Considering corporations don't vote and only individuals do, you have a very poor case, as usual. If people are buying into corporate-paid bullshit then just imagine what they're buying into from politicians.
Democracy is based on wishes, nothing more. It works nothing like people imagine it to, and yet people keep on treating it like it works according to their fantasy dream visions of it.
See, you fear corporate influence because you're afraid of voters responding in a way you don't like. Simple as that. I fear this too, but you have an idyllic, naive vision of democracy--I don't. And even if democracy is necessary I'll gladly subvert any democratic law I can get away with.
Indeed, and big money or no big money in politics, people will get what they deserve. The influence of big money in politics isn't the problem--it's the fact that voters are dumb enough in the first person to be swayed by it.
And I'll never be able to be as persuasive as someone with good looks, or more pull within the system (for their is a bit of oligarchy within democracy--Bush Jr. didn't get elected out of pure merit, ya know), so on and so forth. The problem here, again, isn't that corporations can get a lot of pull with their financial resources--it's the the underlying premise of democracy, which is patently a sham to most people, is that the average person is capable of a rational, intelligent decision making in political matters. Of course, then some people like to fancy themselves as the deciders of truth and justice and want to lead and prod the unwashed masses in certain directions (particularly anti-business directions) but that's no more conducive to freedom than the ignorant masses getting to vote is.
Basically though, once you take the money out of politics it's the media that controls the elections. Fox, CNN, etc.
Anyway, free speech has nothing to do with how relatively effective your message is, merely that you can say it. If opening up free speech to a certain group means your message is diluted, so be it.
All grassroots campaigns in history have involved money. You can't put a guy on a soapbox unless you buy the soapbox first.
Anyway, you can't pass laws with an outdated, idealistic version of the government or society in mind without actually having that vision come true first.
You'd have an argument if corporations could themselves vote, but they cannot--that power is retained soly by individuals. Corporations should be treated like any other -group-, which means, collection of individuals, whom may even form a group around political issues. Any ill effects of corporations using money to spread messages is ultimately due to "the people" that accepted that message.
Ultimately, judging by your corporate rhetoric, you obviously will dislike whatever message corporations are likely to spread. Unfortunately, free speech doesn't mean "only speech I like," or at least shouldn't. You might as well argue that racists, communists, libertarians, etc, shouldn't be given free speech for other arbitrary reasons about qualities of those groups.
Exactly. You take the "money" out of electing politicians, you restrict donations, etc, then the media gets the run the show even more than they do now because they get to decide what to report and what not to report.
Money IS speech, or more accurately, money is used to buy the means of speech. Last election we saw Ron Paul (however you feel about him) have supporters pay for a blimp, newspaper advertisements, and donated a record amount of money to try to promote him. You can no more expect a grassroots politicians to rise up without money than you can expect a business to do well without advertising.
If you take money out of speech, then it's media interest and bias alone that controls the elections, because they are the gatekeepers to what most people see and hear.
If your argument is that only individuals have freedom of speech, then you cannot argue that any group of people has freedom of speech, and that includes lobbying groups of any kind (including those that are truly political and want change in civil liberties, such as, say, a group like NORML or the EFF). You can't pick and choose what type.
Interestingly, the exact same is true of "politicians" and "government," as well, but I don't see you complaining about that.
And, strangely, if you are indeed right about corps rarely being punished for their crimes, then maybe that's a fault of the government moreso than even the corporation?
Ultimately all the politicians are still being voted in by individuals. Perhaps democracy is the problem if you're afraid of people being influenced by big-money interests?
With unlimited spending the sheep who listen without thinking will just keep electing who they're told and never consider the consequences. Yay...
So your argument basically is, "If some groups that I don't like get greater influence, they will convince people to vote ways I don't like."
Sorry, buddy! You can't complain about people disagreeing with you if you buy into the democratic premise to begin with! Trying to silence groups that don't match your agenda is actually undemocratic, anyway, because it makes a farce out of the idea of people voting their mind.
(Personally, I think that nobody (not individuals nor organizations) should be allowed to contribute money to candidates and political advertising should not be allowed... but I doubt we'll ever see that happen.)
I'm not arguing that SCOTUS's logic is unsound. I'm arguing that even if their logic is sound, the conclusions they've reached have badly damaged the U.S., because it essentially lets rich corporations decide our laws.
