I see a lot of liberals bitching about the Supreme Court ruling that removes all restrictions on corporate political advertising. Then equating this to giving corporations the same rights as people.
If you take a moment to step back, you’ll realize that you’re only angry at this decision because subconsciously you understand that corporations will work to install politicians who give them favors and kickbacks.
People, wake up.
The solution is not to restrict the speech of corporations, unions, individuals, or renegade film makers.
The solution is to reduce the power of government.
If politicians were restricted to performing their constitutional roles and were only allowed to legislate on those specific areas granted to them in the constitution, it wouldn’t matter one way or the other what corporate ads were being run.
Ask yourself this question: If politicians were restricted to the constitution, would corporations even bother to send lobbyists to Washington or sponsor political campaigns?
THEY WOULD NOT!!!
Corporations only sponsor politicians because they know a small investment of a few million in campaign contributions can result in billions from government contracts, bailouts, kickbacks, subsidies, tax breaks, and favorable regulations.
DO NOT BE MAD AT FREE SPEECH!
Be mad at the system behind your anger.
Corporations are composed of individuals, as is any organized group of citizens, and thus must be accorded the same rights as citizens.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393
Prior to this ruling, if you were an independent film maker that had just produced a documentary about all the evil Bush did during his first term and were planning on releasing your film a few weeks before election night in 2004 – too bad so sad, the federales would be busting down your cinema doors for violating campaign election laws.
John Lott explains why the ruling upheld the rights of citizens.
Do you want government regulating what movies can be shown to the public? Do you want the government determining what movies can be advertised? Or what books can be sold? Well, the Obama administration actually argued for these regulations before the Supreme Court in defending campaign finance regulations. Actually, they went even further and said that such regulations were essential to limiting how much money is spent on political campaigns.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court disagreed. On Thursday, in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court struck down a law that had been used to stop the advertising or showing of “Hillary: The Movie” during the 2008 presidential campaign. No one doubts that the movie was critical of Hillary Clinton and that its release was timed precisely to hurt her presidential campaign. What the court couldn’t abide was letting the government decide when a movie crossed the line and became too political. The ruling eliminates bans that corporations and unions have faced in trying to influence elections 30 days before a primary election or nominating convention, or within 60 days before a general election.