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>>The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donati
by patmcc 4y ago
>>The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance.
Corporations cannot donate to (federal) political campaigns, period. See https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/who-can-and-cant-contribute/ https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...
Now, both individuals and corporations can donate to Super PACs an unlimited amount, yes. But corporations have no different limits than individuals. The whole point of so-called Super PACs is they're theoretically "Independent-expenditure-only political committees" and can't coordinate with candidates. Basically the "We have strong views about abortion" Super PAC can collect as much money as they want from anyone they want* and run as many ads as they want telling people which candidates share their view on abortion and which are monsters.
You may view this as vile and bad, and that's fair, but why should a group of people spending their money together (i.e. a corporation or union or whatever) have fewer rights than an individual spending their money alone?
*Foreign nationals maybe not included in this? Not sure.
- uup 4y agoI didn’t say that a group of people should have different rights than individuals. I think we should view elections as a central component of our democracy. Allowing entities, either corporations or individuals, to spend exorbitant amounts of money undermines the very principle of democracy by making the votes of a wealthy few worth more than everyone else. “Vote” here being a figurative reference to electoral influence.
- patmcc 4y agoYour claim was literally that corporations can spend unlimited amounts and people can't, which is simply untrue. What's an exorbitant amount? Imagine some people, passionate about their particular political issue, pooling their money together to put up billboards, run radio ads, get a few TV spots, have a spread in the newspaper, buy some instagram ads, whatever. That's speech! Of course it is! Having the government restrict is a terrible precedent. The ability to try and influence other people, to convince them that your position or your candidate is the right one, is also a principle of democracy.
- uup 4y agoThese were my exact words: > The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance. I specifically said individual donations to political campaigns were limited. I think you’re arguing a very pedantic point that I didn’t even make rather than talking about whether or not our society would be better off limiting all forms of political spending.
- fwip 4y agoBecause corporations have funds disproportionate to the people, and because corporate donations are overwhelmingly controlled by the kind of people who run corporations.
- patmcc 4y agoThey have the money anyway though? Of course the rich will have a dispropriate amount of power, that's what money does. It's not because of "corporations" or super PACs or whatever. Show me a system where a rich man doesn't have more power and influence than a poor man. When you ban or limit groups of people, like corporations or unions or co-ops, from spending on elections, you give more power to those rich individuals, not less.
- fwip 4y agoCorporations (often) have more wealth than those rich men heading the corporation do. For example, Disney's CEO is about five million dollars. Disney the corporation has about 13 billion dollars cash-on-hand.