So you mean voters are easily influenced by propaganda and are unable to consider the source? I'm not sure democracy is a good idea if merely allowing corporations to speak freely or donate money to politicians, when it's the individuals that ultimately do the election.
Anyway, the real problem here isn't corporations having freedom of speech (which I agree with, even though I'm no fan of corporations and of "individual profit without individual responsibility"), it's the entire election system itself. It's all a complete fraud. And a naive and stupid populace really has only itself to blame, not "the upper class," not "the corporations," nor anyone else subjected to the usual five minutes hate.
That's just it. People expect the government to be this magical source of goodness and righteousness like a magical deity, somehow outside of the corruption of human behavior, if we only *try* hard enough, yet people can't possibly be good enough consumers to control a free market.
Then people whine on about fairness and "rights" when they use the words so nebulously they're devoid of meaning. What action is supposed to be "fair?" Of course, I'll get that person's subjective feelings on what "fair" is, while they chestbeat about how their personal opinions on how the world should be run are objective moral truths that they discovered by reading the Huffington Post.
The truth is, in a democracy such as ours there is an underlying free market in politics as well as business--it's ultimately up to the people to "regulate" government by voting (and in an ideal world) "regulate" business by witholding patronage, but people simply can't do it. Democracy is a sham. Just look at the replies I get, they tell me standard civics dogma like I'm unfamiliar with it and they laden it with all sorts of idealistic praise and unrealistic wish-fulfillment.
Government really is just a sort of deux-ex-machina of justice. It's supposed to "just be" good and not-corrupt and effective etc etc, and since people have that naive vision of government they go on pretending that if they wear rosy enough glasses government will become what they want it to be, and not what it is.
Instead what we really see, past all the democratic (lowercase D!) ideology, is collusion between business and government, with the ideologues putting on the blame on business and none of it on government, because Government Is Supposed To Be Inherently Good while Profits Are Bad.
Whine about Monsanto either because they make GM crops (which are good unless you buy into pseudoscience, more food for people, but weren't made by the government so are therefore evil) or because they get ridiculous patents on planet DNA (which IS bad but let's totally ignore the entity that makes up the patent system and enforces it), or because a big business is offering you a business deal you don't like ("I deserve better than this! I HAVE ARBITRARILY-DETERMINED RIGHTS!")
It's also funny how people are so willing to regulate what kind of offers businesses can offer consumers yet they're totally unwilling to regulate politicians the same way. I expect to just see more of what people learned in civics class, more uncritical nonsense where governments are ruled by angels and not men and institutions that create war and kill people are more dangerous than institutions that mainly just offer whatever deal will make them most profitable (not that businesses haven't killed or such before).
I'd rather have pure unshackled government than unshackled free market. Strict top-down controls by authorities are conducive to liberty and freedom. Noam Chomksy said so.
At what point do Americans call 'enough!' on corporate hegemony?
Why is it that people are so willing to put themselves under government hegemony instead? Neither options are good, but corporate action only exists if consumers exist or government funnels money to them. I guess love of government, love of the people that can slap you in jail (while hating those that charge you more than you like / more than they should for something more) on their whim after "justice theater" in the courtroom are just being fashionable for the times.
News flash: corporations can't do much to you if you don't do business with them. Any corporation could buckle overnight if people acted on principle. But people don't care about principle, and the fact that they can't even act in their own self-interest in business shows that democracy itself is untenable. I guess people just operate under the myth that if we just work hard enough, we can create a perfect government, which is nonsense since the corruption of most western governments is an emergent property of the overall democratic structures in the first place, and believing in a perfect government when people can't be good consumers on a collective level is pretty silly...
A yoke is a yoke no matter whether you label it "democratic" or not.
So, you're screwed either way. Just stop holding allegiance to government (and, of course, corporations).
Doesn't matter what their lawyer said. It is still possible and conceivable. Hell, it could happen due to forgetting to give someone the right paperwork. Or any other possible scenario, really. It doesn't really matter what Apple says.
While Apple may be keeping it under wraps, it is still conceivable that Apple may expose someone to the tablet without making them sign an NDA. A preemptive lawsuit ASSUMES that everyone that knows about the tablet is under NDA, but you can never make that assumption.
Fairness doctrine has nothing to do with -muzzling- Limbaugh, and nobody suggested such. It's you that doesn't know what the fairness doctrine is. Perhaps you should do some reading on the subject. I recommend the wikipedia link you posted.
