Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
It's in how you frame the question. What money, what politics rests atop what is money, what is politics.
I see a concatenation of two sketchy principles. 'Money is speech.' 'Corporations are people'. Dylan covered the first one:
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobd...ybleeding.html
Have you seen a corporation serving on a jury? |
I was careful to say that money is related to speech (and not identical to speech). It's related in that it makes a statement in a very tangible way as to what someone values. In some ways, it's even greater than speech, which is evident by the phrase "put your money where your mouth is". In other words, we prove what is most important to us when we sacrifice something very valuable to us (money).
I'm open to the idea of sacrificing my freedom to spend my money how I see fit if there is some way to ensure there are no loopholes in campaign finance reform that can be exploited. Lets start there first; tell me how we can ensure that finance reform is possible in specific detail. I'm not willing to sacrifice my freedom to spend money for the illusion of fairness. Freedom is next to impossible to gain back once lost, but loopholes are nearly unavoidable.
Corporations are like people, but have important differences. As I've said, businesses don't make decisions; people do. For this reason, the people who make decisions need to be held legally accountable. This is an area the US is sorely lacking, not just at the top (but especially at the top). The Enron peons who purposely scheduled maintenance at power plants at the detriment of the public and profit of the company should be thrown in jail for a good long time. The excuse that company culture persuaded them to act that way is not sufficient to absolve responsibility to either say no, whistle blow, or find a different job.
The government has very little legitimate authority, but among the greatest it does have is to create and enforce laws that create a fair and honest marketplace. The economy depends on trust, and that means not tolerating unscrupulous or willfully negligent business decisions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UFO
Campaigns and money can be separated, not perfectly, but better. Just because something can not be perfect does not mean it's not worth doing. Improvement is possible.
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How? I'm desperately listening for a good solution to this problem.