9 ms·

They don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting B

They don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting Bill Maher into millions of home and Bill Maher paying for YouTube ads. You can’t even differentiate between people and corporations. Because otherwise the government could tell the New York Times to stop writing articles against trump. After all they are a for profit corporation. It’s a tough spot.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
I completely disagree. Placing a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year, and only allowing actual people to contribute should not have any negative effects on free speech.
- slededit 8y ago
  They aren't contributing to the compaign - Citizens United was about spending money on your own advertising. You are allowed to buy whatever airtime you want to say whatever you want. If you happen to want to say something nice about one candidate or mean about another in the airtime you bought it's hard to argue that's not covered by free speech rights. You can argue that this has perverse effects - but the courts have consistently held that free speech has wide latitude even when it has negative effects. Exceptions are extremely limited and the harm has to be immediate and direct.
  - mobilefriendly 8y ago
    Citizens United made and sold a documentary. There's no difference between that and HBO, spending limits are ultimately an attack on independent media and new media.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      If you equate money spent on political advertising with votes (which I believe has strong empirical support), then failure to regulate inevitably devolves democracy into plutocracy. Assuming that's not desired, the question then becomes how best to balance free speech with equalizing commercial political speech.
      - bmelton 8y ago
        And according to the Supreme Court, many times over, the very purpose of the first amendment is to protect speech, and the most important form of speech to protect is political speech. Yes, there are downsides to unfettered speech, but freedom means having to let other people do things I don't like, and in exchange, I can do things they don't like. If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose.
        grandmczeb 8y ago
        > If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose. This is an excellent point.
        Pyxl101 8y ago
        Furthermore, it is not well-defined which speech is "political" speech, and which is not. What cause is it possible to advocate for that is not political in some way? If the business of politics and government is passing and implementing laws, then nearly any issue is or can be political in nature. If I advocate for regulating or not regulating the Internet, software, app stores, data privacy (a la GDPR), or basically anything else, then that can be construed as political.
        bmelton 8y ago
        If we're already in the business of protecting speech, then why does it matter whether a given speech is political enough to warrant protection?
        squiggleblaz 8y ago
        Actually it isn't. (a) The money has an outsized power to argue for an increase in available powers as I said upthread since I couldn't reply here. (b) Democracies seem to work better and more stably when votes make a difference. If there's a full house of people wanting to shift in a certain direction the democratic principle is that the shift in that direction should happen. Otherwise democracy becomes a sham and its institutions shed trust. This creates precisely the atmosphere for antidemocratic or unliberal people to gain power. If you can vote for someone who supports your views but they can't implement them while they're operating in the system, why not vote for someone who supports your views and is willing to ignore the system to get it. And what will all checks and balances do in that environment! If you like liberal government (in the traditional sense not the partisan sense), the most effective way to get it is to encourage liberal preferences in the electorate.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    the harm has to be immediate and direct. I believe this is what Brandberg v Ohio established as the test of "imminent lawless action"
- hydrox24 8y ago
