[Rant] Rant Spinoff Thread - Corporations and Free Speech
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Dave
Staff member
As opposed to our capitalist society giving all of our domestic organizations more power over us?
GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, wake me when they're confiscating 10% of your after tax wealth. Actually, you won't have to because the howling and sharpening of pitchforks will do it just fine.
What power have you lost that was given to a corporation? I'm intrigued.
Free Speech. The Vote for a President. Immortality.
I don't really want to get into this argument, but I could say that the Citizen's United decision gave corporations a huge increase in power via their ability to now blatantly buy elections. At least they had to work to corrupt elections before, but PACs allow corporations to spend unlimited money influencing how people vote. This takes power from average citizens, who can't compete monetarily.
GasBandit
Staff member
Really? You've been disenfranchised AND imprisoned for political speech? And I'm seriously grumpy that apparently there was Immortality going around when my grandma really could have used it, prior to the corporations taking it away.
Not imprisoned, but my speech is only worth about $100.00 per election cycle, and corporations can now give unlimited speech to the candidate of their choice. When SCOTUS made corporations so powerful, they were not given an expiration date, like I have.
GasBandit
Staff member
That's a deliberate falsehood. Freedom of speech is more than just monetary campaign contriubutions, and so are elections.
Sure, but the degrees of freedom (pun intended) is significantly different depending upon money access. Thus, it is easy to conclude that some are more free than others with their speech.[DOUBLEPOST=1381518072,1381517905][/DOUBLEPOST]
Well, I agree on the immortality, but a person's ability to communicate their message is directly dependent on the degree of noise already in the system. Granting any one entity a louder voices subsequently reduces the voices of others in relation. Note, I am making a relative argument here, not an absolute one.
GasBandit
Staff member
Freedom of speech doesn't mean equal access to megaphones, it means not being imprisoned for expressing views those in power don't like.
We should really adopt a one cod policy like china, then, because obviously creating more Americans deprives you of your rights.[DOUBLEPOST=1381518272,1381518226][/DOUBLEPOST]Hehehe.
Cod --> child.
I have seven fish at home! Won't someone think of the fish?!
The key term to define here is "without interference'. I post that the presence of many louder, shouting voices may constitute interference.[DOUBLEPOST=1381518347,1381518296][/DOUBLEPOST]
Incrementally, but the equation is balanced because individuals are notably equal. Corporations and people are less notably so.
I don't know about that. Any single person with a few million could affect the process of free speech as much as a corporation. I don't think this is necessarily a corporate vs citizen thing so much as a citizen vs wealthy citizen, or citizen vs group of citizens united to a cause.
While there is a wealth divide, would you claim that if a hundred people got together, donated to one issue, and promoted their cause took away your right to speak your mind through dilution?
If not, what is the difference with a corporation, which is really just a group of people united to making money, who may also use that money, as a group, to promote causes that they want to pursue?
While there is a wealth divide, would you claim that if a hundred people got together, donated to one issue, and promoted their cause took away your right to speak your mind through dilution?
If not, what is the difference with a corporation, which is really just a group of people united to making money, who may also use that money, as a group, to promote causes that they want to pursue?
GasBandit
Staff member
You're quoting the UN Declaration of Human rights, for those watching at home. I posit that here, interference is not an engineering term describing signal/noise ratio, but rather active denial through deliberate human effort of the ability to express thought.
And frankly, as long as the government's not putting them up to it to drown you out specifically, it's everybody else's right to shout, too.
Actually, I would say that that hundred people does dilute the speech of others (again, incrementally). The same with the wealthy person. In both cases they marginally infringe on the speech of others in society by speaking with a louder bullhorn. This is also true of those that control the bullhorn (news outlets, for example, or even the press secretary of the President). It seems to me the key difference between your two examples is that the 100 people came to a definitive agreement to speak in unison. I suspect it is quite uncommon that corporations solicit their employees for agreement on an issue before advocating one way or another. Thus, a handful of higher-ups can leverage a very loud message without any organized consent of the people they are (in your example) said to represent.
I borrow from engineering, sure, but I forward it as one method of interference, not the only one. People can be drowned out, basically, such that their voice is no longer heard. You can be imprisoned by the noise of the loud. And in today's world, the wealthiest are the loudest.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yes, and it is not an infringement of the right to speak that others can speak louder. The idea is everybody has a right to enter the race, not everybody has the right to win. That's why we don't tie weights to faster runners at track meets.
But you have the same opportunity to wield that leverage for your message too, and without becoming a corporation. Further, you can incorporate, and have all the privileges and obligations they have as well.
I still assert that the presence of the corporation doesn't take something from you that you had before in terms of free speech. Perhaps wealth does this, but corporations do not.
Besides which, free speech never guaranteed a forum or an equal speaking opportunity to anyone else. It simply guarantees you won't be thrown in jail for expresses of free speech.
So your free speech still belongs to you, and if it's less effective than it used to be, you are responsible for raising your message to the level of others. It's not their responsibility to be quiet enough that your efforts, no matter how small, are still significant.
