| And the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... |
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| by Miguel on 01-24-2010 12:52 PM |
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So pretty much everyone is going nuts over the Citizens United vs. FEC ruling. Depending on who you talk to this is either the greatest thing ever or the end of our "free" society as we know it. By the way, Keith Olbermann, please calm down, you're probably going to give yourself a heart attack soon enough.
I'm not sure exactly if this ruling will be a good or bad thing, but I do believe that the ruling from a constitutional standpoint is correct. The main argument I have heard from the liberal side is that "corporations are not people", "and money is not speech" The 1st argument I don't think is particularly relevant. Last I checked there was no "exception" clause to 1st amendment. It does not matter who or what funds a particular form of speech, in this case political ads during an election cycle. The 1st Congress shall pass no law abridging free speech. It does not say "Oh by the way if the speech is funded by a corporation then it is subject to government regulation or can be suppressed." The 2nd argument is just silly. Spending money to support a cause is indeed speech. To regulate how much money can be spent on airing speech abridges that speech, akin to Bush era of locking up protesters in "free speech zones". And as such it runs afoul of the first amendment. Still, it's difficult to really predict what the consequences will be. To be honest though, the world didn't begin with McCain-Feingold, and the world wasn't nearly the Coroporo-Facist nightmare that Keith Olbermann was predicting as the result of this ruling. Who knows maybe this will remove some of the barriers to entry that are keeping 3rd parties out of the election business. But there are certainly still issues with our electoral process, and I'm unsure whether the results of this ruling will be positive or negative. We'll see I guess. |
| Tags: government free speech |
| 1 Comment(s) |
| Comment by a on 01-31-2010 12:17 PM |
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| "Last I checked there was no 'exception' clause to 1st amendment."
No, there is no exception clause. But there are dozens of exceptions to the first amendment. Should all those other exceptions be removed too? |