Speedom of Freech
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Again, non-human entities are not citizens.
Can you give me an instance of a non-human speaking? I've yet to see one here.
FTR: I'm cool with suppressing speech from gorillas and robots.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Restricting the ability for special interests to subvert the will of the people is undemocratic?
Has it really never occurred to you that your special interest is my will of the people?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
Let's fix that so you might see the problem: "How does [giving the government the power to suppress] something that [they claim is] causing harm to democracy 'destroy the democracy'?" I think that it should be obvious that giving a corrupted (by your own argument) government more power over citizens' lives can't end well.
Again, non-human entities are not citizens.
It's also super undemocratic. "Shut up, we know what's best for you."
Restricting the ability for special interests to subvert the will of the people is undemocratic?
Dude, we're all special interests. By definition. Also--by suppressing the speech of "non-human entities" you're suppressing the speech of the citizens who make up those entities.
Note--denying corporations constitutional rights means that the government could, for example, walk in and take the corporation's property without recompense, or make the members testify against themselves. How can someone lose their rights by assembling together? That only gives power to people who are independently wealthy and takes away any hope of common people getting together to put a message out.
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
Well, firstly, you're begging the question there. How do we decide what's destroying the democracy?
Well, I dunno. Maybe by looking at whether things are becoming more or less democratic, for starters?
Who decides? When did it become cool for the government to practice content based censorship?
When the content in question is inherently harmful. It's always been that way; that's why we have obscenity laws, for example.
And yet the lack of our destruction compels you to outlaw the most important sort of speech to protect? I mean...this is literally the reason to have free speech. All the porn and junk is just a side effect.
Again, please stop conflating speech with paid advertising. The way you keep coming back to that, it makes it feel like you're arguing in bad faith.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
That only gives power to people who are independently wealthy and takes away any hope of common people getting together to put a message out.
Only when it's prohibitively expensive for common people to do so without being independently wealthy. (Which, surprise surprise, is precisely what happens when corporations are allowed to spend massive amounts of money on political advertising: they drive the prices up and price everyone else out of the market.)
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@masonwheeler Look, if exotic dancing is speech (which it is by Supreme Court precedent), then political advertising (which is at the core of the 1st amendment) is speech. A real person is paying for that advertising and composing the message. This is 1st amendment basics here. There is no colorable argument that it's not speech. That position won 9-0 at the Supreme Court. The only thing that was divided was on whether the government had a compelling reason to curb that speech.
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@masonwheeler You do realize that that hasn't happened? Corporations spent ~0 dollars last cycle on political ads. When they do spend, it's equally balanced between parties. Citizens United was a small non-profit funded by non-tax-exempt donations. Not a corporation with deep pockets.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
Well, firstly, you're begging the question there. How do we decide what's destroying the democracy?
Well, I dunno. Maybe by looking at whether things are becoming more or less democratic, for starters?
How does that establish causation? And why do you think we should speak less about that sort of thing?
Who decides? When did it become cool for the government to practice content based censorship?
When the content in question is inherently harmful. It's always been that way; that's why we have obscenity laws, for example.
True. But how can you argue that political speech is inherently harmful? How do you have a functioning democracy without it? You still haven't given me a reason why a newspaper should get special treatment, aside from your laughable callout to the Constitution. Why can't other corporations just declare themselves to be part of "the Press?"
And yet the lack of our destruction compels you to outlaw the most important sort of speech to protect? I mean...this is literally the reason to have free speech. All the porn and junk is just a side effect.
Again, please stop conflating speech with paid advertising. The way you keep coming back to that, it makes it feel like you're arguing in bad faith.
Why are you hung up on "paid advertising?" Did you consider the case of publishing a book? Sorry, but the way you keep bringing this up just makes you sound like you haven't thought any of this through.
Why shouldn't people be able to pay to have someone help get their message out? Why does that payment change the nature of the message?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
That only gives power to people who are independently wealthy and takes away any hope of common people getting together to put a message out.
Only when it's prohibitively expensive for common people to do so without being independently wealthy. (Which, surprise surprise, is precisely what happens when corporations are allowed to spend massive amounts of money on political advertising: they drive the prices up and price everyone else out of the market.)
D00d, the "common people" can pool their resources into an incorporated entity. This is exactly the reason for corporations to exist!
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
@masonwheeler You do realize that that hasn't happened? Corporations spent ~0 dollars last cycle on political ads.
Uhh... what?
Where in the world did you hear such a ridiculous thing?!? Corporations spent massive, record-breaking amounts of money last election; the entire process was drowning in Super-PAC money from beginning to end! (And just look what it got us: a choice between the two worst presidential candidates in living memory!)
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
And just look what it got us: a choice between the two worst presidential candidates in living memory!
At least you're consistent:
I don't like this speech. Things happened that I disagreed with! Shut them up!
