4 ms·

I know people hate Citizens United, but to me, if the debate on this is ever to progress: what's the alternative? Say I and a bunch of my friends donate money t

I know people hate Citizens United, but to me, if the debate on this is ever to progress: what's the alternative? Say I and a bunch of my friends donate money to promote some cause; let's say "Black Lives Matter", for the sake of argument. Is that also off the table? Is there to be no ability for people to associate & collectively argue for change (e.g., by buying an ad to raise awareness)? Or, is it fine when I do it, but not when others do it? Where do I draw the line, between what association for the purposes of political advocacy is fine, and what association isn't fine?

actionfromafar 8mo ago
Is this "Black Lives Matter" running for President?
- deathanatos 8mo ago
  Is this "Citizens United" running for President? Obviously neither is running for president. But collective groups of people may wish to support certain causes, bills, or even candidates who support such things. Do I prevent all collectives of people — and since everyone's favorite punching bag is the evil corporation — including non-profits and unions (which is what the original case was about!) — from spending money? And I'll distill this down to what I said to the other commenter: assume we do, and no political money from anyone except individuals. Is it not just Bezos and Musk who can afford the ad, whereas I'm left without a voice?
  - actionfromafar 8mo ago
    Citizens United has tax ID 91-1433368 and is a 501(c)(4) in Washington, D.C. Where is "Black Lives Matter" headquartered?
    - pickleglitch 8mo ago
      It's in the same building as antifa headquarters, duh.
snovv_crash 8mo ago
As an individual you can. Not as a corporation.
- deathanatos 8mo ago
  Again, I'm asking about generalized freedom of association. I get the hate for corporations, I do, but if you ban freedom of people to associate, and through that association, to pool money for a common cause: are you just straight up good with that? The underlying law in Citizen's United didn't just target corporations: it targeted unions, it targeted non-profits. That's why I'm asking about those other cases that would be banned. I understand wanting to ban Evil Inc., but are you ready to ban World Peace Non-Profit, too? Not only that, but Citizens United itself wasn't a corporation. If you have a defensible case, that, yes, that'd be fine, go ahead. But when only individuals can spend money on politics, are we not in the same situation, where Bezos or Musk can afford an ad, but I cannot?
  - mingus88 8mo ago
    Convince me that the solution is not to remove money from the process entirely. I’m just spitballing here but why don’t we have a system where every candidate gets the same allocation of money for ads and it is outlawed to use your own fortune to bankroll your candidacy In a world where social media companies are all run by billionaires, let them pollute the feeds with their candidate of choice. This only speedruns the complete collapse of SM in an era where we can no longer distinguish real discourse from AI And good riddance.
    - bobomonkey 8mo ago
      Workaround: I'm rich and would just start up a newspaper that gave my candidates good coverage. In my opinion, this isn't a easy problem if you value freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of people to spend their own money.
      - jmye 8mo ago
throwaway87543 8mo ago
Campaign finance laws were set up tell you where the line is. There needs to be a line because the amount of reach you have should not grow with your wealth. But Citizens United made the money as speech an unlimited right. Spending $250 is a completely different category than spending $250 million.
- judahmeek 8mo ago
  But where's the line between political contribution & opinionated news article about a political candidate?
  - tartuffe78 8mo ago
    Having unlimited funds to make sure everyone sees your opinion.
    - judahmeek 8mo ago
      In the age of LLMs, separating money from speech on the internet (where the most desired sociodemographics live) is literally impossible. You restrict ads, they just create more bots or even pay actual people to express certain opinions.
UncleMeat 8mo ago
The alternative was what we had between McCain-Feingold and Citizens United, which was not a hellscape of limitations on collective action. This isn't some hypothetical world. We had it.

actionfromafar 8mo ago

Is this "Black Lives Matter" running for President?

deathanatos 8mo ago
Is this "Citizens United" running for President? Obviously neither is running for president. But collective groups of people may wish to support certain causes, bills, or even candidates who support such things. Do I prevent all collectives of people — and since everyone's favorite punching bag is the evil corporation — including non-profits and unions (which is what the original case was about!) — from spending money? And I'll distill this down to what I said to the other commenter: assume we do, and no political money from anyone except individuals. Is it not just Bezos and Musk who can afford the ad, whereas I'm left without a voice?
- actionfromafar 8mo ago
  Citizens United has tax ID 91-1433368 and is a 501(c)(4) in Washington, D.C. Where is "Black Lives Matter" headquartered?
  - pickleglitch 8mo ago
    It's in the same building as antifa headquarters, duh.

snovv_crash 8mo ago

As an individual you can. Not as a corporation.

deathanatos 8mo ago
Again, I'm asking about generalized freedom of association. I get the hate for corporations, I do, but if you ban freedom of people to associate, and through that association, to pool money for a common cause: are you just straight up good with that? The underlying law in Citizen's United didn't just target corporations: it targeted unions, it targeted non-profits. That's why I'm asking about those other cases that would be banned. I understand wanting to ban Evil Inc., but are you ready to ban World Peace Non-Profit, too? Not only that, but Citizens United itself wasn't a corporation. If you have a defensible case, that, yes, that'd be fine, go ahead. But when only individuals can spend money on politics, are we not in the same situation, where Bezos or Musk can afford an ad, but I cannot?
- mingus88 8mo ago
  Convince me that the solution is not to remove money from the process entirely. I’m just spitballing here but why don’t we have a system where every candidate gets the same allocation of money for ads and it is outlawed to use your own fortune to bankroll your candidacy In a world where social media companies are all run by billionaires, let them pollute the feeds with their candidate of choice. This only speedruns the complete collapse of SM in an era where we can no longer distinguish real discourse from AI And good riddance.
  - bobomonkey 8mo ago
    Workaround: I'm rich and would just start up a newspaper that gave my candidates good coverage. In my opinion, this isn't a easy problem if you value freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of people to spend their own money.
    - jmye 8mo ago

throwaway87543 8mo ago

Campaign finance laws were set up tell you where the line is. There needs to be a line because the amount of reach you have should not grow with your wealth. But Citizens United made the money as speech an unlimited right. Spending $250 is a completely different category than spending $250 million.

judahmeek 8mo ago
But where's the line between political contribution & opinionated news article about a political candidate?
- tartuffe78 8mo ago
  Having unlimited funds to make sure everyone sees your opinion.
  - judahmeek 8mo ago
    In the age of LLMs, separating money from speech on the internet (where the most desired sociodemographics live) is literally impossible. You restrict ads, they just create more bots or even pay actual people to express certain opinions.

UncleMeat 8mo ago

The alternative was what we had between McCain-Feingold and Citizens United, which was not a hellscape of limitations on collective action. This isn't some hypothetical world. We had it.