Monsanto makes highly hybridized seeds available to home gardeners

you are arguing that people shouldn't be able to spend money in exercising free speech, you just don't realize it.

regardless of whether or not its ethical to spend money promoting a particular cause whose end result is to generate more money... businesses and business owners should be able to leverage their money and assets in the pursuit of free speech, else its not exactly free speech at all.

when you are saying that the liquor store owner, or guy who owns every olive garden in nevada, or some huge labor union, or some small chamber of commerce shouldn't be able to exercise free speech by way of financing this or that political activity you ARE violating peoples rights to free speech, whether or not you see it that way, you simply are.
what you are advocating for is equality of outcome in exercising free speech...

corporations, unions, and chambers of commerce type organizations are considered associations of individuals, and hence are privy to most of the same rights that individuals.

however most of what folks think about the citizens united ruling is wrong.i listened to this glorious hour long program about the citizens united case on NPR like 4 years ago while driving to the airport... i with i could pull that progam out of the ether and link it here, but ive no clue where to find such a thing.
from wikipedia:

The Supreme Court held in Citizens United that it was unconstitutional to ban free speech through the limitation of independent communications by corporations, associations, and unions,[21] i.e. that corporations and labor unions may spend their own money to support or oppose political candidates through independent communications like television advertisements.[22][23] This ruling was frequently characterized as permitting corporations and unions to donate to political campaigns,[24] or as removing limits on how much a donor can contribute to a campaign.[25] However, these claims are incorrect, as the ruling did not affect the 1907 Tillman Act's ban on corporate campaign donations (as the Court noted explicitly in its decision[26]), nor the prohibition on foreign corporate donations to American campaigns,[27] nor did it concern campaign contribution limits.[28] The Citizens United decision did not disturb prohibitions on corporate contributions to candidates, and it did not address whether the government could regulate contributions to groups that make independent expenditures.[22] The Citizens United ruling did however remove the previous ban on corporations and organizations using their treasury funds for direct advocacy. These groups were freed to expressly endorse or call to vote for or against specific candidates, actions that were previously prohibited.[29] The ruling is also often incorrectly characterized as creating the idea that corporations may exercise speech rights, and that "corporations are people." Both notions are also incorrect. The Supreme Court has recognized that corporations, as associations of people, may exercise many of the rights of natural persons at least since Dartmouth College v. Woodward in 1819, and has recognized that corporations are protected under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway was decided in 1886. First Amendment protection for corporate speech has also been recognized since at least Valentine v. Christenson (1942), and in the realm of campaign finance since at least First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978). The question in Citizens United was simply whether the First Amendment protected the rights of corporations to engage in a particular form of corporate speech.[citation needed]
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Quequeg, I think what Able Eye is saying is that there is nothing wrong with a person spending money in exercising his or her freedom of speech is fine.  But when an entity, a non human being, does it then it is not fine.  i think he is saying that if you earn money from your business, you are welcome to spend it.  But that the business itself has no place spending money on politics.  I very much agree but go much further.  I think individual freedom of speech should be censored.

Although that sounds horrific on the surface, the reality of the matter is the First Amendment is limited.  Already there are caps on how much an individual may spend to support a candidate or issue.  There are also laws against such things as encouraging eminent harm or lawlessness. 

If there were not, any individual with enough money could control the vote.  Not a good thing.  Ah, but that is exactly what can happen if you allow entities (business or not) to be able to spend as they will despite the caps on individual spending.  The framers were clear, we as a nation do not want wealth to control the nation.

BTW: On corporations having due process rights.  Many if not the majority of SWAT teams in the US are now privately owned.  Because they have the right to due process, their records (including video) are considered protected against unreasonable search and seizure.  This in a time when the people, acting threw their representatives, have been bringing about transparency and freedom of information laws concerning police conduct.

I am really not hip to the idea that corporations are entitled to due process.  The owners of the incorporation sure, but the incorporation itself?  I guess it is a good thing if you want secret police with secret records.  I do not.  But even if we are talking about something other than a private police force.  Even if we are just talking about a production company.  Other than trade secrets, should not their information be available to potential share holders?  If they are entitled to due process, it takes a court order to look at their records.  Does not seem like a good idea for a publicly traded company.

So I wonder if there is not a middle ground that might apply to closely held companies.  As an example, an LLC is typically a pass threw incorporation for tax purposes.  Makes things a lot easier.
 
ajdrew said:
Quequeg, I think what Able Eye is saying is that there is nothing wrong with a person spending money in exercising his or her freedom of speech is fine.  But when an entity, a non human being, does it then it is not fine.  i think he is saying that if you earn money from your business, you are welcome to spend it.  But that the business itself has no place spending money on politics.
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Exactly.
 