But you're still inconsistent. Why should a newspaper get to shill for a candidate or an issue but not the NAACP?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
@masonwheeler You do realize that that hasn't happened? Corporations spent ~0 dollars last cycle on political ads.
Uhh... what?
Where in the world did you hear such a ridiculous thing?!? Corporations spent massive, record-breaking amounts of money last election; the entire process was drowning in Super-PAC money from beginning to end! (And just look what it got us: a choice between the two worst presidential candidates in living memory!)
All that money was donated for explicitly political speech. Thus, it is the speech of the people who donated their money. Claiming otherwise is fox-level ignorant of basic law and precedent.
BTW--unions (organized as corporations) routinely spend more than any other group on politics. And that's with funds acquired by coercion. Yet many of those who oppose Citizens United support union speech...hmmm...do I detect motivated reasoning?
The law at question allowed the government to pick and choose which speech was allowed. That's so far off the democratic path that I don't know what else to say.
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
But you're still inconsistent. Why should a newspaper get to shill for a candidate or an issue but not the NAACP?
Why do you keep asking questions I already answered?
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@masonwheeler because your answer was moronic. Freedom of the press is the freedom of ANYONE to publish. Not the freedom of some organization that happens to call itself the press. Denying corporations (and thus their owners) rights denies newspapers and TV stations and radio their rights.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
When the content in question is inherently harmful. It's always been that way; that's why we have obscenity laws, for example.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
But you're still inconsistent. Why should a newspaper get to shill for a candidate or an issue but not the NAACP?
Why do you keep asking questions I already answered?
Your so-called answers were obviously wrong and shown to be so by multiple people. Also, I don't think you gave any sort of answer regarding books. And even if we went with your dodge about "the Press," you haven't explained how that is defined and why any other corporation couldn't become a member.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
All that money was donated for explicitly political speech. Thus, it is the speech of the
peoplecorporate entities who donated their money.So corporations did spend a bunch of money on political ads, then?
@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
BTW--unions (organized as corporations) routinely spend more than any other group on politics. And that's with funds acquired by coercion. Yet many of those who oppose Citizens United support union speech...hmmm...do I detect motivated reasoning?
Are you aware of what happened next? Because a lot of people who play the "but Citizens United gave unions the same right" card aren't.
A subsequent case established that because unions use "funds acquired by coercion," as you put it, and their members may not agree with what's being said, that unions have to take a vote from their members before being able to run political ads, to ensure that the ads being run represent the views of the union and not simply the union's bosses.
The equivalent for corporations would be requiring a shareholder resolution to approve each ad buy. (Guess whether that ever became a thing?)
As I said, the Citizens United ruling was 100% pro-corporate judicial activism.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Again, non-human entities are not citizens.
I think SCOTUS said it rather succinctly:
The majority ruled that the Freedom of the Press clause of the First Amendment protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals therefore, have free speech rights under the First Amendment. Because spending money is essential to disseminating speech, as established in Buckley v. Valeo, limiting a corporation's ability to spend money is unconstitutional because it limits the ability of its members to associate effectively and to speak on political issues.
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@masonwheeler That's not entirely true (I was in a union at that point). If you don't want your funds used for political ads, you can request a partial refund. That refund is at the mercy of (and in the amount decided by) the union bosses. They can classify their spending however they feel like, and most have a PAC (or similar organization) that they funnel the union dues through.
For me, it boils down to a simple fact. The government does not have the power given to it to restrict "things it decides are harmful to democracy." "Congress shall make no law" and all that. It's simply not in their remit. I don't care if it benefits scary corporations (which usually means organizations of common people). It's JUST NOT GOVERNMENT'S JOB to regulate political speech.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
I think it's kind of funny when I say, "Corporations are people," because people tend to think about just the legal entity version and not the actual people. You should think about why you want to shut down on organized, pooled speech in some circumstances but not others.
Again, where did I say that?
I don't believe in non-human entities having human rights.
What about groups of humans? Should they have human rights? Because that's what a corporation is.
(Almost certainly
'd)
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
What about groups of humans? Should they have human rights?
No, because there's no such thing as "human-group rights." The individual members of the group, though, do.
This is really not a difficult concept to grasp, is it?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
People are making the speech that you're talking about. You want to shut them up.
No.
OK. But it was people who did all of the stuff. What about those people? Why do you want to prevent them from organizing and speaking?
Ah, now that's where we finally come to the crux of the discussion. It's not the speaking that's the problem; it's the organizing and. And the reason I find that problematic is that it has a strong tendency to drown out other speech, so that getting your message heard stops being a matter of who has the best argument and becomes, instead, a matter of who has the most resources and the best organizing tactics. That's a fundamentally problematic thing.
I know, right? Like...a printing press. What newspapers use to print their papers.
Where did I say anything at all to lead you to that conclusion?!? Is there any point anywhere in this conversation in which I mentioned printing presses?
