I have a political challenge/question for you

[wyvernmcd]

Hey all,

I am hearing many things about the supreme court decision about letting corporations have the ability to be protected by the 1st Amendment to be allowed to contribute as much as they want to a politcal party. I have a personal feeling that any commercial from now till whenever can be placed for a "party" representative saying anything they want (no matter how offensive and stupid it can be) which I guess is the "benefit" of being a corporation. I dilike this. This basically tells me that if you have money (money referring in the millions of dollars) that you are able to push people around with how they want to feel about things. Although they can not really change a persons decision, they can influence them to second guess themselves if they are not 100% sold on an idea which in turn allow them to change their position or opinon (so please no "They are not making you do anything..." discussions).

My challenge to you is to convince me through sited sources and NO PERSONAL OPINIONS why changing this rule was a good idea in the first place. Those who want to defend why the law should have been left alone can participate as well but need to have sited resources to convince me on that belief also.

For example:

"Bush is an incompetent war fighter"

That is an opinion.

Now if there were reports from a citeable source that is not an editorial or their personal opinion which would prove the example to be true, then I will pay attention to it. (I believe there is a source on this however I am not really allowed to play on the computer at work so I will have to try to find this later).

Please do not use F- bombs or hateful messages to each other about how one person is stupider than the other. I would like an intelligent discussion where personal issues are not brought into this.

Thank you

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Reasons for not allowing corporations to contribute to the political process:

1. They are not natural persons.  The first amendment only extends to people not things.  A person has a right not to an unreasonable search and seizure, a dog or a corporation does not. 

2. The purpose of a corporations is not generate income from its owners, not influence politics.  We don't allow PACs to run for profit operations.  There is a value in seperating the purposes.

3. Major corporations have diverse range of owners.  Many stock holders may not want the person the corporation is donating THEIR money to.

4. Stockholders can already donate their own money.  There is no reason why the corporation needs to be able to.

5. There is already too much money in the political system.  Allowing corporations to add to that further drowns out the little guy.

6. Allowing a corporation to donate a substanital amount to a canidate will result in the canidate owing the corporation something.  That already occurs, it will only get worse.

7. Non-voters (eg. corporations and foreign goverments) should not be influncing the outcome of the election.

[MaineDolFan]

Your point was sufficient with these two points alone:

5. There is already too much money in the political system.  Allowing corporations to add to that further drowns out the little guy.

7. Non-voters (eg. corporations and foreign goverments) should not be influncing the outcome of the election.

Agreed x 7.

[bsmooth]

There have been several cases where union members went to court to sue the union because they did not agree with the candidates and policies the union leadership was backing and did not want their union dues going to support candidates they personally did not support.
Also in California members of different unions to include the teachers got injuctions placed against their unions from raising dues to fund political campaigns.
I feel that this decision by the court reeks of serious partisionship, and actually trashes the 1st Amendment. They have just stated that a corporation has the one of the basic rights as a human being. That is a very slippery slope to start on.

[wyvernmcd]

Reasons for not allowing corporations to contribute to the political process:

1. They are not natural persons.  The first amendment only extends to people not things.  A person has a right not to an unreasonable search and seizure, a dog or a corporation does not. 

2. The purpose of a corporations is not generate income from its owners, not influence politics.  We don't allow PACs to run for profit operations.  There is a value in seperating the purposes.

3. Major corporations have diverse range of owners.  Many stock holders may not want the person the corporation is donating THEIR money to.

4. Stockholders can already donate their own money.  There is no reason why the corporation needs to be able to.

5. There is already too much money in the political system.  Allowing corporations to add to that further drowns out the little guy.

6. Allowing a corporation to donate a substanital amount to a canidate will result in the canidate owing the corporation something.  That already occurs, it will only get worse.

7. Non-voters (eg. corporations and foreign goverments) should not be influncing the outcome of the election.

So I can (at least at this point) assume that everyone here is in agreement that it was absolutely the worst thing to happen in the government. I am not dumb to the idea that these people are not taking bribes and etc. that are under the table and that allowing these contributions to be made from pretty much everyone everywhere in the world will only accelerate the corruption in the first place. What I do not understand is when the court justices were called out by the president that they (at least one person protested by mouthing "not true") sold out the american middle and lower class and are saying that what they are being called out for (at least in the foreign corporate donations) us untrue. Many of the republicans that I have heard from agree with the Justices, many of the democrats agree with Obama. Since I am still waiting for anyone to accept the first challenge of trying to convince me that changing the amendment was a good thing, I guess I should just ask regular questions like the following:

I feel that now that a coproration is a "person" but I am slow to understand what exaclty that means to everyone outside of the campaign contributions. If a corporation is given the same rights as a person, are there not laws and ethical conflictions that will come from this that have been massively overlooked that give a corporation more protection than a person? Does it mean that a corporation can actually lose rights because it is now considered a person and not a buisness? They can't be both (ethically). This is where I get confused. I would like explinations please. Citing resources would help as well.

Thanks for the previous information

[bsmooth]

So I can (at least at this point) assume that everyone here is in agreement that it was absolutely the worst thing to happen in the government. I am not dumb to the idea that these people are not taking bribes and etc. that are under the table and that allowing these contributions to be made from pretty much everyone everywhere in the world will only accelerate the corruption in the first place. What I do not understand is when the court justices were called out by the president that they (at least one person protested by mouthing "not true") sold out the american middle and lower class and are saying that what they are being called out for (at least in the foreign corporate donations) us untrue. Many of the republicans that I have heard from agree with the Justices, many of the democrats agree with Obama. Since I am still waiting for anyone to accept the first challenge of trying to convince me that changing the amendment was a good thing, I guess I should just ask regular questions like the following:

I feel that now that a coproration is a "person" but I am slow to understand what exaclty that means to everyone outside of the campaign contributions. If a corporation is given the same rights as a person, are there not laws and ethical conflictions that will come from this that have been massively overlooked that give a corporation more protection than a person? Does it mean that a corporation can actually lose rights because it is now considered a person and not a buisness? They can't be both (ethically). This is where I get confused. I would like explinations please. Citing resources would help as well.

Thanks for the previous information

That is the slippery slope they have put us on. While this may only apply to donations now, it could be possible that they do start pushing for more of the same rights that a person has.