A corporation cant form an opinion. It's essentially just multiplying the voting power of one or a few people. Which is to me the opposite of democracy and why we have nothing but a facade of democracy now.
 
Corporations also have a 1st amendment right to lie because its protected as free speech. Corporations speak? They form opinions? They live? Breathe?
 
Why do they have any say in government?
 
That's why equal election spending will short circuit corporate involvement in our elections.  Once the field of candidates is chosen they all get the same amount to spend.  So it matters little how much the Koch bros throw at any election, because they will equally financing each candidate. 
 
SmokenFire said:
That's why equal election spending will short circuit corporate involvement in our elections.  Once the field of candidates is chosen they all get the same amount to spend.  So it matters little how much the Koch bros throw at any election, because they will equally financing each candidate. 
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Not being from the US I'm sure my understanding of American politics is less substantial than yours, but as far as I can see.. Its not the spending that goes through the books that's the issue, its the spending behind closed doors that's making the actual voting swings along with self interest and long range political agenda's.
 
KrakenPeppers said:
Not being from the US I'm sure my understanding of American politics is less substantial than yours, but as far as I can see.. Its not the spending that goes through the books that's the issue, its the spending behind closed doors that's making the actual voting swings along with self interest and long range political agenda's.
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your opinion of american politics, like most actual americans, is tanted by this black and white oversimplification.
its easy to reduce things to a good verses evil sort of comparison. the reality however is far more complicated than anyone recognizes. theres a huge converganc of influences at play, money is just a part of this.

actual cases of outright provable corruption are rather scarce in congressional america. local politics are a much different story. entirely different story filled with sordid cases that would make your prostat throb.
very little money changes hands without a public record attached to it. there is a great deal of scrutiny going on here.

saying so and so got bribed by so and so for his vote is an attempt at simpliciation.... what really happens is so and so political organization that donates to so and so's campaign treasury puts pressure on some politician to vote in some maner... this pressure, or threat of pressure can be anything from a bad endorsement to withholding money, to activly campaigning against them in the next election.
whether or not this pressure is effectivly the same as a bribe is another matter of discussion, but i would suggest that it is not.

money is a force multiplier in politics, but almost never the sole determining factor. if you try and correlate or predict the outcome of most even close race elections based on how much money this or that polition spends, you will find a very poor correlation.
what determines elections is votes. you can throw all the money in the world at a political campaign, but you will never get outwardly overrule the majority of the voters. despite all the handwaving about money in politics, our representative government is still representative of the majority.
you have lefty politicaians in lefty states, and righty politicians in right states. this will never change.

try getting a serious gun control advocate elected senator in Texas. throw all the money at this person that you want. billions and billions of dollars. it wont happen. in 20 years maby, with texas turning slowly blue, but not now, not in the next 5+ years.

with all this said, im not even against campaign finance reforms. i just loathe this reductionist reasoning. its disingenuous to say the least. most folks speaking about all corporations... painting with the same brush as if they were embodiments of evil and immorality... these folks are largely ignorant of what a corporation actually is and what they represent,a legal construct nothing more.
 
Kracken, here in the US, under the facade of capitalism, money centers write entire bills, hand them off to folk in congress who are in their pockets, and get the damn things passed.  Often the folk in congress who vote to pass the bill have not even read the thing.  It is not a representative democracy at all.

Favorite example: There was a farm bill update not long ago that at one point would have essentially made it illegal for my children to work on my farm.  Same update would have made it illegal for me to operate my tractor on my own property because I can not pass the Commercial Drivers License physical.  Who supported the bill as originally modified?  Factory farming corporations.  Why?  Because it would decrease their competition. 

Oh but wait, there is a balancing point here.  The bill as written was defeated with help from another money center: Future Farmers of America.
 
queequeg152 said:
stuff
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By and large you're saying things that in many cases can be true.  Yet I rarely see any proposals coming forth from you about possible remedies for the issues being discussed.  Are you content being unsatisfied and complaining or do you have an idea for change(s) that can work?  Cause if so by all means please share. :)
 
I don't believe there's a 'magic bullet' out there that will suddenly bring the sway of power back to the people but I DO believe that enough small things will build the momentum needed to cause the turn of the tide.  
 