A printing press historically has been an exceptionally good resource to increase one's organizing ability.
It has lessened somewhat recently with the advent of the Internet, especially social media, but only because that is that much of a better resource.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
Well, firstly, you're begging the question there. How do we decide what's destroying the democracy?
Well, I dunno. Maybe by looking at whether things are becoming more or less democratic, for starters?
Just throwing this out there:
The USA was never intended to be a democracy, in the strict sense. It was set up as a federal republic. Democracy hasn't ever really worked on any but the smallest scales. Republics do work on massive scales, because the controlling pieces represent smaller conglomerates who can remove and replace them from their positions of power. The small-scale democracies that work select a subsection to represent them on the next level up, where the number remains in the small-scale, workable range, and they can (or could -- that's been changed with the direct election of senators) select yet another level of indirection to run the broadly sweeping demands of a large nation.With modern instant communication, it may be possible to try a huge direct democracy, and that seems to be what the USA is becoming. I guess we'll have to see whether it works. I fear that it will simply become the largest instance of mob rule in earth's history.
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
I fear that it will simply become the largest instance of mob rule in earth's history.
There's opportunity to go even larger than that. It's called India. You might've heard of it, and they have both elections and many many more people.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
What about groups of humans? Should they have human rights?
No, because there's no such thing as "human-group rights." The individual members of the group, though, do.
This is really not a difficult concept to grasp, is it?
But how do you grant rights to individuals and deny them to a group made up of those individuals at the same time?
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@djls45 Just fine, thank you.
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@masonwheeler Uh, what...?
Do you have a method for permitting individuals to do something, but not groups?
Do you have some examples where this has been done?
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
@masonwheeler Uh, what...?
It's a colloquial way of saying "this thing that you're acting like is something super difficult and complicated really isn't."
How hard can this possibly be to understand? A human being is a person who has human rights. Anything else is not. It really is just that simple.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
How hard can this possibly be to understand?
Apparently it's easy for you, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the idea.
A human being is a person who has human rights.
Yes, I get this. That's easy.
Anything else is not.
Right, non-humans don't have human rights.
It really is just that simple.
Apparently not, because I still don't get how a human can have rights, but humans can't have the same rights.
If we put two humans together, do they no longer have human rights?
Or one human who incorporates himself as his own agent? Does he lose his rights then?
I really don't see how you can possibly say that individuals have rights, but groups don't/can't.
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
@masonwheeler said in In other news today...:
@boomzilla About which point?
If you had your way, you'd make it illegal for people who have organized themselves and pooled their resources to use those pooled resources to speak out. If we were being consistent, we'd have to shut down newspapers.
Numerous SC justices and conservative commentators have argued that, if it isn't explicitly stated (countenanced by) the Constitution then it doesn't exist. Common examples are the web (shouldn't be protected by the First Amendment, which doesn't list "web") and privacy (doesn't appear in the Constitution at all).
I look at the First Amendment and I see protection for the people and the press. Nowhere do I see protection for a PAC, which is what this case was about. On that basis, how do you think the SC can possibly justify giving PACs First Amendment Rights?
And while we're on the topic, and borrowing from your statement, how do you feel about: "people who have organized themselves into a union and pooled their resources to use those pooled resources to speak out"? I ask because courts have tried to prevent unions from speaking out.
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
an have rights, but humans can't have the same rights.If we put two humans together, do they no longer have human rights?
They both still have exactly the same human rights as they had before. They don't gain additional human rights via their incorporation into a group that is not a human being; that's a logical absurdity.
I really don't see how you can possibly say that individuals have rights, but groups don't/can't.
See above. That's how I can say that.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Speedom of Freech:
For me, it boils down to a simple fact. The government does not have the power given to it to restrict "things it decides are harmful to democracy." "Congress shall make no law" and all that. It's simply not in their remit. I don't care if it benefits scary corporations (which usually means organizations of common people). It's JUST NOT GOVERNMENT'S JOB to regulate political speech.
That's insightful and true, but keep in mind Government also has the ability to change its own remit.
Which means if we in the US wanted a country where, for example, each Presidential candidate got to spend exactly $14.99 and nothing more on their campaigns, our representatives could make that happen.
If MasonWheeler wants that to happen, that's what he should be supporting. Not protesting the Citizen's United case, which is simple, logical, and correct.
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
Democracy hasn't ever really worked on any but the smallest scales.
India makes it work pretty well. It's not perfect, but it's also not a huge disaster. And their scale is bigger than the US's.
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@CoyneTheDup said in Speedom of Freech:
I look at the First Amendment and I see protection for the people and the press.
We already talked about how analyzing it that way is only useful if you define what they meant by "the press". If you disagree with the definition of "the press" I stated above, you'll have to make a case for it.
