4 ms·

this episode of Radiolab More Perfect actually convinced me the court decided that case correctly (as much as Radiolab clearly tried to push to opposite opinion

this episode of Radiolab More Perfect actually convinced me the court decided that case correctly (as much as Radiolab clearly tried to push to opposite opinion) I don't like the results but the solution has to be something else IMO http://www.wnyc.org/story/citizens-united/ http://www.wnyc.org/story/citizens-united/

ubernostrum 9y ago
Part of the problem is how little people understand or think about the basics of the relevant body of law. "Corporate personhood", for example, makes perfect sense when you consider that generally we want people to be able to start businesses, and the business needs to be able to, say, own property or enter into contracts (and potentially use the courts to have them enforced). It means nothing more than granting corporations some of the rights of humans, in order for corporations as legal entities to be able to fulfill their function. The issue then is not things like "corporations are people" versus "no they're not"; it's to what extent the rights of a corporation should mirror the rights of a human. And generally, the argument people should make to fight Citizens United is one of granting only those rights which are necessary for a corporation -- an artificial, legally-created "person" -- to fulfill its designed function, and avoiding those which are problematic. Once you reframe the argument that way, you get to talk about how it's useful to have some corporate speech rights for purposes of advertising, but political speech isn't necessary or useful, and may even be self-contradictory. Consider that unlimited corporate political speech also opens the door for forced corporate political speech: if a shareholder can make an argument that, say, Candidate A's positions will increase shareholder value while Candidate B's positions will decrease it, then the shareholder now also has an argument to force the corporation to "speak" on behalf of A and against B as part of the corporation's responsibility to shareholders. So granting "free speech" to corporations could well lead to compelled speech. And it's probably not in the interest of public policy to clog up courts with those kinds of arguments, which then gives you the way in to restricting corporate political speech.
- greggman 9y ago
  the actual case arguments of citizens unitied came down to pointing out that the supressing a corporations free speech rights would effectively lead to banning books. That was actually brought up in the arguments made by the side against Citizens United and a least according to that Radiolab episode was the point that decided the case. It can effectively be boiled down to something like you write a book critical of Trump. You try to release it during the next election cycle. Because the book is published by a corporation and because it would arguably be political speech it would be banned. Banning books is generally frowned on by many people and the government deciding which books are political and which are not sounds like a very slippery slope. In the actual case an example was given - you write a 200 page book about global warming - at the end you put one sentence - "therefore don't vote for candidate x" - the side arguing against Citizens United confirmed that book could have been banned
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    Except Citizens United wasn't about an individual human writing a book, and a ruling on corporate speech can easily be crafted that doesn't affect individual humans in any way.
    - greggman 9y ago
      how so? why does citizen A get to publsih a book but citizen B does not? Who decides if citizen B's book is political ? Why is citizen A's book against global warming ok but citizen B's book against homeschooling not ok? Publishing generally goes through a publisher even if that publisher is only Amazon Kindle. Corporations (even 1 person corporations) are involved almost without exception
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        What I'm saying is simply that while John Q. Citizen has the unlimited right to publish his opinions, I do not think Acme Corp. should have the unlimited right to publish its opinions. So a book authored by John Q. Citizen could not legally have its publication restricted, but a book authored by Acme Corp. could, if a legislative body chose to do so. Similarly, John Q. Citizen is absolutely free to engage in political activism, but Acme Corp. should not be. Also, the gloom-and-doom death-of-individual-speech scenarios people like to propose in response to this did not occur during periods when corporate speech was restricted by law, which is a telling counterpoint.
- rhino369 9y ago
  >how it's useful to have some corporate speech rights for purposes of advertising, but political speech isn't necessary or useful, and may even be self-contradictory. Most mass media speech is corporate. Banning corporate speech would mean shutting down every for-profit news paper and tv station in the country. Is the Washington Post putting out a story any different than Amazon putting out a story?
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    You seem to think it's impossible to craft a ruling that allows, say, a newspaper to exist at all without also having exactly the current system we have. It's not impossible.

ubernostrum 9y ago

Part of the problem is how little people understand or think about the basics of the relevant body of law. "Corporate personhood", for example, makes perfect sense when you consider that generally we want people to be able to start businesses, and the business needs to be able to, say, own property or enter into contracts (and potentially use the courts to have them enforced). It means nothing more than granting corporations some of the rights of humans, in order for corporations as legal entities to be able to fulfill their function. The issue then is not things like "corporations are people" versus "no they're not"; it's to what extent the rights of a corporation should mirror the rights of a human. And generally, the argument people should make to fight Citizens United is one of granting only those rights which are necessary for a corporation -- an artificial, legally-created "person" -- to fulfill its designed function, and avoiding those which are problematic. Once you reframe the argument that way, you get to talk about how it's useful to have some corporate speech rights for purposes of advertising, but political speech isn't necessary or useful, and may even be self-contradictory. Consider that unlimited corporate political speech also opens the door for forced corporate political speech: if a shareholder can make an argument that, say, Candidate A's positions will increase shareholder value while Candidate B's positions will decrease it, then the shareholder now also has an argument to force the corporation to "speak" on behalf of A and against B as part of the corporation's responsibility to shareholders. So granting "free speech" to corporations could well lead to compelled speech. And it's probably not in the interest of public policy to clog up courts with those kinds of arguments, which then gives you the way in to restricting corporate political speech.

greggman 9y ago
the actual case arguments of citizens unitied came down to pointing out that the supressing a corporations free speech rights would effectively lead to banning books. That was actually brought up in the arguments made by the side against Citizens United and a least according to that Radiolab episode was the point that decided the case. It can effectively be boiled down to something like you write a book critical of Trump. You try to release it during the next election cycle. Because the book is published by a corporation and because it would arguably be political speech it would be banned. Banning books is generally frowned on by many people and the government deciding which books are political and which are not sounds like a very slippery slope. In the actual case an example was given - you write a 200 page book about global warming - at the end you put one sentence - "therefore don't vote for candidate x" - the side arguing against Citizens United confirmed that book could have been banned
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Except Citizens United wasn't about an individual human writing a book, and a ruling on corporate speech can easily be crafted that doesn't affect individual humans in any way.
  - greggman 9y ago
    how so? why does citizen A get to publsih a book but citizen B does not? Who decides if citizen B's book is political ? Why is citizen A's book against global warming ok but citizen B's book against homeschooling not ok? Publishing generally goes through a publisher even if that publisher is only Amazon Kindle. Corporations (even 1 person corporations) are involved almost without exception
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      What I'm saying is simply that while John Q. Citizen has the unlimited right to publish his opinions, I do not think Acme Corp. should have the unlimited right to publish its opinions. So a book authored by John Q. Citizen could not legally have its publication restricted, but a book authored by Acme Corp. could, if a legislative body chose to do so. Similarly, John Q. Citizen is absolutely free to engage in political activism, but Acme Corp. should not be. Also, the gloom-and-doom death-of-individual-speech scenarios people like to propose in response to this did not occur during periods when corporate speech was restricted by law, which is a telling counterpoint.
rhino369 9y ago
>how it's useful to have some corporate speech rights for purposes of advertising, but political speech isn't necessary or useful, and may even be self-contradictory. Most mass media speech is corporate. Banning corporate speech would mean shutting down every for-profit news paper and tv station in the country. Is the Washington Post putting out a story any different than Amazon putting out a story?
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  You seem to think it's impossible to craft a ruling that allows, say, a newspaper to exist at all without also having exactly the current system we have. It's not impossible.