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This decision also allows for multi-national corporations to apply "free speech" in our country.
Yep, we will see a lot of Arab, European and Asian money flowing in to elect the American candidates. Pretty much any thug and dictator with money will have a say in American elections.
Why not? The unions, environmental freaks, and whatever already control our government... the liberals started it and the conservatives made it worse... neither side is "clean" in this... oh what a slippery slope one creates when ideology comes before citizens..
This decision also allows for multi-national corporations to apply "free speech" in our country.
I think not. Just as non-citizens can't contribute to a campaign, foreign corp. won't be able to either....unless you have some evidence that says they will be able to.
I think not. Just as non-citizens can't contribute to a campaign, foreign corp. won't be able to either....unless you have some evidence that says they will be able to.
Says who? The company can be headquartered in US, and be owned by foreigners. Most large US companies also have partial foreign ownerships, so how do you control it? How big a part of a company has to be US owned to make it American? Do you count the stockholders, and check their citizenships. I don't think so.
Nah, anything will fly with this thing. The next president we have will probably be pushed thought by our Saudi Arabian "friends".
I think not. Just as non-citizens can't contribute to a campaign, foreign corp. won't be able to either....unless you have some evidence that says they will be able to.
Good thinkin' - I'm sure the law is gonna stop 'em! Especially now that corporations will be able to influence how laws will be written.
Oh, so that's why the post bemoaning the ignorance of the rest of us pea brains who are "myopic, . . . enchanted with [our] own opinions, . . . judgmental and . . .worse yet, [who] won't even get what [you're] saying." Got ya. I ought to dismiss you out of hand for the use of the non-word 'irregardless', as someone so uneducated that they can't be taken seriously. But for those others still reading, I'll take the time to disabuse you of the notion that you are the only one who knows anything about the law or precedent.
The fact remains that if even so much as a single justice had read the precedents properly, as Stevens did, then they would have ruled "correctly."
Don't like that statement? Well go ahead and break out your argument against it and then direct it at your own contention.
You claim all this brilliance of the law and trot out all the precedents the majority relied upon, yet dismiss with a hand-wave the fact that Stevens' opinion was also based on precedence in the law. How about I let someone more knowledgeable than I am about law and precedence, tell you where the majority erred. And until you're confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, I'll take for granted that he knows more than you about the law, as well.
"The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress has placed special limitations on campaign spending by corporations ever since the passage of the Tillman Act in 1907, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864. We have unanimously concluded that this “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process,†FEC v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197, 209 (1982) (NRWC), and have accepted the “legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation,†id., at 209–210. The Court today rejects a century of history when it treats the distinction between corporate and individual campaign spending as an invidious novelty born of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652 (1990). Relying largely on individual dissenting opinions, the majority blazes through our precedents, overruling or disavowing a body of case law including FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U. S. 449 (2007) (WRTL), McConnell v. FEC, 540 U. S. 93 (2003), FEC v. Beaumont, 539 U. S. 146 (2003), FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238 (1986) (MCFL), NRWC, 459 U. S. 197, and California Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182 (1981)."
"In his landmark concurrence in Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346 (1936), Justice Brandeis stressed the importance of adhering to rules the Court has “developed . . . for its own governance†when deciding constitutional questions. Because departures from those rules always enhance the risk of error, I shall review the background of this case in some detail before explaining why the Court’s analysis rests on a faulty understanding of Austin and McConnell and of our campaign finance jurisprudence more generally ."
So really, you can trot out a list of precedents a mile long, but so long as the use of those cases relies on INDIVIDUAL dissenting opinion from those cases, and rests on faulty understanding of the cases they cite, the mere fact of their reliance upon them doesn't necessarily make them correct.
But wait, there's more!
"It is all the more distressing that our colleagues have manufactured [as in, made up, fabricated, pulled out of their butts] a facial challenge, because the parties have advanced numerous ways to resolve the case that would facilitate electioneering by nonprofit advocacy corporations such as Citizens United, without toppling statutes and precedents. Which is to say, the majority has transgressed yet another “cardinal†principle of the judicial process: “[I ]f it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more,†PDK Labs., Inc. v. Drug Enforcement Admin., 362 F. 3d 786, 799 (CADC 2004) (Roberts, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
And then there's this. . .
"The final principle of judicial process that the majority violates is the most transparent: stare decisis. I am not an absolutist when it comes to stare decisis, in the campaign finance area or in any other. No one is. But if this principle is to do any meaningful work in supporting the rule of law, it must at least demand a significant justification, beyond the preferences of five Justices, for overturning settled doctrine. “[A] decision to overrule should rest on some special reason over and above the belief that a prior case was wrongly decided.†Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 864 (1992).No such justification exists in this case, and to the contrary there are powerful prudential reasons to keep faith with our precedents."
As I just showed you, they aren't at all on "solid legal ground", much as you'd like to proclaim. Why don't you take the time to read Stevens' dissent and then come back and tell us why he's wrong, and yet, according your your philosophy, had a single other Justice concurred with him, he'd be "right" just because he was in the majority.
We have a long history of the Supreme Court majority making bad or wrong findings. Quit pretending that "might makes right."
You can quote Justice Steven's dissenting opinion till the cows come home and it won't make any difference. The Court has ruled and that's that. It is now the law of the land and no matter how much we don't like it, as good American's and citizens of a free country based upon the rule of law, we are obligated to accept that decision until either Congress or the Court visits the issue again.
Steven's had his opportunity to present his case, which he did, and the majority of the Justice's disagreed with it.
I'd be interested to have someone explain to me why corporations should be excluded from the political process.
Don't the laws passed by Congress apply to them too? Don't they have an interest in influencing legislation just like we do?
And this: If corporations are not treated as persons under the Constitution, that means they would not have the protections of the Constitution when sued by someone or brought up on criminal charges. They would not have the right to be deemed innocent until proven guilty and would lose a whole host of other protections.
Someone please explain to me why that would be OK.
You can quote Justice Steven's dissenting opinion till the cows come home and it won't make any difference. The Court has ruled and that's that. It is now the law of the land and no matter how much we don't like it, as good American's and citizens of a free country based upon the rule of law, we are obligated to accept that decision until either Congress or the Court visits the issue again.
Steven's had his opportunity to present his case, which he did, and the majority of the Justice's disagreed with it.
That's true, the Court has ruled. But it doesn't mean that Steven's reasoning of the law wasn't stronger than the majority's. Jill citing Steven's dissent only asks that you put an argument out there of what's wrong with Steven's dissent. It's an intellectual exercise.
We use intellectual exercise to test the validity of our opinions. It's a better litmus test than deciding validity based on how a majority voted.
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