2 ms·
Because some animals are more equal than others and the government has decided that companies are not only citizens but the more equal group. Half the shit com
by lovich 11mo ago
Because some animals are more equal than others and the government has decided that companies are not only citizens but the more equal group.
Half the shit companies do that gets them a fine would land any individual in jail for committing the same action, but we let them get away with just paying it off. Simultaneously we give those organizations the same rights.
It’s a system with three classes of citizen where the rich and corporations have a better right to responsibility ratio and the average human has a much worse ratio
- VerifiedReports 11mo agoCitizens United, a monumental betrayal of every citizen.
- Y_Y 11mo ago> The provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 restricting unions, corporations, and profitable organizations from independent political spending and prohibiting the broadcasting of political media funded by them within sixty days of general elections or thirty days of primary elections violate the freedom of speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. United States District Court for the District of Columbia reversed. I'm sure we're on the same side, but I want to point out that that case didn't make a huge difference. By that I mean it removed a ban on political broadcasts near elections, most of the "money is speech, super pacs can do anything at all" stuff was already legal.
- red-iron-pine 11mo ago> it removed a ban on political broadcasts near elections, Propaganda works, and this was a BIG change, as it now let unlimited shady corpo money spam agit-prop with no consequence. this was step 1 on living in a post-truth world.
- BobaFloutist 11mo agoRight, but if you try to make a gentle, common-sense, broad consensus law and the Supreme Court squashes it as violating the constitution, that also prevents any potential future more stringent regulation.
- danaris 11mo agoWhile this is true, the first such betrayal came in 1976, with Buckley v Valeo. This was (AIUI) the US Supreme Court decision that established the precedent that money counts as protected speech. So much of the rot that has occurred since then can be traced back to this.
- dredmorbius 11mo ago<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo>
- lovich 11mo agoTo add onto this, the single exception I am aware of to this rule is the result of the gas explosions in Massachusetts. In that case the company in charge, Columbia Gas, "exited" the market but all the scuttlebutt I heard in the area was that the Mass government was threatening the corporate execution of revoking their charter, which lead to Columbia gas selling their business off at a loss to Eversource https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NiSource#Massachusetts_gas_line_explosions_and_exit_from_Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NiSource#Massachusetts_gas_lin...
- xhkkffbf 11mo agoYou do realize that the decisions at the corporations are made by people. You may try to draw a distinction between people and corporations, but in the end it was some person who decided to ghost someone.
- lovich 11mo agoYou do realize that the people making those decisions at corporations are largely shielded from the liability of said decisions, and that when companies are treated like citizens they almost never get equivalent punishment like human beings do. I can draw a distinction between people and corporations because it’s literally encoded in the fucking law. I actually don’t know how or why you would imply that such a distinction doesn’t exist.