  Are you going to stop people from buying $2000 of ad space in their local newspaper and using it to personally endorse a candidate? Or endorse a candidates' stance on a range of issues? Or push hard for the same side of an issue that a candidate is taking?
- Natsu 8y ago
  What happens to the big media companies? Time on there is worth way more than $1,000. Are they unable to talk about the elections at all?
- rhino369 8y ago
  Would you shut down the Washington Post? Or is Jeff Bezos allowed to buy a newspaper? Why is Anderson Cooper allowed to spread his opinions with the aid of a multi hundred million dollar distribution system but I can’t buy 2000 dollars of Facebook ads? Limits on funding speech are limits on speech.
  - adamsea 8y ago
    It’s more like Anderson Cooper is allowed to spread the viewpoints of his which overlap with what the corporation he works for will tolerate, which is a very different thing than being able to spread ones own views. I know that’s a tangent from your main point but couldn’t resist :).
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "Limits on funding speech are limits on speech." I entirely disagree. Everyone has the same amount that they can give. Everyone has exactly the same rights.
    - rhino369 8y ago
      Or put another way: everyone's rights are equally infringed. And if you really wanted to make everyone equal, you'd have to ban celebreties and the media from talking about campaigns. Bill Maher's TV show is worth millions in advertising dollars.
- smsm42 8y ago
  > a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year Limit on what? On speaking about politics? On buying ads? On paying people to write about politics? On hiring consultants to develop advertising strategies? On speaking about anything government cares about? So if NYT spends $1000 per subscriber on politicial writer's salaries in March, it has to be shut down until the next January because it's over the political speech limit? This of course sounds insane, because you can't put limit on spending money on speech without putting limits on actual speech. Because it's one and the same - publishing speech costs money, and money is the way to get speech published. Fortunately, US still has freedom of speech, which is not measured in dollar limits.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Hi, let me introduce you to this new thing called the Internet, which lets everybody publish their speech for free. You should try it sometime. (And clearly they mean a limit on political contributions, which is something that many countries do successfully. Ours used to be one of them. I hope you're not as ignorant on the topic as your hysterical straw man suggests, but if you are I'd suggest a little reading. E.g. this Brookings working group has many perspectives: https://web.archive.org/web/20010406114712/https://www.brookings.edu/gs/cf/workgrp.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20010406114712/https://www.brook... .)
    - smsm42 8y ago
      > which lets everybody publish their speech for free The fact that you can write stuff on internet forums for free doesn't mean it is free. It means somebody else is paying for it - for example, in exchange for showing you ads (which the advertiser - surprise! - pays for), selling your personal data or sometimes just out of charitable spirit. However, if you need to do a massive communication effort, it is not nearly free. And if you have ever built a campaign site (I have) you know it is nowhere near "free". Your resume shows you participated in multiple internet projects, so I am astonished how you can condescendingly claim it's "free" while knowing full well from your own experience it is nowhere near that. Unless, of course, you want to confine your campaign to /r/irrelevant.
wpietri 8y ago
This is a very specific and recent interpretation of the first amendment. Your theory that no nuance is possible does not match how the constitution is applied in general, or even how that amendment is dealt with specifically, both historically and currently. For example, defamation is still illegal, even if you do it to influence an election. Campaign finance limits have been weakened, but still exist and are enforced. It also doesn't wipe out other speech crimes, like fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice, even if they're part of a campaign. It's not a particularly tough spot except from the perspective of very strong textual literalism.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

