Speedom of Freech
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@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.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
it invariably ends up drowning out [...] less well-financed speech.
???
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@blakeyrat right. And I'd oppose that change through political channels but wouldn't consider it usurpation. Article V is there and the only valid way of changing things. Not a particularly easy way, but the proper way.
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
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.
Has is a present verb and the tense you used is the Present Perfect, if we're being best-kind-of-Nazi about it.
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@dkf said in Speedom of Freech:
@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.
India is a republic, not a direct democracy. Personally, I believe that a direct democracy would be a horrible thing at scale.
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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?
I didn't think so, but then how else to explain your posts? Why do those individuals lose their rights when they're in a group?
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@boomzilla They don't. Why do you keep coming back to this ridiculous strawman?
Nobody is losing rights; they're simply not gaining additional ones.
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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. 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?
A PAC is an organization of people. At what point do they stop being people?
@CoyneTheDup said in Speedom of Freech:
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.
In general I tend to disagree with what they're saying. I disagree that they should be able to force members to pay them. I think that they should be able to speak just like anyone else.
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@CoyneTheDup said in Speedom of Freech:
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).
Freedom of speech sure doesn't mean that anyone has to answer your questions. I'm not sure what your point is here.
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?
Do you have an example of this happening?
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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.TDEMSYR
"Better" speech? By whose standards? This is the lamest rationalization for censorship I've ever heard. At least the people whining about billionaires are saying that a particular person shouldn't have that much power to speak out to so many people, which I think is still a wrong idea, but you think that speech is somehow worse for a lot of people supporting it?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla They don't. Why do you keep coming back to this ridiculous strawman?
Nobody is losing rights; they're simply not gaining additional ones.
But you're saying that they shouldn't be able to speak. That's losing a right. What's the additional right? What can they do here as a group that they couldn't do as individuals? No one but you has any idea what you mean by "additional rights."
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
you think that speech is somehow worse for a lot of people supporting it?
No, exactly the opposite: I think that worse speech supported by a very few well-financed people drowns out better speech that lots of people support.
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
But you're saying that they shouldn't be able to speak. That's losing a right. What's the additional right? What can they do here as a group that they couldn't do as individuals? No one but you has any idea what you mean by "additional rights."
Seriously, knock it off. I've made it abundantly clear, over and over, exactly what I mean. I know you're not this stupid, and your constant tactic of playing dumb comes across as incredibly disingenuous and sleazy. If you're not going to argue this in good faith, please leave the conversation altogether; you're not contributing anything except frustration and irritation.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Seriously, knock it off. I've made it abundantly clear, over and over, exactly what I mean
I think that all of the people confused about this should demonstrate that it's not at all clear.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
I know you're not this stupid, and your constant tactic of playing dumb comes across as incredibly disingenuous and sleazy.
No, I'm genuinely dumb enough to not understand how restricting a person from speaking amounts to giving him additional rights.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
If you're not going to argue this in good faith, please leave the conversation altogether; you're not contributing anything except frustration and irritation.
Listen: I'm not the one contradicting himself. Explain how subtraction becomes addition, please, because no one understands it.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
you think that speech is somehow worse for a lot of people supporting it?
No, exactly the opposite: I think that worse speech supported by a very few well-financed people drowns out better speech that lots of people support.
Except the example was about speech that lots of people support. What makes the other speech "better?"
So...you seem to be focusing on TV ads. What about other forms of communication?
- What if they stood at their door (let's assume they leased an office or something) and gave speeches?
- What if they printed flyers or pamphlets and handed them out on a corner?
- What if they published a book to sell on Amazon?
- What if they made a video and Netflix picked it up?
- What if they published articles on their web page?
- What if they wrote letters to the editor of a newspaper?
- What if they posted stuff on their facebook wall?
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
I think that all of the people confused about this should demonstrate that it's not at all clear.
Or that they're following your lead.
No, I'm genuinely dumb enough to not understand how restricting a person from speaking amounts to giving him additional rights.
Stop it. You're doing it again. I never said anyone is being given additional rights. I said they are not being given additional rights, that no rights are added or removed. And yet you keep taking this perfectly straightforward statement and twisting it every which way.
Listen: I'm not the one contradicting himself. Explain how subtraction becomes addition, please, because no one understands it.
It doesn't. Nothing is added or subtracted. Stop trying to turn what I said into things that I did not say, and it'll become a whole lot clearer.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Stop it. You're doing it again. I never said anyone is being given additional rights. I said they are not being given additional rights, that no rights are added or removed. And yet you keep taking this perfectly straightforward statement and twisting it every which way.
This is very frustrating. Look, right here:
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
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.
