GREAT post, Bear, just a great post. So good it needs to be seen a second time.

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Complete fucking silliness arguing this.

In this argument, freedom of speech is only available to those who can afford to buy the loudest megaphone....Yeah, like that rings the freedom bell...

Do you people REALLY think that this wont be gamed ?.... Jesus, this is the epitome of naivety....get over yourselves.

The SPIRIT of the Constitution is not always directly aligned with the letter of the law, NOBODY (especially 234 yrs ago) could have POSSIBLY written ANY document that could withstand a legal challenge of black letter law today.... That's why we also use COMMON SENSE to identify the SPIRIT and INTENT of the law.... So, to give parallel rights to an inanimate object, whether it be a fucking refrigerator or a mostly foreign held corporation is just fucking asinine.

The founding fathers would be ashamed of you people, just listen to yourselves freely admitting you have no more freedom of speech rights as a citizen and human being, than a fucking carburetor does......Wake the FUCK up clowns.

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Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do - Voltaire

Gen, one point of clarification, should a public employee be able to receive money from their party?

I've been pondering this overnight and can't really come to a conclusion other than ,our Republic made it just fine before McCain/Feingold(2002),Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce(1990),and McConnell v. FEC(2002),which is all this ruling struck down.

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Gen, one point of clarification, should a public employee be able to receive money from their party?

Not unless the source of every dollar is traced to an actual represented constituent.

The conduit is not the issue. The source of the funds is.

If you want to be represented then you have to be the source of campaign funding and support for that representative.

We have non-representing representatives because we have permitted them to be bought and bribed by literally anyone.

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Do Michael Moore's Corporations qualify as Press? Why is his greatly amplified, corporate produced speech protected?

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Opus, what's the rule for when a corporation is 'press' or not?

Great questions, and I dont have a definitive answer for either of them, although I would state that 'the press' and 'corporations' are not synonymous.

Karl's post on the SCOTUS ruling could be considered 'press' whether or not he is incorporated, and the 'press' does take positions in elections and provide support for individual candidates.

My brain is starting to hurt.

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So, to give parallel rights to an inanimate object, whether it be a ****ing refrigerator or a mostly foreign held corporation is just ****ing asinine.

Inanimate objects don't speak, but groups of people ('right of the people peaceably to assemble') certainly do.

RantoCanada:

No, we are not 'immune' to corporatism here in Canada. However, I don't yet see it as quite the plague as it is in the States. Yet.

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Not unless the source of every dollar is traced to an actual represented constituent.

The conduit is not the issue. The source of the funds is.

If you want to be represented then you have to be the source of campaign funding and support for that representative.

We have non-representing representatives because we have permitted them to be bought and bribed by literally anyone.

Thanks.

This has one attractive consequence (which may be by design). I assume that if you say the rule is applicable to public employees, that is then NOT applicable to people who aren't public employees. In other words, non-incumbent candidates would be able to raise money from all over the country. This has the effect of being a de facto term limiter!

This makes me think of an interesting case, however. Should someone who is a public employee be exempt from the rule if they are running for another office altogether? For example, obviously, Obama shouldn't have been limited to raise money only from Illinois (by virtue of fact that he was junior Senator from IL) if he is running for POTUS. Now here is the interesting case: should Scott Brown have been limited to raising funds only from MA when running for Senator of MA?

I was listening to the Mark Levin radio show yesterday and he had on as a guest the guy that sued the FEC over this issue because they would not let him show his movie about Hilary Clinton. He said that during arguments one of the Justices asked the FEC representive that if the movie were in book form would they still be able to ban it's distribution. The FEC rep said yes and a silence fell over the court. Apparently the SCOTUS was concerned about the amount of power delegated to the FEC to implement this kind of censorship.

FEC = Federal Election Commission

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Every country has the government it deserves. - Joseph de Maistre

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You feel that you should only be able to donate to political campaigns of people that directly represent you, under penalty of being a felon otherwise. You feel that donating money to political campaigns is not "free speech".

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No, I believe that a public employee should not be able to accept money from anyone they do not actually represent.

Barring people from donating to someone who doesn't represent them....or barring representatives from receiving money from people who they don't represent.

...and the difference is what...? The outcome is the same -- the representatives wouldn't receive money from people they don't represent.

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Repeating a lie does not make it true and is a dishonest tactic. I can and will put a stop to that.

I apologize; in my mind, there's almost no difference between what you said and what I said. They both accomplish the same thing but go about it a slightly different way.

