When a state is against net neutrality, pro super PACs, pro hobby lobby/religious tests in employment, pro book banning in libraries, but wants to regulate social networks because "political freedom", their motivations are a bit suspect.
If you explain "literacy test" voting laws prior to the US Voting Rights Act without that sort of context people imagine well, you send one smart black teacher, they do a few lessons, next year every black person in the town can vote, while presumably many poor white folks can't right?
But that's not how it works, in practice the "test" is whether you're white or not. If you're white you "pass" and if you're black you "don't pass", and if you complain about this loudly enough well, maybe you have an unlucky "accident".
Lynchings are never this circumspect.
Accounts of lynchings also emphasize the treatment of black bodies as evidence of disdain. But even lynchings of white victims often involved mutilation and the taking of "souvenirs", as in the aforementioned lynching. Again, no doubt this was disproportionate, but even the most obvious sorts of discrimination aren't as "black & white" as popular narratives would have you believe. (NB: I'm not challenging the idea or existence of disdain regarding black bodies.)
I think these finer distinctions matter because they're fundamental to understanding the concept of systemic racism--arguably, there really is no other kind but systemic racism. To sell the idea of systemic racism, we tend to shape historical narratives to better fit how people conceive of racism. But taking that license can be counter-productive as it then makes it easier to refute or justify claims of racism, or the very notion of racism, particularly for those so inclined.
Despite the wildly disproportionate population sizes, more than three times the number of Black people were lynched compared to white people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d...
Now do per-capita murder rates today, I think you'll find the same disparity.
The fact is, lynching of whites and blacks (usually for murder) were inline with "likelihood to commit that crime" based on having virtually identical per-capita murder rates today. Lynchings occurred in the past primarily because the law didn't function effectively.
No one wants vigilante justice (then or now), but we shouldn't be too surprised that communities police themselves when the government can't (or won't).
Meaning the most crazy, shizophrenic person told tale in a comunity becomes the "law" base. Lynchings are a horror.
Jesus Christ I thought this thread was bad but then we get to this post.
It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
That is explicitly not what the GGP argued. They were very clear, and it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest otherwise. You can make your own argument but don't misrepresent others'.
> It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
"I want to beat someone, hang them from a tree, and then have a picnic around their mutilated body" is not something that needs to be both-sides-ed as someone's personal beliefs on justice.
I don't know if this is the typical HN thing of "I know a few details, I can figure out the rest from first principles" but there's an incredibly large amount of historical evidence of people who very plainly stated their motivations that you need to reckon with before you can make claims like these. Like, it's not reasonable to claim the KKK was primarily an activist group primarily motivated by the need for criminal reform.
Given the way that lynchings seemed to function in some parts of the U.S based on documentary photographs and such that probably some people would like to make illegal, it could just as well be argued that lynchings happened because the country did not have effective mass entertainment.
Except the context is the high number of white lynching's that also occurred.
Actually yes, in many cases. 'White' in these stats often includes Jews, Italians and other groups who also suffered from discrimination based on their ethnicity. The category 'white' has not remained constant over the past 200 years. You can certainly find scholarly treatments of this point if you look on Google scholar.
Have you done so to sources your own statements?
Posting a link rather than quoting the relevant parts make me think that's all you did, once I called you on it. Should you be held to the same high standard?:
> take on the best existing scholarship on the subject and give references to support their arguments
You essentially put the burden on me to figure out how this document supports your argument - that the majority of white lynching (in some unspecified time period) where racially motivated.
I've also found quite a few that argue white lynching were motivated by support for progressive racial causes, but yet to find concrete statistics/evidence supporting that conclusion either.
[*] As mentioned elsewhere in thread, it's not so simple to say who was or wasn't 'white' at various periods in America's history, and we shouldn't assume that lynchings of non-Black Americans were necessarily not motivated by racism or other neighboring prejudices.
Do you really believe that black and white lynchings were certainly recorded accurately? To say nothing of the proportions as someone said below.
You're providing nothing useful here. Typical softening of racism as many, for whatever reason, like to do. Cut it out.
> is often credited to Francis M. Wilhoit, who died in 2010, it was actually written in 2018 by a different Frank Wilhoit, a composer.[10]
:)
And in this article: https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
> But in fact it’s the work of another Frank Wilhoit, this one not a professional scholar of American politics but a 63-year-old classical music composer in Ohio, who wrote the adage as part of a longer point in the comments section of the political science blog Crooked Timber [0].
[0]: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...
"Rules for thee, but not for me."
Both the right and left have become supremely prescriptive in their own ways.
I want stronger local government. I have no way of trusting any of these assholes at the federal and state level. Why do they get to set standards for schools, infrastructure funding, or social policy? We have grid lock in part because there are different opinions on what's best.
So be it. We'll all do what we want, and time will prove what works best. Then we can use the federal/state levels for their intended purpose: handling externalities and international affairs.
