[menage]

This video linked in the article (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XBzV0bDZdQ) makes me want to donate to Institute for Justice to maybe help stop this practice. But a bit of Googling shows that IfJ were also one of the legal forces behind the Citizens United decision, which is something I really don't want to support.

[cyphertruck]

The "Citizens United" ruling simply said that citizens who pool money to pay for political media do not lose their first amendment rights by doing so in the form of a corporation. (or other entity). In this case it was a group who funded a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton.

That's it.

Citizens United was a fundamentally pro-first amendment, pro-human rights ruling.

I wonder if you can mount a defense of the idea that government has the right to ban people from making videos that criticize political candidates without government approval?

[xp84]

The counterargument is that allowing the very rich to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, without even full transparency as to where the money is coming from, makes our nation far worse.

You can tell that’s an opinion held by most of the people in this country by the fact that we had a set of campaign finance laws that were gutted or basically made moot by various recent developments like Citizens United. We have those adorable quaint little limits (4 figures) that a person can give to a campaign per election cycle. The point of that is that as a person, there probably ought to be a limit for how much money you can give a campaign.

And entities other than people, just like they aren’t entitled to votes, aren’t entitled to be able to stuff money into campaigns. Even if they pretend they’re independent.

None of the campaign finance laws we have mean anything when you can use these loopholes big enough to drive an oil tanker through. Also, I think we’re the only ones among advanced democracies who have this stuff. I don’t think it’s making our democracy healthier.

[kragen]

this comment is correct, even though the documentary itself was deplorable

[defrost]

It's disingenuous to frame it as being simply about "making videos"

    The ruling barred restrictions on corporations, unions, and nonprofit organizations from independent expenditures, allowing groups to independently support political candidates with financial resources.

    In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the court's ruling represented "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government"

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

[yieldcrv]

The people collectively have not submitted a constitutional amendment

and I’m going to be selling ad space to SuperPACs every 2 years until they do. I really thought for sure that one would provoke a tweak to the constitution, but nope!

[Dylan16807]

A PAC is not a person.

[amanaplanacanal]

The C stands for committee, which is made up of people.

[dredmorbius]

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition>

A whole is not the same as its constituent parts.

A person isn't an organ, or a cell, or molecules, or quarks, despite being composed of each of these.

[amanaplanacanal]

Technically true, but irrelevant in this case. The supreme court decided that people working together have the same first amendment rights that they do working individually. I think it was the correct decision, even if the fallout from it isn’t good.

[dredmorbius]

That's a different argument. And one profoundly flawed in its own way.

A corporate entity (that is, any entity comprised of two or more people) might have a need for legal rights, but there's no reason acceptable to me that it has to be on a notion of equivalence to "personhood", equivalent to human rights. And calling it that merely compounds both error and confusion.

Courts are not infallible. And the Santa Clara v. SPRR US origin is its own ball of bullshit.

[bagels]

They submitted an amicus brief, was there more involvement than that?

[krunck]

That agent should get his ass kicked out of the DEA and never work in goverment/public service again. Ever.