But you're wrong. Because that filthy $0.05/page copier in next to the bathrooms at your AM/PM mini-mart is a press. And it's just as protected as the New York Times.
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@blakeyrat said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
Democracy hasn't ever really worked on any but the smallest scales.
India makes it work pretty well. It's not perfect, but it's also not a huge disaster. And their scale is bigger than the US's.
Their culture is also largely more homogenous than the US's.
(also, @dkf already - @mentioned India)
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
(also, @dkf already - @mentioned India)
If you say something stupid, you should have multiple people point it out.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
an have rights, but humans can't have the same rights.If we put two humans together, do they no longer have human rights?
They both still have exactly the same human rights as they had before. They don't gain additional human rights via their incorporation into a group that is not a human being; that's a logical absurdity.
Who said anything about gaining additional rights? I'm asking how, if one person has the right to spend their money in support of their preferred political candidate, can a group of people not be able to spend their money in support of their preferred political candidate?
You appear to be arguing that the people in a group, because they are acting as a group, do not have the same rights as the separate individuals do have.
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
Who said anything about gaining additional rights? I'm asking how, if one person has the right to spend their money in support of their preferred political candidate, can a group of people not be able to spend their money in support of their preferred political candidate?
You appear to be arguing that the people in a group, because they are acting as a group, does not have the same rights as the separate individuals do have.
Yes, exactly. They don't get to invent an additional right of treating the group and its pooled resources as a fictitious new human being with all the human rights of a real human being.
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@blakeyrat said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
(also, @dkf already - @mentioned India)
If you say something stupid, you should have multiple people point it out.
Ah, you want to get into
ing? If you'll notice, I used the past tense:Democracy hasn't ever really worked on any but the smallest scales.
I never denied that it might work on a large scale now. I just said that it never has so far; large direct democracies have historically not lasted long.
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@djls45 Very good weaseling, A++.
Happy you had time to type that while frantically Googling "government of India oh God how dumb am I?" in the other tab.
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@blakeyrat said in Speedom of Freech:
@CoyneTheDup said in Speedom of Freech:
I look at the First Amendment and I see protection for the people and the press.
We already talked about how analyzing it that way is only useful if you define what they meant by "the press". If you disagree with the definition of "the press" I stated above, you'll have to make a case for it.
But you're wrong. Because that filthy $0.05/page copier in next to the bathrooms at your AM/PM mini-mart is a press. And it's just as protected as the New York Times.
Oh, yes, I agree. "Press" pretty much starts with the general store owner who scribbled, "Caught!" on the bottom of the wanted poster tacked up beside his door.
But the press is a perfect case in point. Look at some of the government and even courts: You're only press if if you own a newspaper or broadcast tower. Bloggers aren't press. Evidently you're not a reporter if you ask unwelcome questions. You can only have protected sources if you're a "pro" (work for a big news agency).
I mean, ain't it funny that Citizen's United can say anything it wants, but the one post a week news aggregator should STFU?
And, BTW, I believe Citizens United was decided correctly.
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@blakeyrat said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 Very good weaseling, A++.
Tenjewberrymud.
Happy you had time to type that while frantically Googling "government of India oh God how dumb am I?" in the other tab.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
Who said anything about gaining additional rights? I'm asking how, if one person has the right to spend their money in support of their preferred political candidate, can a group of people not be able to spend their money in support of their preferred political candidate?
You appear to be arguing that the people in a group, because they are acting as a group, do not have the same rights as the separate individuals do have.
Yes, exactly. They don't get to invent an additional right of treating the group and its pooled resources as a fictitious new human being with all the human rights of a real human being.
But how do you prevent that?
If people want to do something, and they pool their resources together to do it, how would you stop them? And why would you want to?
At what point do you say, "There's too many of you people doing something. Cut it out."?
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
At what point do you say, "There's too many of you people doing something. Cut it out."?
Three. (I would say two, except that's a married couple.)
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@djls45 Did you not see where I explained my reasoning?
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@masonwheeler I still don't understand your reasoning.
Let me try a little different tack.
What's the problem that you see between
(1) a bunch of people separately contributing their money to directly support their preferred candidate and
(2) a bunch of people contributing their money to a central pool in order to support their preferred candidate?
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@djls45 The same problem I posted about waaaaaaay up
there: it invariably ends up drowning out better but less well-financed speech.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@djls45 The same problem I posted about waaaaaaay up
there: it invariably ends up drowning out better but less well-financed speech.What is "better speech"?
Besides that, the amount spent on a campaign does not correlate to success.
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
Besides that, the amount spent on a campaign does not correlate to success.
That's not what I said. This discussion would go a lot more smoothly if people would stop putting words in my mouth and "refuting" points I never actually made.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
This discussion would go a lot more smoothly if people would stop putting words in my mouth and "refuting" points I never actually made.
It might help if you actually made any points.
