Why Can't We Fix It Ourselves?

[X Factor]

You never were one for rational argument, were you?

All you've done is just assert that I'm wrong.

You are wrong a lot.

 

[JasperL]

No, I am saying that when you keep someone from spending money on speech, you are keeping them from speaking. Try publishing a book with no money.....

You're insisting that we can't distinguish and limit spending on political campaigns. We did it for a century or more. The current SC disagrees, by 5-4, and says money isn't corrupting and doesn't even give rise to the appearance of corruption. IMO, they're delusional.

So, you aren't willing to deal with the fact that you wish to muzzle American citizens of the NRA (or the Sierra Club. Or Unions. Take your pick), but wish to divert instead to the Bank of China, because they're meanies.

I don't wish to "muzzle" anyone, but instead would limit what they can spend influencing elections. But more importantly what I'm suggesting is it's an appropriate role for society to draw those lines around spending to ensure a functioning democracy that doesn't devolve more than it already has into plutocracy.

And I'd limit what foreign interests can spend to $0.00. Nothing. And not because they're "meanies" but because they have no business influencing our elections because, as you know, the interests of the PRC or Saudi Arabia or Russia or Germany might not always align with those of us in Tennessee or New Jersey or Utah.

People get the right to speak regardless of how much you like them, JasperL. That's sorta why we enshrined that First in the Bill of Rights.

It'd go better if you avoided the straw men and addressed actual arguments. I've never suggested that speech should depend on how much I or you or anyone else "likes" the speaker. If there's another point you wanted to make, make it.

Then you aren't paying attention. It isn't the dominant factor in the vast majority of elections (name recognition is, as is favorability, incumbency, and demographics). You need money (you have to pay for a campaign), sure. But wild disparities in spending do not result in comparable differences at the ballot box. The "Oh, Money Determines Everything" trope is, like "we spend all our money on foreign aid to people to hate us" a common meme, that simply isn't accurate.

That response is long on condescension and baseless assertion and devoid of evidence. So here's some:

Money isn't dominant but spending keeps escalating, I guess because it's less important now, so campaigns are spending increasingly more of it! Makes sense....oh wait, it doesn't!

How about this: http://www.pewresearch.org/files/2015/12/FT_15.12.03_campaignFinance_74_14.png

Biggest spenders win 93%/83% of House/Senate races. In close races, it's 64%/59%. And those stats don't address the IMO more important state and local elections.

You didn't click the link, did you.

The rise of social media isn't an anecdote, nor is the omnipresence of flattening communications an outlier - it's the dominant information change of our era.

Karl Rove rose up on expertise in Direct Mailers. Those are expensive and obsolete. It takes startup money to conduct Direct Mailing, and the ability to sustain operations before you get returns. It takes nothing to press "send" on an email, fulfilling the same function.

Again, you're arguing that in an era of increasing expenditures that those expenditures have no effect, and that everyone raising, contributing and spending money is irrational because they can just send free email or do Twitter and get the same results. What's missing is evidence beyond random internet posters baseless opinions. I'll wait on that actual evidence before being convinced.

Eh, it'll be a nice big fat story for the first person to break it - the Chinese got caught the last time they funneled money to the Clintons, and something that blatant would be outed as well.

Maybe, maybe not, but the idea the Chinese have a right protected by the 1st Amendment to influence our elections is quite frankly insane.

Campaigns are getting more relevant - the parties are the ones who are losing power.

And.......?

I don't care what "the public" believes. Ad Populum is a fallacy. The public also thinks that we spend a large portion of our budget on foreign aid, and that we should balance the budget, but without reforming entitlements.

If you read the opinions, a key finding is the spending doesn't give rise to the appearance of corruption. So whose opinion matters? Ultimately the court's opinion, but they're judging what the public perceives, so whether you care or not doesn't matter to me, but the legal standard rests in part on what the public believes.