Am I a Liberal or a Conservative? Neither?

[Freak80]

Originally Posted by whogo

It is to those who have serious problems with reading comprehension.

Please elaborate for the benefit of the audience.

[whogo]

Originally Posted by Freak80

Please elaborate for the benefit of the audience.

His post was quite self-explanatory.

You favor government deciding who can and who cannot engage in speech at a critical time in the election process. Nothing is worse than government deciding who can engage in speech and when. And, yes, speech tends to cost money.

From the Citizens United decision:

*

(a)*Although the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions. It is a ban notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak, for a PAC is a separate association from the corporation. Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence. Laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” WRTL, 551 U.*S., at 464. This language provides a sufficient framework for protecting the interests in this case. Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or viewpoints or to distinguish among different speakers, which may be a means to control content. The Government may also commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers. There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic lead to this conclusion. Pp.*20–25.

Limits on free speech leave us susceptible to a dictatorship or, more likely in our current environment, cementing the two party system. All Americans should praise the decision in Citizens United.

[zortation]

Originally Posted by Freak80

We Americans love tribal "us vs. them" contests, so we need our "team colors."

So what's it like to live in a civilized society? I hear it's pretty sweet...

It's ok I guess...

You tend to wear the words "liberal" and "conservative" like a religion almost. Here those words have been neutered to the point of being meaningless. If we aren't talking political parties they literally mean nothing here.

People tend to vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP (Social Dem), Green etc. according to their present day circumstances, and that can easily change over time.

[GregW]

I have no problem with any person donating as much as they want to any politician they choose so long as: they are an individual citizen and the amount and time of the donation is public knowledge.


I do not accept that a Corporation is a citizen. It is a group of people, citizens or not, banded together to finance a profit making business. It is not an individual. It does not have the right for political free speech. If it is a citizen then it should pay taxes based on its total income just like every other citizen.

[whogo]

Originally Posted by GregW

I do not accept that a Corporation is a citizen. It is a group of people, citizens or not, banded together to finance a profit making business. It is not an individual. It does not have the right for political free speech. If it is a citizen then it should pay taxes based on its total income just like every other citizen.

So you believe a corporation wholly owned by a black family could be legally discriminated against on government contracts?

[Spikett]

Originally Posted by Catgirl64

Where do you get that idea? Could it, perchance, be an assumption?

Some rich people are corrupt. So are some poor people. What is unquestionably corrupt is a system that allows a tiny fraction of the population to build a financial empire on the efforts of people who are paid so little that they often need public assistance to survive. Golden parachutes, worth millions of dollars, given to executives who have run their companies into the ground and left in their wake hundreds of fired and laid-off employees who were lucky to get two weeks' severance pay are corrupt. Bailing out subprime lenders while letting thousands of families lose their homes to foreclosure was corrupt. Those bankers' fat-cat butts got rescued on the taxpayers' dime, and what constructive action have they taken to remedy the damage they did to the economy and the lives of all those people? None.

I have news for you. In terms of the kind of wealth that benefits from all these ugly little crimes, you are not rich. You might be comfortably well-off. You might even have a couple of BMWs in the garage at your McMansion. But in terms of these bad policies, the ones that benefit only the top .01%? You are not rich, not that kind of rich, and this corruption doesn't help you any more than it helps an unemployed janitor on disability.

^^This. My family was far from rich but they worked very hard- farmers, miners, etc. It was work that was important and had to be done. But no one really cared about them - yet folks like that are the backbone of America.

[Catgirl64]

Originally Posted by Spikett

^^This. My family was far from rich but they worked very hard- farmers, miners, etc. It was work that was important and had to be done. But no one really cared about them - yet folks like that are the backbone of America.

If you like to read, I have a book for you to check out. It's called Winner Take All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. Prepare yourself to get mad, though.