[kennywinker]

> That said, we could also ban informal groups from political speech.

Money is not speech. Speech is free, everybody can speak. Money lets some people amplify their speech proportional to how rich they are. Thus the rich get richer and democracy goes hungry.

> How are these things different, getting the message out versus buying votes

“Grain is good” getting your message out.

“Vote for jeff, a message from big grain” buying votes

[s1artibartfast]

So no paid speech? It would be interesting. It would give a lot of leverage to those who already own megaphones.

You could talk to your neighbor but not donate or collaborate.

[kennywinker]

Are you playing dense on purpose here? There are lots of ways forward.

E.g. Spending limits. Each person can spend up to $2000 on political speech. Individually or as part of a group, company, whatever. After that, all you’ve got is your time - go knock on doors.

Sure, $2000 is nothing to a jeff bezos, and too much to someone making $18k/year - but it levels the field so that jeffy, or the nra, or aipac, or oil and gas can’t throw their weight around in the way they do now.

There are other ways, that’d just be a return to how things were pre-citizens united

[s1artibartfast]

That seems to contradict you position above where speech is free and money isn't speech.

That said, I think it's a position that someone could take that they'll political speech should be limited when it involves money, provided they are honest about it.

I do think it would give more power to those who owned the megaphones, but maybe that's worth it.

That said, I don't think that pac spending are that big of a problem. The bigger problem is lobbying, aka the sharing of thoughts and ideas with politicians to educate them and inform their positions.

[kennywinker]

What’s the contradiction?

Speech is free, as in part of freedom, so speech should not be regulated by the government.

Spending money to amplify speech is not a right or a freedom, it should be heavily regulated.

> That said, I don't think that pac spending are that big of a problem

Look at aipac, there are only a handful of politicians who don’t take their money (or how every you want to phrase pac money being spent on you “independently”). And yet something like 60% of americans have an unfavorable view of israel. If those politicans taking aipac money take the wrong position on israel, that money disappears, and goes to an opponent of theirs. That’s just lobbying. Pac money is lobbying.