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Considering corporations don't vote and only individuals do, you have a very poor case, as usual. If people are buying into corporate-paid bullshit then just imagine what they're buying into from politicians.
Democracy is based on wishes, nothing more. It works nothing like people imagine it to, and yet people keep on treating it like it works according to their fantasy dream visions of it.
See, you fear corporate influence because you're afraid of voters responding in a way you don't like. Simple as that. I fear this too, but you have an idyllic, naive vision of democracy--I don't. And even if democracy is necessary I'll gladly subvert any democratic law I can get away with.
We must subvert democracy to save democracy.
Indeed, and big money or no big money in politics, people will get what they deserve. The influence of big money in politics isn't the problem--it's the fact that voters are dumb enough in the first person to be swayed by it.
And I'll never be able to be as persuasive as someone with good looks, or more pull within the system (for their is a bit of oligarchy within democracy--Bush Jr. didn't get elected out of pure merit, ya know), so on and so forth. The problem here, again, isn't that corporations can get a lot of pull with their financial resources--it's the the underlying premise of democracy, which is patently a sham to most people, is that the average person is capable of a rational, intelligent decision making in political matters. Of course, then some people like to fancy themselves as the deciders of truth and justice and want to lead and prod the unwashed masses in certain directions (particularly anti-business directions) but that's no more conducive to freedom than the ignorant masses getting to vote is.
Basically though, once you take the money out of politics it's the media that controls the elections. Fox, CNN, etc.
Anyway, free speech has nothing to do with how relatively effective your message is, merely that you can say it. If opening up free speech to a certain group means your message is diluted, so be it.
All grassroots campaigns in history have involved money. You can't put a guy on a soapbox unless you buy the soapbox first.
Anyway, you can't pass laws with an outdated, idealistic version of the government or society in mind without actually having that vision come true first.
Perhaps you should reconsider democracy, then.
You'd have an argument if corporations could themselves vote, but they cannot--that power is retained soly by individuals. Corporations should be treated like any other -group-, which means, collection of individuals, whom may even form a group around political issues. Any ill effects of corporations using money to spread messages is ultimately due to "the people" that accepted that message.
Ultimately, judging by your corporate rhetoric, you obviously will dislike whatever message corporations are likely to spread. Unfortunately, free speech doesn't mean "only speech I like," or at least shouldn't. You might as well argue that racists, communists, libertarians, etc, shouldn't be given free speech for other arbitrary reasons about qualities of those groups.
I agree, but we should also stop taxing individuals :)
Exactly. You take the "money" out of electing politicians, you restrict donations, etc, then the media gets the run the show even more than they do now because they get to decide what to report and what not to report.
Money IS speech, or more accurately, money is used to buy the means of speech. Last election we saw Ron Paul (however you feel about him) have supporters pay for a blimp, newspaper advertisements, and donated a record amount of money to try to promote him. You can no more expect a grassroots politicians to rise up without money than you can expect a business to do well without advertising.
If you take money out of speech, then it's media interest and bias alone that controls the elections, because they are the gatekeepers to what most people see and hear.
If your argument is that only individuals have freedom of speech, then you cannot argue that any group of people has freedom of speech, and that includes lobbying groups of any kind (including those that are truly political and want change in civil liberties, such as, say, a group like NORML or the EFF). You can't pick and choose what type.
Interestingly, the exact same is true of "politicians" and "government," as well, but I don't see you complaining about that.
And, strangely, if you are indeed right about corps rarely being punished for their crimes, then maybe that's a fault of the government moreso than even the corporation?
Ultimately all the politicians are still being voted in by individuals. Perhaps democracy is the problem if you're afraid of people being influenced by big-money interests?
So your argument basically is, "If some groups that I don't like get greater influence, they will convince people to vote ways I don't like."
Sorry, buddy! You can't complain about people disagreeing with you if you buy into the democratic premise to begin with! Trying to silence groups that don't match your agenda is actually undemocratic, anyway, because it makes a farce out of the idea of people voting their mind.
That's a nice bit of idealistic cultural mythology, isn't it? Do tell me, who are "the people?" 51% of people in a country?
Ah, a staunch defender of the old guard, I see.
So you mean voters are easily influenced by propaganda and are unable to consider the source? I'm not sure democracy is a good idea if merely allowing corporations to speak freely or donate money to politicians, when it's the individuals that ultimately do the election.