You're claiming that there's some additional right that's been granted for people to organize and pool their resources and then use those resources to speak.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
It doesn't. Nothing is added or subtracted. Stop trying to turn what I said into things that I did not say, and it'll become a whole lot clearer.
You're saying that it takes some additional right for people to speak when they've organized and pooled resources. That's what you wrote. So, you're saying that in order to speak, they've been given some additional right. But that implies that they didn't have the right to speak when they organized. But since they had the right to speak before they organized, the right to speak must have been taken away from them somehow, otherwise it wouldn't be an additional right, it would just be their normal rights.
Somehow you believe that when a person speaks and uses pooled resources to communicate the speech, somehow there's no person speaking. Somehow, that guy is no longer a person because some other people decided to pay to help him get his message out. I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm just following the logic in order to get to the place where you say that "non-human entities" are speaking.
And that's ignoring your glaring inconsistency about newspapers, et.al.
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
You're claiming that there's some additional right that's been
grantedinvented for people to organize and pool their resources and then use those resources tospeak.amplify their speech.Yes.
You're saying that it takes some additional right for people to speak when they've organized and pooled resources.
People have the same right to speak, as individuals, regardless of any group they join. A group is not a person, though, and therefore has no human rights, including the right to free speech. Why is this difficult to understand? Why do you keep overcomplicating it?
That's what you wrote. So, you're saying that in order to speak, they've been given some additional right. But that implies that they didn't have the right to speak when they organized.
Sure they did. As individuals.
But since they had the right to speak before they organized, the right to speak must have been taken away from them somehow, otherwise it wouldn't be an additional right, it would just be their normal rights.
Nope.
Somehow you believe that when a person speaks and uses pooled resources to communicate the speech, somehow there's no person speaking.
Because they're doing something that they would not have been capable of doing as individuals. When you play by different rules, is it not obvious that different rules apply?
Somehow, that guy is no longer a person because some other people decided to pay to help him get his message out.
I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm just following the logic in order to get to the place where you say that "non-human entities" are speaking.
The logic would be a whole lot simpler to follow if you would stop twisting it into difficult-to-follow shapes.
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Instead of outlawing the superPACs why not just heavily tax them?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
People have the same right to speak, as individuals, regardless of any group they join. A group is not a person, though, and therefore has no human rights, including the right to free speech. Why is this difficult to understand? Why do you keep overcomplicating it?
I can't see how I'm overcomplicating anything. You seem to be the one doing that. You're going out of your way to try to rationalize how the person loses the right to speak. I just can't figure out how that is happening.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Because they're doing something that they would not have been capable of doing as individuals. When you play by different rules, is it not obvious that different rules apply?
Everyone is playing by the same rules. Has it occurred to you that your way protects incumbents? This seems like something you'd be philosophically opposed to, so I'm amused to see that you're interested in preventing people from being able to oppose already entrenched power.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
The logic would be a whole lot simpler to follow if you would stop twisting it into difficult-to-follow shapes.
Yes, this is exactly my advice to you! Now, please address this:
@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
So...you seem to be focusing on TV ads. What about other forms of communication?
What if they stood at their door (let's assume they leased an office or something) and gave speeches?
What if they printed flyers or pamphlets and handed them out on a corner?
What if they published a book to sell on Amazon?
What if they made a video and Netflix picked it up?
What if they published articles on their web page?
What if they wrote letters to the editor of a newspaper?
What if they posted stuff on their facebook wall?
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
I can't see how I'm overcomplicating anything. You seem to be the one doing that. You're going out of your way to try to rationalize how the person loses the right to speak. I just can't figure out how that is happening.
Hint: You can start by looking back at the zillion times I've already said that no one is losing the right to speak.
Everyone is playing by the same rules. Has it occurred to you that your way protects incumbents?
How do you figure? Or is this going to be another time where you repeat the same insipid thing over and over and contradict everything and never actually present a line of reasoning?
So...you seem to be focusing on TV ads. What about other forms of communication?
What about them?
What if they stood at their door (let's assume they leased an office or something) and gave speeches?
What if they printed flyers or pamphlets and handed them out on a corner?
What if they published a book to sell on Amazon?
What if they made a video and Netflix picked it up?
What if they published articles on their web page?
What if they wrote letters to the editor of a newspaper?
What if they posted stuff on their facebook wall?What if they kept throwing out a bunch of irrelevant questions to try to confuse the issue?
It's got nothing to do with the B-3 bomber!
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Hint: You can start by looking back at the zillion times I've already said that no one is losing the right to speak.
Yes, but you think they should lose it.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
How do you figure? Or is this going to be another time where you repeat the same insipid thing over and over and contradict everything and never actually present a line of reasoning?
It seems to be your strategy. But seriously, explain how the same rules don't apply to everyone?