To me, it is the same as barring the sales of ammo so that people can't shoot their guns, rather than just flat outlawing guns. Both of them would essentially accomplish the same thing, just as in both cases described above.


edit: I will freely admit I was wrong on the felon issue, I thought you were saying that the citizens donating to people who don't represent them should be felons, rather than the representatives themselves.

The distinction between a corporation and say moveon.org is obvious.

A ginormous bank can jack up its credit card rates to 30% and then take the resulting money and funnel it in to political activities. Incorporation exists to facilitate BUSINESS ACTIVITIES but those who control a corporation can take divert the cash flow from business operations into political activities.

A political organization, by contrast, has to at least collect donations and those donations are known to be for a political cause.

HUGE difference in my book between a political organization engaged in political activity and extending rights of citizenship to entities created for the sake of commerce and then letting them siphon off enough funds from commerce to dwarf the resources of any purely political organization!

Goldman Sachs has a bigger cash flow than most nations on this earth. When every politically-aware human being in the US called in to their congressmen - causing me to get a busy signal when I was trying to call in - it wasn't enough.

So what IS enough? What level of involvement by citizens would it have taken to block the bailout? We all have to keep our jobs to survive. (most of us have jobs with corporations...) It would be a significant sacrifice for the individual citizens involved - it would affect the whole course of their lives to muster enough activity to block the bailout. Nothing we did worked, so who knows what extremes would have been required.

Meanwhile Goldman Sachs has the resources equivalent to a large wealthy nation. They have many people working for them whose sole job in life is to push for political ends. And it isn't as if Goldman Sach's wants can be satiated - their people are on salary. When they get the current thing they want, they'll move on to the next thing.

And there is no penalty for TRYING to repeal the laws that keep them running as honest, transparent companies. They were free to make the attempt to repeal Glass-Steagal as many times as they want. No big deal if they fail one year, just try again next year. They have more than enough resources to carry this on indefinitely without seriously impacting their existence at all.

So you have on the one side resources coming from NON political means fueling influence that, to be equalled, requires a major upheaval in the lives of citizens EVERY SINGLE TIME something is attempted - and they get unlimited attempts. Basically, our property, our freedoms, our lives, are up on a target and Goldman Sachs is allowed unlimited potshots.

So if you grant corporate rights in the political world, you guarantee the eventual death of the Republic. The founding fathers crafted the Constitution with the intention of PRESERVING the republic - it is the single guiding principle of the document. Therefore they could not have intended corporations to have rights as citizens.

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Opus, this is definitely a complex issue with good points from many on all sides. There are just so many types of corporations: manufacturers, miners, computer software, computer hardware, media, entertainment, etc...Some have been enjoying free speech whle others have been restricted. We're up to 7 pages trying to explain why and in the end we either favor the gov't protecting political speech from some corporations but limiting political speech from other corporations or we question if it's wise to want the .gov meddling in and limiting political speech.

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Is that clean spot on your bumper where your Obamacare sticker used to be?

Xpanda:

Perhaps better masked or less virulent? In any case, we can agree on one thing: Vigilance is the sentry of freedom.

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The Truth is right here... err, wait. Well, it WAS there just moments ago!

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The distinction between a corporation and say moveon.org is obvious.

A ginormous bank can jack up its credit card rates to 30% and then take the resulting money and funnel it in to political activities. Incorporation exists to facilitate BUSINESS ACTIVITIES but those who control a corporation can take divert the cash flow from business operations into political activities.

And what about Michael Moore and other socially active LLC film companies? The whole issue here is "are corproations Constitutional Individuals?" Many are saying that corporations are NOT Constitutional Individuals. Your reasoning seems to suggest that some are and some aren't.

The problem is the handful of sentences in the First Amendment don't even begin to address this issue and we risk the slippery slope if we empower the gov't to censor some corporations but not others.

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Is that clean spot on your bumper where your Obamacare sticker used to be?

Corporations are groups of people lawfully and peaceably assembled. Groups of people may engage in free speech just as individuals can. The 'inanimate objects don't have rights' is a straw man. GROUPS OF PEOPLE have rights.

I would point out that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself are two prime example of political speech produced by groups of people peaceably assembled.

But when a corporation speaks, it doesn't necessarily speak for every shareholder, or every person who works for it.

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Print the money and give it to the people.

No a corporation is not a group of people. It is a single entity CONTROLLED BY a small group of people.

