So fears over Citizens United was GREATLY overblown, yes?

[Mr Khan]

badgenome said:

Soleron said:

As an hardcore free speech supporter: Corporations should not be natural persons or have rights. Individuals in the corporation should be able to say what they like. There IS a big difference.

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The practical problem with Citizens United is that billions of dollars were wasted on the election and the nation/news attention was sucked away for a year and a half out of a four year cycle. That's not grounds for reversing it (the Constitution not protecting corporations is) but from the outside it looks like insanity. Our elections are low-key and dull.

The constitution does protect corporations... that whole freedom of the press thing. The government has no business deciding that this corporation (News Corp) is guaranteed a right to speak freely while that one (Wal-Mart) is not because of some arbitrary decision of what does and does not constitute "the press".

And I don't think Citizens United had anything to do with the ridiculously overblown nature of this election. The election was talked about nonstop for two fucking years straight because the media (i.e., those magical corporations whose right to free speech would be sacrosanct with or without Citizens United) decided to talk about it nonstop for two years straight.

See, i've always interpreted those freedoms as being political freedoms more than full-fledged freedoms. Freedom of the press merely means that the state can't single out one viewpoint and pass laws like "you can't run stories that portray trickle-down economics in a negative light" or something like that, laws that would impact a political viewpoint, but if the law was politically content-neutral, it would be allowed to go forward (such as the old Fairness Doctrine. So long as it regulates everything equally, it's fair).