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
What if they kept throwing out a bunch of irrelevant questions to try to confuse the issue?
What if they dodged inconvenient questions that drilled massive holes in their arguments? Are you saying that the "amplification" thing only comes into play when it's TV ads? Movies? Where's the line? That's what I'm trying to get at. So, again, what if a group tried to do any of these things?
What if they stood at their door (let's assume they leased an office or something) and gave speeches?
What if they printed flyers or pamphlets and handed them out on a corner?
What if they published a book to sell on Amazon?
What if they made a video and Netflix picked it up?
What if they published articles on their web page?
What if they wrote letters to the editor of a newspaper?
What if they posted stuff on their facebook wall?Are those allowed or not? If not, please explain why not?
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@boomzilla said in Speedom of Freech:
Yes, but you think they should lose it.
No, I think they should not gain it. There's a massive difference there that you persist in failing to grasp.
It seems to be your strategy. But seriously, explain how the same rules don't apply to everyone?
The same rules do apply to everyone, individually. It's when you stop acting as individuals that things change.
What if they dodged inconvenient questions that drilled massive holes in their arguments? Are you saying that the "amplification" thing only comes into play when it's TV ads?
I'm saying that paid advertisements (including those of the TV variety) are a thing that's actually happening, quite pervasively, and we can observe them and their effect and conclude that it is harmful. Because the other things you mention aren't nearly as prevalent, it's difficult to draw conclusions about their effect without veering off into realms of wild speculation, which I'd prefer not to do here.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
No, I think they should not gain it. There's a massive difference there that you persist in failing to grasp.
But in order to gain something, you have to not have it. I think we can agree that the people in the organization have the right to speak. Where did they lose it such that they need to gain it?@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
The same rules do apply to everyone, individually. It's when you stop acting as individuals that things change.
Why? They're all still people.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
I'm saying that paid advertisements (including those of the TV variety) are a thing that's actually happening, quite pervasively, and we can observe them and their effect and conclude that it is harmful.
Yes, they are happening. I can't see how they're harmful, though.
@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Because the other things you mention aren't nearly as prevalent, it's difficult to draw conclusions about their effect without veering off into realms of wild speculation, which I'd prefer not to do here.
Ah, I see. It's not a principled thing, just "stuff I don't like should be illegal."
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@lolwhat said in Speedom of Freech:
India is a republic, not a direct democracy.
Which is why I presented it as an opportunity. Duh!
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So what you're saying is if I have a person named Jim who is CEO of a company named WtFargo that Jim is allowed to give his personal money in order to support Fish Taco for president but he cannot use the company's money to say 'WtFargo supports Fish Taco for president.'?
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@masonwheeler
So, I as an individual can have all my friends give me money to run an ad about how dumb Candidate A is. (which from your statements above you are fine with. I alone create and run the ad)
I as an individual can't create an LLC with my friends and create that same ad. Because somehow this is wrong.
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@Lathun said in Speedom of Freech:
So what you're saying is if I have a person named Jim who is CEO of a company named WtFargo that Jim is allowed to give his personal money in order to support Fish Taco for president but he cannot use the company's money to say 'WtFargo supports Fish Taco for president.'?
I suspect that this might be his intention, but the way he's presenting it, the shareholders also wouldn't be allowed to decide to use WtFargo's funds to say, "WtFargo supports Fish Taco for president."
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@djls45 said in Speedom of Freech:
I suspect that this might be his intention, but the way he's presenting it, the shareholders also wouldn't be allowed to decide to use WtFargo's funds to say, "WtFargo supports Fish Taco for president."
Unless they are one of those magical newspapers that get a mysterious pass from him. Then they can say whatever.
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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, 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.
They get to invent the additional right of appointing spokespersons who are given the authority to speak for a group of individual people and their pooled resources. It's not some imaginary new construct that got a "person" title slapped on so that it gets to speak. It's a group of people, with authorized spokespersons who speak on behalf of all the individual persons in it.
The group has the same rights to speech as any of the individual persons have, because the group's speech is literally just a group of individual persons all saying the same thing.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
worse speech supported by a very few well-financed people drowns out better speech that lots of people support
And that means that they shouldn't be allowed to speak?
So what you're saying is, rich people don't deserve to have the first amendment. They hold too much power to be allowed to speak. Their "speech privilege" is so high that they must be silenced somehow to prevent their speech from drowning out the vastly larger number of us normals.
That's a fascinating point of view, but it's wholly out of line with our constitution.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Seriously, knock it off. I've made it abundantly clear, over and over, exactly what I mean. I know you're not this stupid, and your constant tactic of playing dumb comes across as incredibly disingenuous and sleazy.
