Kasz216 said:
Rath said:
Kasz216 said:
Rath said:
1) Corporations are not a collection of people however. They are legally a seperate entity from their members - this gives them certain protections but also certain restrictions. They simply are not legally at all the same as something like the ACLU.
2) Like almost all freedoms it is and should be restricted at the point where it damages other freedoms. This is evident in libel, slander laws for example and also not legal to say things that are likely to cause harm (eg. falsely shout fire in a public theatre). In this case too much free speech destroys political freedom - it is not possible to have free and fair elections when an overwhelming media campaign is launched.
Also your link (the freakonomics one) only contains one actual researcher as far as I can see and his research is contradicted by
http://www.uky.edu/~clthyn2/PS671/Gerber_1998APSR.pdf
http://www.kenbenoit.net/pdfs/Jacobson1978.pdf
Which also contradict each other (but both say that election spending does increase votes) but both recommend spending caps in elections.
3) So you don't think that the corporate lobbying groups huge pockets are influencing these bills at all? I can't prove that there would be much less support in congress for the bills without their money - but I'm pretty confident that it would be the case.
Edit: Basically there are two reasons I oppose corporations being able to put huge money into political campaigns.
1. It encourages corruption.
2. It causes an election to no longer be fair.
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1) No, they're still groups of people... see.... the supreme court. Even the disenters in the court agreed to this fact.
2) My link had numererous experts and research in it....
3) Bills? The question was elections. Sure lobbying effects bills. So does calling your congressmen and wiring him a letter, so does, pretty much anything everywhere. Bringing in an expert to talk about why they think SOPA is a good idea of course sways congressmen. No reason congressmen shouldn't be able to talk to experts and people in the fields they plan to effect though. A campaign of regular voters however, holds more power then a coroporate lobby, as shown by those bills you mentioned that get defeated whenever the public pays attention.
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1) Then they should lose their privileges such as limited liability that they gain from being seperated from their members.
2) I read through it, was pretty tired though and may have missed some stuff. Mostly it seemed to be from people who were 'experts' but not researchers.
3) Yes but the money now allows people to fund the election of sympathetic legislators. Also as legislators do remember who helped fund them, there will certainly be a bit of 'quid pro quo' going on with the corporations in the future.
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1) The ACLU is a limited liability company too...
2) They had a few researcherse there, espiecally the last guy.
3) Not really.. If I plan to go into office and lower the buisness tax, and companies fund my campaign, and then I lower the buisness tax... is that Quid Pro Quo?
No. Quid pro Quo assumes that an action is taken that would not otherwise be taken without the orginal action. IE, if i plan to go into office to raise the buisness tax, i get funding from companies and instead lower it. THAT is quid pro quo.
As it is, there is enough lobby on all sides that one doesn't need to compromise their positions to get elected.
Compromising of positions tends to happen instead to make yourself viable to the electorate.
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1) Is it? Then it shouldn't be able to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising.
(In fact in my opinion, nobody should be able to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising)
2) It's a way up the quote tree but I think I mentioned that there only seemed to be one researcher? (which was the last guy)
3) A few things here - quid pro quo does happen, politicians will support ideas that they wouldn't otherwise due to money. We actually had it happen in NZ just recently, a politician (John Banks who is a right scumbag and happily is so mired in scandal right now that it will be a miracle if he survives) was extremely anti-gambling until he happened to get a donation from a casino (which he abused a loophole to claim as an 'anonymous' donation). Now he never says anything against gambling...
The other idea that because the lobby groups somehow 'balance out' it's somehow ok, I disagree with that idea fundamentally. If something is wrong but happens to work that doesn't make it right. In any case I severely doubt that the environmental lobby has as much money as big oil, that the net freedom lobby has as much money as big media or that the health lobby has as much money as big tobacco.
