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User Info Freedom Of Speech: How Quaint; entered at 2010-01-23 12:21:58
Wisc-xc
Posts: 5524
Registered: 2007-07-14 outside chicago
Freedom of speech and press has never been construed as an absolute, not even close, and thus there are a shitload of exceptions to this doctrine:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v....

In the spirit of the above limitations, limiting the scope of corporate speech, especially multinational corporate speech, would be of no great loss to the Republic, nor does the slippery slope argument carry much weight; and, btw, would be entirely consistent with the views of the Patron Saint of Capitalism himself, Adam Smith, who contrary to popular myth was no fan of corporate power.

Nothing was stopping Lloyd Blankfein from spending as much of HIS OWN money, earned from his corporate position, on whatever political issue that rocks his boat. Nothing was stopping anyone at Goldman Sachs from spending every penny they have on political speech also. Nothing was stopping any of them from banding together and forming a PAC either. So how the hell was their free speech being abridged by being corporate employees under McCain/Feingold? It wasn't.(that's not an endorsement of McCain/Feingold on my part either, but that's beside the point).

I don't feel a bit sorry for the BIG corps, and I'm sure the vast majority of Americans don't either. Christ, they get tens of millions of ready made employees trained at taxpayer expense (government schools). There's one big reason among others why giant corps are generally behind the standardized mega-state leviathan--read; fuckin tax and spend liberal, except for themselves, of course .

As a practical matter, however, I don't think the SCOTUS decision will have much of an impact when it's all said and done. There were holes big enough in the McCain/Feingold legislation to drive a small size planet through. All the decision accomplished was to put a philosophical semantic stamp of approval on what was already being practiced to begin with. The metaphorical dogs and tails are still in their respective places. Enjoy your slavery.

2010-01-23 12:21:58