I completely disagree. Placing a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year, and only allowing actual people to contribute should not have any negative effects on free speech.

slededit 8y ago
They aren't contributing to the compaign - Citizens United was about spending money on your own advertising. You are allowed to buy whatever airtime you want to say whatever you want. If you happen to want to say something nice about one candidate or mean about another in the airtime you bought it's hard to argue that's not covered by free speech rights. You can argue that this has perverse effects - but the courts have consistently held that free speech has wide latitude even when it has negative effects. Exceptions are extremely limited and the harm has to be immediate and direct.
- mobilefriendly 8y ago
  Citizens United made and sold a documentary. There's no difference between that and HBO, spending limits are ultimately an attack on independent media and new media.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    If you equate money spent on political advertising with votes (which I believe has strong empirical support), then failure to regulate inevitably devolves democracy into plutocracy. Assuming that's not desired, the question then becomes how best to balance free speech with equalizing commercial political speech.
    - bmelton 8y ago
      And according to the Supreme Court, many times over, the very purpose of the first amendment is to protect speech, and the most important form of speech to protect is political speech. Yes, there are downsides to unfettered speech, but freedom means having to let other people do things I don't like, and in exchange, I can do things they don't like. If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose.
      - grandmczeb 8y ago
        > If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose. This is an excellent point.
        Pyxl101 8y ago
        Furthermore, it is not well-defined which speech is "political" speech, and which is not. What cause is it possible to advocate for that is not political in some way? If the business of politics and government is passing and implementing laws, then nearly any issue is or can be political in nature. If I advocate for regulating or not regulating the Internet, software, app stores, data privacy (a la GDPR), or basically anything else, then that can be construed as political.
        bmelton 8y ago
        If we're already in the business of protecting speech, then why does it matter whether a given speech is political enough to warrant protection?
        squiggleblaz 8y ago
        Actually it isn't. (a) The money has an outsized power to argue for an increase in available powers as I said upthread since I couldn't reply here. (b) Democracies seem to work better and more stably when votes make a difference. If there's a full house of people wanting to shift in a certain direction the democratic principle is that the shift in that direction should happen. Otherwise democracy becomes a sham and its institutions shed trust. This creates precisely the atmosphere for antidemocratic or unliberal people to gain power. If you can vote for someone who supports your views but they can't implement them while they're operating in the system, why not vote for someone who supports your views and is willing to ignore the system to get it. And what will all checks and balances do in that environment! If you like liberal government (in the traditional sense not the partisan sense), the most effective way to get it is to encourage liberal preferences in the electorate.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  the harm has to be immediate and direct. I believe this is what Brandberg v Ohio established as the test of "imminent lawless action"
hydrox24 8y ago
Are you going to stop people from buying $2000 of ad space in their local newspaper and using it to personally endorse a candidate? Or endorse a candidates' stance on a range of issues? Or push hard for the same side of an issue that a candidate is taking?
Natsu 8y ago
What happens to the big media companies? Time on there is worth way more than $1,000. Are they unable to talk about the elections at all?
rhino369 8y ago
Would you shut down the Washington Post? Or is Jeff Bezos allowed to buy a newspaper? Why is Anderson Cooper allowed to spread his opinions with the aid of a multi hundred million dollar distribution system but I can’t buy 2000 dollars of Facebook ads? Limits on funding speech are limits on speech.
- adamsea 8y ago
  It’s more like Anderson Cooper is allowed to spread the viewpoints of his which overlap with what the corporation he works for will tolerate, which is a very different thing than being able to spread ones own views. I know that’s a tangent from your main point but couldn’t resist :).
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "Limits on funding speech are limits on speech." I entirely disagree. Everyone has the same amount that they can give. Everyone has exactly the same rights.
  - rhino369 8y ago
    Or put another way: everyone's rights are equally infringed. And if you really wanted to make everyone equal, you'd have to ban celebreties and the media from talking about campaigns. Bill Maher's TV show is worth millions in advertising dollars.
smsm42 8y ago
> a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year Limit on what? On speaking about politics? On buying ads? On paying people to write about politics? On hiring consultants to develop advertising strategies? On speaking about anything government cares about? So if NYT spends $1000 per subscriber on politicial writer's salaries in March, it has to be shut down until the next January because it's over the political speech limit? This of course sounds insane, because you can't put limit on spending money on speech without putting limits on actual speech. Because it's one and the same - publishing speech costs money, and money is the way to get speech published. Fortunately, US still has freedom of speech, which is not measured in dollar limits.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Hi, let me introduce you to this new thing called the Internet, which lets everybody publish their speech for free. You should try it sometime. (And clearly they mean a limit on political contributions, which is something that many countries do successfully. Ours used to be one of them. I hope you're not as ignorant on the topic as your hysterical straw man suggests, but if you are I'd suggest a little reading. E.g. this Brookings working group has many perspectives: https://web.archive.org/web/20010406114712/https://www.brookings.edu/gs/cf/workgrp.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20010406114712/https://www.brook... .)
  - smsm42 8y ago
    > which lets everybody publish their speech for free The fact that you can write stuff on internet forums for free doesn't mean it is free. It means somebody else is paying for it - for example, in exchange for showing you ads (which the advertiser - surprise! - pays for), selling your personal data or sometimes just out of charitable spirit. However, if you need to do a massive communication effort, it is not nearly free. And if you have ever built a campaign site (I have) you know it is nowhere near "free". Your resume shows you participated in multiple internet projects, so I am astonished how you can condescendingly claim it's "free" while knowing full well from your own experience it is nowhere near that. Unless, of course, you want to confine your campaign to /r/irrelevant.

wpietri 8y ago

This is a very specific and recent interpretation of the first amendment. Your theory that no nuance is possible does not match how the constitution is applied in general, or even how that amendment is dealt with specifically, both historically and currently. For example, defamation is still illegal, even if you do it to influence an election. Campaign finance limits have been weakened, but still exist and are enforced. It also doesn't wipe out other speech crimes, like fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice, even if they're part of a campaign. It's not a particularly tough spot except from the perspective of very strong textual literalism.