not relevant to my point. Yes, people write things anonymously. But there's no Constitutionally protected guarantee of anonymity there. You're guaranteed the right to free speech - but there is nothing in our society that suggests that we have to guarantee that you can do it without disclosure. And with political speech, source and agenda matters. So I have no problem with laws that require full and open disclosure because it creates a more open and healthy society. As a country, we pretty universally embrace openness and transparency wherever possible when it comes to government - that's why we have things like FOIA, open hearings requirements, etc. There's just no protected right of privacy where people can be anonymous in government.
Wrong. Money is speech. That wasn't decided through Citizens United. That was decided over 40 years ago. If money wasn't speech, then the US government could tell the New York Times "Print all the newspapers you want, you just can't spend any money to do it with."
All this talk of corporations is a red herring. Ultimately it comes down to banning speech they don't like. The reason they want to ban corporate money is because they want to ban the speech produced by it. Any restrictions on speech, especially political speech, is wrong. The media corporations have had a monopoly on broadcasted political speech, and these Super PACS represent a threat to their influence.