Right now the voters are filled with apathy; convinced their votes don't matter and that the parties in power are being paid to make decisions against their best interests.  No one reaches across the aisle anymore to get things done for the good of the nation - they're instead content to fight every issue down to the minutia and generally hinder the other party in an effort to keep themselves elected in their gerrymandered districts.  It's gotten to the point where I don't believe ANYONE can get anything done without somehow dealing or vote trading that makes them somehow dirty.  And in the meantime it's the more radical fringe elements that are shouting loudest.       
 
its actually interest groups that write the groundwork for many bills. interest groups are very rarely funded by a single or cabal of moustache twirling capatialists despite what you would like to think here.
an interest group usual gets funding from a whole shit load of sources... including individual donations like the nra, or it might be koche brothers like some of the climate change interest groups.

the point here is, an interest group tends to represent a conglomeration of similar interests, condensing money into one voice and pushing for what ever legislation or regulatory issues they espouse.
its wrong to assume that the draft language in these bill represents only the interests of the interest group... for one of these bills to pass its more than likely that it is a broadly shared or acceptable position, otherwise its wholly unlikely to have ever left comittie in the first place.
you can draft what ever crazy legislation you want, and hand it to what ever bat shit representative you like, but if its not atleast partially supported it will never get anywhere.

you need a significant deal of legal scholarship to write these things and most senators or representatives themselves cant write them themselves. most are not even really qualified to interpret them them selves.
senators and reps will hire aids, many of whom have gone to law school etc, and are qualified to draft these documents.

these draft bills then go to various committees to hamnmer out shit. if they can get a workable bill that has even a slight chance of passing, they will send it to house speaker to bring it up for a vote. then it goes to the senate for another vote, then it goes to the POTUS for a signature.
i think a resolution can originate in the senate first, then get passed to the house, then to the POTUS.

the state of texas requires like 12 credit hours of civics as core curriculum... im starting to see why that is the case.

the idea that you can pass anything you like by just throwing money at it is stupid as f**k. yea a bill with monied backing is more likely to succede, but its not going to go anywhere at all without some measure of popular support.
odious shit like the patriot act and the ACA bills represent counterpoints to all this however. when tensions boil over and folks call for rushed legislation, you almost always are going to fail the citizens. the political process established and hammered out during the constitutional conventions was never ever meant to be some speedy model of legislative governance. The whole process is designed to moderate political 'noise'. Trying to railroad something that should take months of careful study and compromise and conciliation into a short period of time is hugely antithetical to how our government was intended to operate.

the only legislation that needs to be enacted in a short period of time is related to some war powers and responses to some emergencies. hence why these powers lie largly with the POTUS.
SmokenFire said:
By and large you're saying things that in many cases can be true.  Yet I rarely see any proposals coming forth from you about possible remedies for the issues being discussed.  Are you content being unsatisfied and complaining or do you have an idea for change(s) that can work?  Cause if so by all means please share. :)
 
I don't believe there's a 'magic bullet' out there that will suddenly bring the sway of power back to the people but I DO believe that enough small things will build the momentum needed to cause the turn of the tide.  
 
Right now the voters are filled with apathy; convinced their votes don't matter and that the parties in power are being paid to make decisions against their best interests.  No one reaches across the aisle anymore to get things done for the good of the nation - they're instead content to fight every issue down to the minutia and generally hinder the other party in an effort to keep themselves elected in their gerrymandered districts.  It's gotten to the point where I don't believe ANYONE can get anything done without somehow dealing or vote trading that makes them somehow dirty.  And in the meantime it's the more radical fringe elements that are shouting loudest.
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what exactly is it that you believe is broken?

its so hard to focus on the subject of money in politics because so much of it is wild hand waving bullshit.
the corporations do not control the country. they have a say, yes of coarse. but they do not have every politician in their pocketbooks as people like to think.

when you approach a subject with such a warped and unrealistic point of view, its impossible to be objective, and only objective reasoned debate can solve an issue properly once and for all.

the supreme court has spoken on this once already, so the issue is for the most part a moot one.

regarding voter apathy.
the intensity of beliefs matters a huge deal in politics.
take the gun debate... in the 90's during the crime waves gun control was very popular, yet very little federal legislation was passed.that that was passed was more or less castrated and made more or less ineffective.
why was this the case? after all there were more folks in favor of gun control than against it. Its because the folks against it, are intensely against it, will work their asses off in fighting it, and even if defeated will continue fighting it.

contrast this with folks advocating gun control. once the 80's and 1990's crime waves leveled out, the support for it dried up completely, people stopped caring. but the pro gun folks did not, so the issue swung back the other way to where it is now, arguably much stronger than ever before.

the reason that interest groups represent potent political forces is because they concentrate interest and bring about an intensity that is unmatched by the general populace.

the apathetic that you say are convinced that their votes do not matter, lack the intensity of belief mentioned above. I do not know how one could change this.

politics is indeed dirty, and will always be. after all, its only the scumbags of the world that desire the most power over others.
its encumbent on the voters to weight the deeds of their particular representative against the consequences of voting him out.
many times there is no real recourse, with a particular encumbant running unopposed, or only against wierdos.
able eye said:
Exactly.
 