If you can explain the whole "groups of 3 people shouldn't be given legal personhood, so that it won't exclude married couples" thing in a way that seems halfway sensical, I'll concede that you're at least trying. That one really made me go
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
People have the same right to speak, as individuals, regardless of any group they join. A group is not a person, though, and therefore has no human rights, including the right to free speech. Why is this difficult to understand? Why do you keep overcomplicating it?
If a group of people all agree on something, then they should be allowed to claim that it's the opinion of their group. It's the combined opinion of however many people are in their group. Why is this difficult to understand? Why do you keep overcomplicating it?
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@anotherusername said in Speedom of Freech:
And that means that they shouldn't be allowed to speak?
No; it means they shouldn't be allowed to speak louder simply because they have more money.
So what you're saying is, rich people don't deserve to have the first amendment. They hold too much power to be allowed to speak. Their "speech privilege" is so high that they must be silenced somehow to prevent their speech from drowning out the vastly larger number of us normals.
That's a fascinating point of view, but it's wholly out of line with our constitution.
No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
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@anotherusername said in Speedom of Freech:
If you can explain the whole "groups of 3 people shouldn't be given legal personhood, so that it won't exclude married couples" thing in a way that seems halfway sensical, I'll concede that you're at least trying. That one really made me go
.Read it in the context in which it was written. The question was asked, how many people is too big a group. I said that my first thought is "two"--or in other words, any group at all--but that would necessarily exclude married couples, who we have thousands of years of legal and societal precedent for treating as a joined-together union that presumably acts in harmony. As this would be a bad precedent to disrupt, I said 3 instead.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
No; it means they shouldn't be allowed to speak louder simply because they have more money.
This is in direct support of @anotherusername statement:
So what you're saying is, rich people don't deserve to have the first amendment. They hold too much power to be allowed to speak. Their "speech privilege" is so high that they must be silenced somehow to prevent their speech from drowning out the vastly larger number of us normals.
Bill gates has more money than me, so he can buy more tv ads than me, and thus by your terms, can speak louder.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
Again, non-human entities are not citizens.
Humans do not make up those entities? Are they incorporated and governed by robots?
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
they shouldn't be allowed to speak louder simply because they have more money
And you believe that you can accomplish that without taking away their right to speak... how exactly?
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@anotherusername Well, campaign finance laws were doing a pretty good job, back when we had them...
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
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.
No.
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@masonwheeler
You do realize that campaign finance laws would never had applied for this right? As this is an independent entity making the ad.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
we have thousands of years of legal and societal precedent for treating as a joined-together union that presumably acts in harmony
And what's so wrong with having a group that presumably acts in harmony, that it must be avoided at almost all costs except when it would disrupt thousands of years worth of legal and societal precedent?
Maybe all those thousands of years worth of legal and societal precedent -- precedent that treats a group of people as a joined-together union that presumably acts in harmony -- was actually onto something; something that's worth extending to larger groups, instead of the reverse...
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@Polygeekery Yes.
(Do me the courtesy of presenting an actual line of reasoning, with facts to back it up, and I will extend the same courtesy to you.)
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@Dragoon But even if they did apply, how would they stop Bill Gates from silencing me?
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@anotherusername Oy! Where to even begin? Asking a question like that puts you so deep in unknown-unknowns territory that you're drowning.
For starters, are you familiar with Dunbar's Number and the "monkeysphere" theory, that it's biologically impossible to have a harmonious group of humans above a certain size, which is smaller than all but the most minor of corporations?
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@masonwheeler They need not be harmonious, if they only agree on one point (the one they are making) that is all that matters.
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@masonwheeler your whole entire line of argument appears to be
- I believe X. I have the right to say "I believe X. You should too!" The government cannot make that speech illegal.
- Bob believes X. Bob has the right to say "I believe X. You should too!" The government can't make that illegal, either.
- Now Bob and I get the idea to create a PAC that says "Bob and I believe X! You should too!" Except, according to you, that speech isn't protected; the government should be allowed to make it illegal... because it's not me speaking, or Bob speaking, but rather it's the group speaking, and once people start pooling their resources into groups, their speech can get too loud, and when that happens, the government must be able to silence them.
...except since marriage is 2 people, it's only allowed to shut us up if Sam joins our group.
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@anotherusername said in Speedom of Freech:
? Why do you keep overcomplicating it?
Cognitive dissonance.
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@masonwheeler said in Speedom of Freech:
No; it means they shouldn't be allowed to speak louder simply because they have more money.
Ah, yes, the community way: make us all equally bad off.
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@anotherusername said in Speedom of Freech:
- Now Bob and I get the idea to create a PAC that says "Bob and I believe X! You should too!" Except, according to you, that speech should be illegal...
At what point did I ever say that?
