can u pls pls telle me what is this law u talkin about

I think he's referring to the 15th and 19th amendments.

15th - all races and former slaves have right to vote

19th - women have a right to vote

They can't, though. Not directly, at least. Sure, they can take out their own ads that basically echo a campaign's own attack ads or whatever, but there is a cap on direct donations and collusion is still strictly illegal (though I'm sure it happens, of course).

The problem is that it's exceedingly arbitrary to say that a corporation like the New York Times Company can essentially spend millions of dollars on campaigns by taking an editorial stance on a particular issue or endorsing a particular candidate, but a corporation like Koch Industries can't. Freedom of speech and press belongs to everyone, not only to some properly anointed priesthood of so-called journalists.

I consider PACs "directly". It's a media blizzard for 2 years out of every 4, instead of a 6 week, low-key, low-budget tour like the UK.

Koch can publish all the editorial it wants. The line on when something is advertisement is very clear.

Since he concedes to making an alt for console warring that makes it rather likely he's had alts for political warring so I'd be pretty surprised if he's not spaceguy. His political leanings and writing style, poor use of capitalization, employment of Facebook style "share if you like this!" pictures, Xbox devotion, enthusiasm for trashy tattoos, petulance in the face of disagreement, and particular dislike of Kasz all point to it. The only thing throwing me is that he doesn't spell Democrats "democrates" (which sounds like an obscure Greek philosopher) like spaceguy and friends did, but it's possible he learned after I pointed it out to him that it was constantly giving him away.

But PACs aren't direct contributions. The majority of new PACs are single issue pressure groups, which are generally more interested in influencing politicians to take certain stances or actions than they are in getting a particular individual elected.

Yep. That's all part of the problem.

I'm sure most politicians could gladly do without such annoying groups.

LOL.

While the runs up to elections are ridiculously long and overblown affairs here, PAC ads are a minor irritant compared to the year-round 24/7 campaigning on the part of the government-media complex to create and maintain a particular narrative. Again, it seems very arbitrary to me to say that anyone who happens to own a newspaper or TV channel can editorialize to his heart's content while anyone who doesn't is limited in terms of how much ad space he can purchase in other people's outlets.

I don't think they should be able to advertise on channels they own either. I'm not making any distinction between media owners and companies here.

If there is a problem with too much money in politics, it isn't a problem of outside money but "public" money.

Perhaps not outside money, but day to day all politicians hear about are the views of a very small and active group of companies and lobbyists. It's not surprising when they vote and legislate as if they're completely divorced from reality.

The power of redistribution is what really corrupts every aspect of the system, including the electorate.

I guess this is a political debate, but I believe the problem is the lack of remedy on the part of the individual to both find out and prosecute abuses by the establishment (government or corporations). This is why I believe in absurd levels of disclosure and scrutiny for both.

I don't think redistribution is the problem, more the lack of accountability about how it's done.

And curtailing political speech will only exacerbate this problem, as the entire system is necessarily structured so as to perpetuate the status quo.

I would like political advertisement, lobbying (including meetings, being taken out to dinner etc) and donations basically eliminated. A small public campaigning allowance could substitute.

But the public, media and companies could still broadcast and write anything they want that's not overt advertisement. And the public are then free to tune into/buy or avoid that message, something that is not possible with advertising.

So Money is speech. Meaning a large corporation can buy any politician they want.

Judges do pick sides and if you have not figured that out you have not been paying attention. 5-4 decisions all the time. Laws are open to speculation, that's why we even have courts.

To say I don't understand is your usual stance for someone that you don't agree with, I understand it fine. I just made it easier for others to understand.

You will go on to state you're some law professor but in fact you're a vgchartz mod that has a very biased view in political topics, thats it.  So you can downplay this as much as you want but the case has allowed massive amounts of money into politics and is not good for either side.

It shouldn't really be about the law. It should be about consequences.

Does letting corporations spend millions of dollars on politicians' campaigns create a desirable society for human beings? Not really.

I have no problem with apparently artificial and restrictive rules on political financing so that politicians feel responsible to people via their votes (which you only get one each of) and not via their chequebooks.