Citizens United will destroy America

Rich people should have more say than you and me, just like kings and lords have more say than peasants, don't you know that?

 

We can all thank the 5-4 extremist majority of the Supreme Court for this insane spending spree that is simply a blatant attempt to buy the American national elections. That this is happening is nothing short of obscene.

 

I honestly just don't understand how one person can have so much and want even more. I hope I find out one day.

I would be sooooo checked out of anything and everything after my first billion. b****es, basketball, beaches and beer pretty much non stop.

 

Let me guess, Adelson's next project to be proposed by the newly elected Rabbi:

 

I don't think that's it at all; the whole thing is based on the bizarre "money is speech" concept which is dubious to begin with and it's very easy to regulate this kind of behavior without slippery sloping into other areas.

We can alos thank our crappy constitution which is in desperate need of amendment...but nearly impossible to amend.

 

If that is the case, then why is it that politicians (mainly Republicans) are doing their best to silence the free speech of labor unions even though they fall under the "corporations" label?

 

They don't fall under corporations, I don't really understand his post.

Anyway unions are a giant red herring/bait and switch here. GOPsters like to draw a false equivalency about them influencing the political process and so people slavishly bring them up here in order to seem balanced.

 

Sam, the constitution is far from perfect, but considering how rarely it has been amended (and you're right, it's damned hard to amend, which is probably a good thing, IMO), I think it's remarkable that it's stood up to the passage of time as well as it has. In my opinion, the major problem we face with this issue isn't the constitution, but the men, and women, appointed to the Supreme Court. Every time I read a post from someone here, like Rhad, for instance (not to pick on him, but I had to mention someone I don't have on ignore), that "They're all the same! What difference does it make who gets elected? (unless it's Ron Paul, haha!)" it drives me crazy. It makes a huge difference because of this one issue. The lifetime appointments not only to the Supreme Court, but the other lifetime Federal judges, as well. Because of the Bushes (or the Shrubs, if you will), we have a Supreme Court with a narrow radical majority. If Romney is elected, look for that narrow radical majority to become a large radical majority eager to toss out even more established law than the current bunch have.

That's the crucial issue of this presidential election, and one of the issues rarely talked about, and that's an abomination.

 

The last campaign finance law banned a video made by ordinary citizens who used money to voice their opinions that Hillary Clinton sucked. And I know most leftists here want laws which would regulate the use of money even further than McCain-Feingold.

Given those facts, I don't believe that statement for one minute.

Furthermore, money is speech. This has Supreme Court precedence well before Citizens United. If it wasn't, then the government could enact all sorts of regulations which dealt with money but which would inevitably hamper speech. New York Times? They can print all the newspaper they want, they just can't spend any money to do it. Television stations? Can show what they want, just can't have commercials. So on, and so on.

Heck, if money isn't speech, what's wrong with a poll tax?

I don't understand how that's relevant. In fact, I have not read anything about Republicans attempting to restrict how labor unions can deal with campaign contributions from my favorite sites, and a quick Google search turns up nothing. In fact, I found a New Republic article in which Republicans were helping union chiefs in Hawaii, especially because of their interests in ensuring free speech.

At the end of the day, legally labor unions are corporations. There is absolutely nothing to debate here.

 

Kojirou, I both like and respect you, and usually enjoy your posts, even when I don't agree, but the quote I bolded is simply a crock. Leftists? Oh, really? You seriously believe that it's just Leftists that want to "further regulate" campaign spending? Where did you, with all due respect, get THAT stupid idea? I guess the moderate Republicans I know that support the idea are Leftists. I guess the many Independent voters I know that support the idea are Leftists. I guess the moderate to conservative Democrats I know that support the idea are Leftists. I guess John McCain is a Leftist. Right?

Bull ****. Absolute bull ****. You disappoint me. Get a grip on yourself, OK? You're better than that.

 

That's hilarious white washng of what actually happened. And you're confusing the two parts of McCain Feingold.

Citizens United, or actually under its full name, Citizens United Not Timid (get it? C.U.N.T. !!!! HAHAHAHAH Hilarious!) were "ordinary citizens" consisting of professional right wing GOP political hacks like Roger Stone, and they weren't banned from making a hysterically stupid infomercial/movie, they were banned from advertising it in certain time period before an election under McCain Feingold.

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Which facts now? The actual ones?

No it's not. Money is money. The act of giving money is being hammered into the "political speech" bucket since Buckley v. Valeo since the 70's - it's not really an ideal fit in logical terms. Suffice to say none of the ridiculous scenarios you envision are a logical extension of a reasoanble system of campaign finance regulation.

Uh...the fact that the 24th amendment makes it expressly illegal? Other than that, nothing.

Actually I don't think most unions are organized as corporations - the AFL-CIO may own some subsidiary corporations for administration etc but the union itself is a separate form of entity.

 

The last amendment ratified was in 1992 which prevents congressional pay raises from taking effect until after an election.

it took 203 years for the ratification process to be completed.

That's a sign of a broken process.

Oh, and life tenure of supreme court justices is a problem created by teh constitution.

 

Supreme court justices should have term limits, so should congressmen. Good luck on getting that added to the constitution.

 

Well let's hear it libertarian/conservatives.

Please tell us why this is the America you prefer.

 

NYT is a corporation, as is TW, parent of CNN. liberals want to ban speech ny corporations they don't like, not by all corporations.

 

If you look back on that quote, I said, "most leftists here", which means that I am talking about this particular forum. And here, on the D&D, it is leftists who generally do lead the charge against Citizens United. I have already acknowledged earlier, after all, that many Americans believe that it should be struck down, for reasons which I consider very well-intentioned but nevertheless misguided.

And you don't see a serious problem with the government determining what political movies should be and should not be allowed to be advertised? The government themselves in the case acknowledged that there really wasn't anything which could stop them from abusing this, and literally played a defense of "But we won't do something like that!"


As for the term limit thing, I'm going to observe that democrats (note the small d, please, I'm not talking about the party) inherently seem to think that when you enact more democracy, that the results that you want are the ones which are going to get passed.

You look at Citizens United and think "Oh, if only the justices had answered to the people, this wouldn't have happened." But what about Roe v. Wade? What about Brown vs. Board? What about Earl Warren's decisions in general, many of which were not well received at the time, such as Miranda v. Arizona?

Be careful what you wish for when you ask for more democracy in things like the law. You may get it.

 

No I don't have a serious problem with the FEC enforcing campaign rules - neither did the Supreme Court in 2003. The FEC has to make all sorts of judgment calls like this every day, and was actually established for this very purpose.

Life tenure may have made sense when live expectancy was shorter; times have changed substantially since then and justices regularly serve for 20-30 years instead of 15-18 which was the norm up until recently.

 

Oh and Marbury Madison allowing these unelected folks to nullify a law passed by the Congress and signed by the President was an unwarrranted power grab by the Court. This was not a flaw of the Constitution.

I definitely agree that these folks should have less than life time terms.

 

There really should be more to the election than who is on the non-elected life-time S. Ct.

We have just seen the most important power grab by the Court perhaps since Marbury.. They took the election away from Gore. We had the unseemly comment of Sandra O'Connor saying essentially: "Damn I have to stay on four more years when it look like Gore won on election night.
Fortunately she got to change the results and retire. Now we have judges meeting with the Koch bothers and other conservatives and voting to let rich billionaires outspend the rest of the public on elections.