[John23832]

(Even though I disagree with it) Many courts interpretations of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

Lobbying is speech. You can't just censor people you disagree with. That's not the basis of our democratic society. The price of being able to speak what you think is good, is having to hear what you think is bad.

[maxerickson]

I think most of this thread is explained by people not realizing you were making a banal first amendment argument.

[jakelazaroff]

I think OP is moving the goalposts here. They also say "It's wrong when our elected officials bend to those business interest when it goes against the public interest", which is clearly a moral argument as opposed to a legal one.

[John23832]

I wasn't trying to move the goalposts. I was asked where that right was defined, and so I cited law.

[jakelazaroff]

Then is your position that businesses should not be expected to behave ethically, but politicians should? That's a pretty weird line to draw. There's no reason we shouldn't expect all members of society to adhere to a generally agreed-upon code of ethics, even if parts of that code shouldn't be made into law.

[John23832]

In a perfect society, everyone would act ethically. That isn't true sadly. We have to often force people to be ethical. We force businesses into ethics through law. We can't guilt trip a business. We can however expect ethics/morality from politicians because they are people. And really, they are elected into their positions because of their ethics.

[jakelazaroff]

> We can't guilt trip a business.

Sure we can. We can complain to them, boycott them, post stories on HN so other people know they're unethical, etc.

> We can however expect ethics/morality from politicians because they are people.

Businesses are just groups of people. A business behaves ethically only if the people who make it up behave ethically. We don't lose the ability to criticize them just because they're acting as a group.

[M_Grey]

That would be the aforementioned fiction I was expecting you'd trot out. You really are just abandoning anything like a moral or intellectual dimension of responsibility in favor of pure legalism, up to and including IG Farben in Nazi Germany?!

That's not really a position, it's a tragedy.

[John23832]

Are you really calling Citizens United a work of fiction? Asked where that right was spelled out, and I gave it to you.

I also didn't make a opinion on IG Farben... I called that argument straw man and ignored it because IG Farben doesn't currently exist.

Some people's appetite for argument and being proven correct is insatiable.