Anyway, the real problem here isn't corporations having freedom of speech (which I agree with, even though I'm no fan of corporations and of "individual profit without individual responsibility"), it's the entire election system itself. It's all a complete fraud. And a naive and stupid populace really has only itself to blame, not "the upper class," not "the corporations," nor anyone else subjected to the usual five minutes hate.
How many people have heard of Asteroids versus "Star Castle?"
Come back to me when Microsoft Time Warner runs something akin to Guantanamo Bay.
You can't do anything against a corporation? DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THEM!
That's just it. People expect the government to be this magical source of goodness and righteousness like a magical deity, somehow outside of the corruption of human behavior, if we only *try* hard enough, yet people can't possibly be good enough consumers to control a free market.
Then people whine on about fairness and "rights" when they use the words so nebulously they're devoid of meaning. What action is supposed to be "fair?" Of course, I'll get that person's subjective feelings on what "fair" is, while they chestbeat about how their personal opinions on how the world should be run are objective moral truths that they discovered by reading the Huffington Post.
The truth is, in a democracy such as ours there is an underlying free market in politics as well as business--it's ultimately up to the people to "regulate" government by voting (and in an ideal world) "regulate" business by witholding patronage, but people simply can't do it. Democracy is a sham. Just look at the replies I get, they tell me standard civics dogma like I'm unfamiliar with it and they laden it with all sorts of idealistic praise and unrealistic wish-fulfillment.
Government really is just a sort of deux-ex-machina of justice. It's supposed to "just be" good and not-corrupt and effective etc etc, and since people have that naive vision of government they go on pretending that if they wear rosy enough glasses government will become what they want it to be, and not what it is.
Instead what we really see, past all the democratic (lowercase D!) ideology, is collusion between business and government, with the ideologues putting on the blame on business and none of it on government, because Government Is Supposed To Be Inherently Good while Profits Are Bad.
Whine about Monsanto either because they make GM crops (which are good unless you buy into pseudoscience, more food for people, but weren't made by the government so are therefore evil) or because they get ridiculous patents on planet DNA (which IS bad but let's totally ignore the entity that makes up the patent system and enforces it), or because a big business is offering you a business deal you don't like ("I deserve better than this! I HAVE ARBITRARILY-DETERMINED RIGHTS!")
It's also funny how people are so willing to regulate what kind of offers businesses can offer consumers yet they're totally unwilling to regulate politicians the same way. I expect to just see more of what people learned in civics class, more uncritical nonsense where governments are ruled by angels and not men and institutions that create war and kill people are more dangerous than institutions that mainly just offer whatever deal will make them most profitable (not that businesses haven't killed or such before).
I'd rather have pure unshackled government than unshackled free market. Strict top-down controls by authorities are conducive to liberty and freedom. Noam Chomksy said so.
Why is it that people are so willing to put themselves under government hegemony instead? Neither options are good, but corporate action only exists if consumers exist or government funnels money to them. I guess love of government, love of the people that can slap you in jail (while hating those that charge you more than you like / more than they should for something more) on their whim after "justice theater" in the courtroom are just being fashionable for the times.
News flash: corporations can't do much to you if you don't do business with them. Any corporation could buckle overnight if people acted on principle. But people don't care about principle, and the fact that they can't even act in their own self-interest in business shows that democracy itself is untenable. I guess people just operate under the myth that if we just work hard enough, we can create a perfect government, which is nonsense since the corruption of most western governments is an emergent property of the overall democratic structures in the first place, and believing in a perfect government when people can't be good consumers on a collective level is pretty silly...
A yoke is a yoke no matter whether you label it "democratic" or not.
So, you're screwed either way. Just stop holding allegiance to government (and, of course, corporations).
Doesn't matter what their lawyer said. It is still possible and conceivable. Hell, it could happen due to forgetting to give someone the right paperwork. Or any other possible scenario, really. It doesn't really matter what Apple says.
While Apple may be keeping it under wraps, it is still conceivable that Apple may expose someone to the tablet without making them sign an NDA. A preemptive lawsuit ASSUMES that everyone that knows about the tablet is under NDA, but you can never make that assumption.
You've yet to even explain yourself when you claimed I didn't know what the fairness doctrine is.
Nah. You educate yourself.
Fairness doctrine has nothing to do with -muzzling- Limbaugh, and nobody suggested such. It's you that doesn't know what the fairness doctrine is. Perhaps you should do some reading on the subject. I recommend the wikipedia link you posted.