I’ve just been reading their latest columns defending the Citizens United case where it was ruled that corporations are people and that they have unlimited free speech. I do agree with the reason magazine that busiensses and unions should be able to spend as much money as they want to elect or defeat a candidate. I however would agree with the other view that we should protect our election campaigns from foreign influences from external enemies that might seek to use corporations as a proxy to hype up one candidate or another.
I just extremely dislike the corporatist slant that the Reason magazine has been taking. They have not only been defending the ruling- but they have also been minimizing the effects of propaganda, and, behavior alterating advertisements. They fail to account for the amount of propaganda that successfully fooled people into voting for George W Bush by making them think he was a compassionate conservative,or the propaganda that fooled us (or well not you, but people) into voting for Barack Obama into thinking that he was a centrist that was open for transparency and for new ideas. They also fail to account for how successful the propaganda campaign has been with regards to Ronald Reagan- making him highly popular after his Presidency despite the fact that he wasn’t that popular earlier on in his Presidency.
The Reason magazine has been taking a stance in many of its article where it seeks to deny outright the possibility of corporations influencing costumers, or, people being influenced by advertisements- specifically propaganda campaigns. They fail to take notice how different behavior placement, or, propaganda is when it’s not just about busiensses and it becomes about political election campaigns. The public has a right to know what the private sector does in regards to the public sector.
I believe you can take a free market view- different from what the Reason magazine does, and, be critical of the corporations. One could easily say that elections are a public matter and anything that influences the public elections- with campaign donations and the sort- should be made public- and we should limit foreign donations. I think the Reason magazine is too sympathetic to corporations- as, they think that corporations really don’t influence people all that much… so they find nothing wrong with it, and they’re just laughing at all the criticisms of the campaign ruling.
Does anyone else see what I’ve been seeing from Reason lately? Rather than take the approach of many free market people who say that corporations may not be regulated, but, they can be criticized- they just seem to mindlessly defend corporations no matter what. I’ve been getting tired of it. It’s like they’ll say behavior placement by the government is bad… but when the private sector does it it’s completely fine. I’m like, you should just be consistent here! I’m a little turned off by the Reason Magaizne’s corporatist slant.
I don’t. Reason isn’t pro-corporation, they’re just anti government influence. They don’t overtly argue in favor of anarchism, so I can see why some people around here wouldn’t be big fans. But they’re far from corporatist.
First of all, that wasn’t the ruling. Either way, the case isn’t as big of a deal as most people seem to think it is. All a corporation can do is make a convincing argument. They can’t force you to vote a certain way, they can’t pay you to vote the way they want, they can’t prevent anyone from running for office, and they don’t dictate how a politician acts once he’s elected. The only thing they can do is run advertisements. If that ad makes a good argument and actually does influence the way someone votes, what’s so bad about that? It’s no different than the politician himself running an ad, or a news station airing a debate or word of mouth advertising by supporters. Convincing arguments should be encouraged, not feared. And if that ad doesn’t actually convince anyone (which is probably more likely in my opinion), there’s obviously no problem there, either. The big bad corporation just wasted some money and also didn’t get their way, which should be a win for everyone.
So even if corporations start taking advantage of the ruling, it wouldn’t cause any harm. But they’re not likely to. Public opinion on any political issue worth trying to influence must necessarily be pretty close to a 50-50 split. Why would a corporation risk losing half its customer base over a controversial political issue? Just ask John Mackey about that if you don’t believe me.
So the practical effects of the Citizens United case won’t amount to much of anything. Even if that wasn’t the case, the SCOTUS got the principle right. The government shouldn’t be allowed to say some speech is okay and some isn’t.
I meant to say that they have unlimited campaign donations and that they have free speech rights- was the ruling. The fact is that we need transparency in elections. You obviously have a limited understanding about how powerful propaganda is. Hypothetically- let’s take the idea that the tea party group is really just a wing of the Republican party. They try to portray themselves as small government conservatives and they really care about small governments- and- they have fooled a mass of people into thinking they’re different from all the people that continually vote Republican every year. Propaganda made people believe that Democrats would actually be for change when they were for very much the same kinds of policies. Propaganda does have an influence over people, and, if you don’t think that advertisements make a big deal- I recommend you look over campaign history. We have very stupid voters in our country- and any ad that portrays one candidate one way, and another another way will make more of a difference than their policy.
Corporaitons aren’t required to disclose the money they’ve spent on political ads. Why would a corporation risk losing half its customer base over a controversial political issue? It’s because they have always been able to get away with it, and, they can get away with not disclosing who they are when they’re making the ads, and, stuff like that. It’s all politics.
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I don’t believe you fully understand the power of propaganda and the influence it has over people. I agree that the SCOtUS can’t say that some speech is okay and others isn’t- but if they’re going to influence campaigns- there is a need for transparency.
The court didn’t rule that disclaimer and disclosure requirements were unconstitutional, just that expenditure limits were unconstitutional. The FEC can still require corporations to disclose their identity when making political ads.
bloom3j1- thanks for correcting me on that. That in a sense actually solidifies my argument because my main point was that corporations have been doing this all this time and they’ve been spending money and no one’s really cared about who was spending the money. It’s all about politics and campaigning. But I just think that people are foolish to think that campaign ads won’t make that much of a difference- I wasn’t paying attention to politics at the time myself- but there was a time when the Bush team ridiculed John McCain and said that he had an illegitimate child, and, that caused quite an uproar in one of those election years. So yes- campaign ads and political campaigns DO make a difference and CAN affect the way people will vote- in one way or another.
I never said that they should restrain how much money they can or can’t spend on an election. I believe that all I said was that there should be transparency on it. That’s why I believe that congress should pass the DISCLOSE act- it would strengthen Democracy and protect it from the unwarranted influence from foreign corporations that might want to seek to influence our government’s activities for their nefarious wants.