A corporation cant form an opinion. It's essentially just multiplying the voting power of one or a few people. Which is to me the opposite of democracy and why we have nothing but a facade of democracy now.
 
Corporations also have a 1st amendment right to lie because its protected as free speech. Corporations speak? They form opinions? They live? Breathe?
 
Why do they have any say in government?
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a corporation is an asseblage of individual investors.
the act of creating a corporation is simply a legal framework whereby the investing body agree to aggregate control of the company into one agreed upon set of folks. corporate laws shield investors from litigation. instead the corporation itself is the responsible party.

a corporation is therby in a legal sense a individual representing a group or assembly of individuals, though they lack almost all of the civil liberties that are allotted to an actual person.

a corporation CAN form an opinion, in the same way that your representative can. the only real difference is that corporations are not representative of a regular popular majority.

they have say in government because they have free speech rights.

your problem is that you conflate their free speech rights with somehow violating other folks civil liberties.

being able to buy 100 million bucks worth of television adds blasting some politician does not prevent you from exercising your right to vote.
what you are advocating is called equality of outcome... you want to be able to have the same effect with your free speech as the millionare banker downtown by restricting his ability to leverage his own assets.
 
What would be easier:  Getting the pols in current power to pass term limit legislation OR Amending the 22nd amendment to include term limits for all elected officials?  
 
Prime example: American Legislative Exchange
 
Queequeg is dead on right that it is Special Interest Groups.  The coal industry has a special interest in defeating legislation that bans coal burning power plants.  The factory farming industry has a special interest in keeping down family farms.  Claiming it is not people trying to make money is a bit silly since acquisition of wealth is one of the main goals of a capitalist society and the US is, more or less, a capitalist society.

I say more or less due to the volume of cronyism.
 
Here is the thing, representatives are supposed to represent the people who elected them.  Instead, when they make decisions it is often based on who donated to them and how much.  Not just cash donations, but who is running the independent commercials that promote their elections and their issues.  I do not know the solution but I know it is not right.
 
march_of_tyranny1.jpg

 
 
 
King-World-News-Mark-Twain-Quote.jpg

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ajdrew said:
 
 
 I do not know the solution 
 
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     Stop electing politicians. Seriously. When was the last time anybody heard of a politician they actually liked? These people are the worst mankind has to offer and yet THESE are the people we choose to represent us and lead our country?! What the f**k are we thinking?! Almost everyone I see holding public office is the exact opposite of who I believe would do a good job in that position.
     Anyone with presidential aspirations should be expressly prohibited from attaining that goal. I can't for the life of me remember who made that comment, but I love it.
 
SmokenFire said:
What would be easier:  Getting the pols in current power to pass term limit legislation OR Amending the 22nd amendment to include term limits for all elected officials?
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term limits for politicians would be a huge deal imo.not that i think it would even come close to fixing what you folks take issue with... its just that i detest scumbag lifelong politicians. i dont have a real argument to make in support of it.

at the same time, there is a great deal of networking and political expertise that will be lost when you boot out folks like ted kennedy(dead i know) or john mcain who have been in office like 30 years.
can you even amend a constitutional amentment?
pretty sure you would have to just get a new amendment ratified... but idk.
Hybrid Mode 01 said:
Stop electing politicians. Seriously. When was the last time anybody heard of a politician they actually liked? These people are the worst mankind has to offer and yet THESE are the people we choose to represent us and lead our country?! What the f**k are we thinking?! Almost everyone I see holding public office is the exact opposite of who I believe would do a good job in that position.
     Anyone with presidential aspirations should be expressly prohibited from attaining that goal. I can't for the life of me remember who made that comment, but I love it.
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the problem is that sane folks have no wish to do these jobs.

ive heard suggestions of a civil service draft solution to politicians... but i dont think anyone seriously consideres this to be a good solution to anything.

i firmly believe that if you put 100 good people into the senate... have them do their jobs for 6 years, they will become scumbags, at least in our eyes.
is just part of the job. horse trading etc are just part of being a politician.
you cant please everyone ever, so eventually everyone will hate you for something you have done at some point in your career.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da8BwV-Zrg0
 
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