badgenome said:
Mr Khan said:
badgenome said:
Mr Khan said:
The reason that was considered a first amendment violation (if we're referring to that one supreme court case that struck down McCain-Feingold) was because of the idiotic notion of corporate personhood, but importantly because McCain-Feingold was discriminating against such personhood. If all private money were banned altogether, would that not be a different issue judicially?
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Because people come together and incorporate themselves doesn't mean they somehow forfeit their first amendment rights. Solicitor general Kagan and her deputy actually argued that the government has the right to ban books if they come out too close to an election, for crying out loud. They absolutely deserved to lose that case, and they deserved to be loaded into a cannon and fired into a live volcano besides for even making such a dumb fucking argument on the taxpayers' dime to begin with.
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Right, but the body that the people form should not have the legal rights of a person. People in corporations retain their rights to be certain, but the corporation itself should not be afforded the same electoral rights.
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Sure, but is anyone saying that a corporation should have a right to vote? That's a new one on me. I thought we were talking about people having the right to say whatever they want, which is something that Congress is constitutionally forbidden from making any laws against.
If one does accept the premise that there should be a limit to the political speech of corporations, how can the existence of a Fox News or a New York Times be at all justified? "Freedom of the press" doesn't only apply to self-important assholes who call themselves journalists. It also extends to the lowliest blogger and, indeed, the biggest corporation.
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Then how would one address the clear problems that stem from these corporations being able to buy candidates? It'd be much easier to simply ban all campaign donations rather than the vast legal quagmire that would be needed to make it such that it's not worth it for corporations to buy candidates