Making films and expressing opinions within those films is an integral part of film-making.

Repealing laws is not an integral part of banking.

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Licorice, what about an S-corp formed by a person running an at-home business? What if that corporation lobbies its local government on an issue that would be advantageous the (single) shareholder? Are you going to prohibit speech on corporations of a certain size or income and allow it for others?

Snowmizuh:

Actually, a corporation must be something somewhat different than being a mere "group of people." Otherwise, why bother even legally defining what it is? Or using statute to congure it into being?

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The Truth is right here... err, wait. Well, it WAS there just moments ago!

If members of a corporation would like to speak out in favor of a candidate they may do so - as individuals. Nobody's free speech rights are violated by limiting corporate speech.

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Print the money and give it to the people.

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No a corporation is not a group of people. It is a single entity CONTROLLED BY a small group of people.

Making films and expressing opinions within those films is an integral part of film-making.

Repealing laws is not an integral part of banking.

So a corporation that is a film company can vocalize their political beliefs and it's protected by the First Amendment, but a corporation on the other side of the issue that disagrees can't speak with a similiar level of amplification if they're not a film company?

So much for debate and discussion of the issues. One side can make movies and TV shows and the other side can't even run a 30 second commercial.

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Is that clean spot on your bumper where your Obamacare sticker used to be?

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Actually, a corporation must be something somewhat different than being a mere "group of people." Otherwise, why bother even legally defining what it is?

For any number of reasons...

- because it is advantageous for tax reasons
- to afford some form of protection of one's personal property in a culture swimming with trial lawyers
- to allow some owners to invest more or less than other owners and have commensurately differing levels of equity
- to protect the other owners in the event of death, divorce, etc. of an owner
- to be able to offer equity to attract investment, new talent, etc.
and so on...

None of this changes the fact that a corporation is, in essence, a group of entrepreneurs who have pooled resources in order to pursue an idea and (hopefully) make a profit.

Folks seem to forget that most corporations are small businesses.

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And here, I have a solution.

Public employees - that is, politicians - should not be able to receive a campaign donation (in any form) from anyone except an actual constituent - that is, someone who is qualified and registered to vote in their district or state.

Let the corporations (and individuals), along with PACs, Unions and others buy all the issue and even candidate ads they want - so long as they honestly identify who is funding the speech in question.

But bar all public employees from receiving any campaign contribution from anyone other than a natural person who is registered to vote in the area represented by that particular politician, with violators subject to felony prosecution. If such an act is traced to a corporation the firm's charter is revoked.

Isn't it funny how we never address the actual problem - the fact that candidates have huge war chests funded by corporations (directly and indirectly) and instead try to focus on trying to restrict people's desire to speak - a right that is guaranteed under our Constitution?

Solve the problem instead of allowing politicians to play Kabuki Theater with this (very legitimate) issue.

You make two big mistakes Karl:

1) Corporations are organized to pursue profit for their investors. They have a fiducial duty to do so, and nothing else. Hence they will pursue speech and propaganda to the maximum extent possible in pursuit of profit. They have no interest in politics other than how politics affects their bottom line. How then does unlimited free speech for corporations advance the public interest? Monetary limits must be imposed on all corporations so that the few powerful cannot dominate the media and discourse.

2) You fail to provide any solution for how to deal with corporations spending advertising intended to influence political campaigns. Your "solution" only deals with direct gifts to politicians and campaigns. It does nothing to deal with the ability of huge corporations to spend money influencing political races indirectly via advertising, and this will always be done in pursuit of their profit. It doesnt take much to influence an election, and corporations will now be able to spend as much as they like to get their favorite political whores elected.

I am shocked that you think this decision is OK, in view of everything that has happened in the last year. DO I need to remind you that political influence spending is why wall street is ripping us off?

You are clueless karl. This decision amounts to the political death of the citizen. Your wrongheaded opinion on this critically important issue makes me wonder if I should bother being part of TF any longer.

Karl Denninger and FedUp: FAIL.

Under current law, Karl is correct, but I disagree with current law that recognizes corporations as legal persons. Remove that error from past legal decisions, and corporations should have no rights at all regarding "free speech" but individuals should.

The problem here is that corporations, including non-US corporations, can now spend money on US election campaigns to influence their outcomes. This is silly.

This decision is too broad and needs to be restricted at least to corporations that are based in the United States and subject to US law.

I reiterate that the current problem is not this decision specifically, but the entire legal construct of artificial persons being granted person status under the law.