I still assert that the presence of the corporation doesn't take something from you that you had before in terms of free speech. Perhaps wealth does this, but corporations do not.
Besides which, free speech never guaranteed a forum or an equal speaking opportunity to anyone else. It simply guarantees you won't be thrown in jail for expresses of free speech.
So your free speech still belongs to you, and if it's less effective than it used to be, you are responsible for raising your message to the level of others. It's not their responsibility to be quiet enough that your efforts, no matter how small, are still significant.
This is absolutely about money. The entire decision in question was about money. Corporations as a legal entity are not the crux of the discussion in any way. Corporations simply have a lot of money on hand. The question is, who's voice is speaking with that money? If it is an individual, or a group 100 citizens who have all agreed on a message, that is an easier question to answer than if it is a corporation.[DOUBLEPOST=1381520001,1381519820][/DOUBLEPOST]
Nor do we give them a head start. Let's say that hypothetically that the government granted all people with the name Finkle free advertising privileges. Yours are not removed at all, but all the Finkles of world can speak louder than you, and more often. Now we have a situation where some are more free than others.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'm not sure I'm following your analogy here. Are you saying the government is picking certain people to make rich?
No, the analogy doesn't have to do with the selection part, it is the unevenness of freedoms part.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, additional money gives more "freedom" in all things... the rich are more freely able to travel, to eat better food, more freely able to decide where to live and so on and so forth. The guarantee of freedom of speech is not the guarantee of equal speech - it's simply freedom from persecution by government for speech.
Sure, all things being equal, that is something we can live with. However, corporations are definitely not equal to individuals. Any organization, including the government and corporations, has more ability inherently to suppress or oppress individuals than another individual has. Granting corporations greater freedom (in this case through monetary access to speech) than individuals enables them to enact that inherent ability with more leverage.[DOUBLEPOST=1381523896,1381523504][/DOUBLEPOST]If you'd like to address the language in the first amendment...
...my argument hinges on the word "abridging", in that granting corporations (which leverage finances far beyond the wealthiest individuals) greater access to free speech than even the wealthy can manage, it curtails the individuals' right.[DOUBLEPOST=1381523961][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, any mods that feel so inclined, pull out this discussion into its own thread, if you like.[DOUBLEPOST=1381524009][/DOUBLEPOST]Oops, too slow.
GasBandit
Staff member
I could live with corporations not being treated as individuals for campaign contribution purposes, but if those same argument just extend to a rich individual, I wouldn't be on board with the idea that someone having more money than someone else constitutes an inherent unfairness when it comes to freedom of speech.
And I could definitely live with less corporations buying tons of discounted political advertising every 4 years, but that's a personal gripe about my industry.
And I could definitely live with less corporations buying tons of discounted political advertising every 4 years, but that's a personal gripe about my industry.
Well, I'm not one to make a slippery slope argument. I think demarking at the distinction between corporation and individual person is satisfying enough to me for the purposes of this debate. Let a wealthy individual squander their fortune for a loud megaphone.
I'm against that too. IMO, the system in Canada has its flaws, but is better than many alternatives. You can contribute up to $1000/year per person to a political party or candidate of your choice. And that's all they can accept either. There can be other fundraisers (not 100% on how that works) but you are limited to that. Often people with families/children have their "children" contribute too, but it's still a very small amount. Political advertising spending DURING election cycles (ours are distinct, 40 days prior to the voting date) can only occur by registered candidates/parties, and also subject to strict limits. People have challenged this, saying it muzzles others, like corporations, but even more significantly, advocacy groups (unions, what you'd call "PACs" and others), but I'd say that it's worth the upside of not having 24/7 political ads, as well as having big spending ruling the day.
Imagine that in the USA: contributions limited to $1000/person. And that's it. And no corporate donations at all. And no 3rd-parties can advertise at all during the "blackout" period. How would your system change? You actually need a lot of people contributing to run a campaign at all, rather than rich benefactors (this goes for both of your major parties). There are a few downsides, but ultimately, a lot better than what was before up here, and better what you have now as well.
GasBandit
Staff member
Thing is, there's ways for the wealthy to get around such things. It's easy to set up an independent PAC with an issue-based agenda that can then run its own political programming/advertisements that don't necessarily endorse one candidate or another, but do espouse a certain viewpoint that only stops just short of doing so. There's no real way to effectively police such things on individuals without it becoming a de facto violation of free speech.
I might actually be able to stomach watching broadcast TV during campaign season again...
Yes that's true, but 1. They can pour as much money as they want into existing PACs anyways, so let them, and 2. PACs can't advertise AT ALL during the 40-day election cycle. So even if they do pour their money into such things, they are rendered impotent during the most critical days. I won't stop political discourse under any guise during the "off-season" but approaching critical, they are de-fanged. If they want to advertise still, then let them register as a party and observe the same finance & advertising rules as everybody else.
It really is pretty damned hard to get around the way it is legislated up here.
I can live with rich individuals being off the table. At least when they donate, it's very clear who is giving and why. But corporations, PACs, and Super PACs just cloud the issue and allow people to conceal their support (to avoid political blowback). Force people to stand by their views. No more of this back room bullshit.