At least with the Feds they are under a constant microscope. The most heinous corrupt shit in America almost always happens at the local level because they can get away with it
[1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/libertarians-took-c...
Please, no. I get the rationale. It's the local knowledge problem, combined with state/federal being more likely to be populists.
But local government irrecoverably sucks for systemic reasons that I've just started to notice.
With local governance there is no way to resolve dilemma like incentives that cause negative sum decision making, i.e. locally good but globally bad policies. For example, restrictive planning laws. Good locally, terrible globally. So terrible that it is the kind of thing that is a threat to the stability of society.
Another reason is that the competence of local governance is significantly lower than state/federal governance, who have budgets to hire actual intelligent experts. I don't know if you're interacted with local government officials. If you have, you will notice what I'm talking about.
A third reason is that corruption is worse in local governments. It flies under the radar because they're not under the microscope of journalists. There's no good mechanism to decorrupt them.
Good federal governance is the way forward.
Now you can argue that it's not actually half, and so long as it's less than that, a functioning democracy would allow you to steamroll over them. However, once enough people in a democracy consider it illegitimate, it stops functioning really fast.
Also, goodness isn't a binary switch, and goodness needs to be compared with the alternative.
I'd add that reducing local government doesn't mean that federal government has to be large and bloated. I still want a lean federal government.
I can also never pin down exactly what advocates of larger local government actually want. What powers and capabilities, specifically, should be removed from federal and done by local?
It's a nation, and students are nationals. There needs to be some national standards.
The Florida law says a social media platform "may not willfully deplatform a candidate for office" and imposes fines of up to $250,000 per day on social media companies that ban candidates for elected office. The law also says social platforms "may not apply or use post-prioritization or shadow banning algorithms for content and material posted by or about... a candidate," and may not "censor, deplatform, or shadow ban a journalistic enterprise based on the content of its publication or broadcast."
Who do they define as a candidate? If I'm running for student council would it apply to me? What requirements are there?
Similarly, who is a "journalist"? Anyone can declare they are one.
Finally, what constitutes post-prioritization? If I search for something, then ideally posts relevant to what I searched for would be prioritized in results, does this count as "shadow banning"? In any list there can only be one element that is first. Are the others "shadow banned"?
Now let's look at this and see if the circumstances justify the government seizing the right of the social media hosting company to determine what content they want to serve on their website.
- Does the company have a natural Monopoly due to rights given to them by the public (such as the right of way for cable/equipment installation enjoyed by other common carriers)? No. These companies enjoy no such special privileges.
- Is there a substantial cost for a competitor to enter the market? No. Software and server infrastructure are cheap compared to costs incurred to existing common carriers.
Then I do not see a justification for the government to rescind the rights of the social network operators in this way.
If social media platforms want that right, like news media platforms, they have to hire real editors and agree to be liable for the information they publish and disseminate. Why should social media platforms get an exception to this but news media platform on print, TV or radio be bound by extra restrictions (liability)?
> Is there a substantial cost for a competitor to enter the market? No. Software and server infrastructure are cheap compared to costs incurred to existing common carriers.
Yes, there is the "network effect" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect ) which is a huge barrier for any new competitor to overcome. One way to remove this barrier and provide a more level playing field would be to create and enforce a standard that would foster connection and communication between all such social network platforms. Do you think the tech companies will allow this?
A political candidate is one who is a member of a political party and is running for a public office or has already been elected to such offices in the past. (Yes, I am discounting independent candidates as they are a minor aberration that, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed in mature democracies). Whether the democratic system is presidential or parliamentary, political parties are one of the common institutions and base political units that are part of a democratic political system.
> If I'm running for student council would it apply to me?
No, since it is not a public office. This law is targeted to protect the free speech rights and political views of active politicians and elected representatives. For example, Twitter, under pressure from the current right-wing government of India deliberately tried to sabotage the social media outreach of an elected Member of Parliament and an opposition leader:
“I want to bring your attention to what I believe is Twitter’s unwitting complicity in curbing free and fair speech in India,” Mr. Gandhi wrote in the letter to the Twitter chief executive, Parag Agrawal. “I have been reliably, albeit discreetly, informed by people at Twitter India that they are under immense pressure by the government to silence my voice.”
The proposed laws can actually protect tech platforms from this kind of government pressure too, which should be welcomed by us.
> Similarly, who is a "journalist"? Anyone can declare they are one.
Just like shouting "I declare bankruptcy" doesn't activate bankruptcy laws in your favour, "declaring" yourself a journalist doesn't make you a journalist in most countries.
Any one who publishes their work, cites their sources, and signs their (real) name is a journalist.
I don't have the heart to respond to the rest of your objections.
OK, but this can then be misused for other causes — for example, in the UK there is a deposit that general election candidates have to pay, which IIRC was introduced because too many people kept filing to be candidates because that was a way to get out of a legal obligation (draft, I think).
I expect the same here. Is anyone illegible to file for candidacy? Is this exactly the same dividing line you want between the tweeters and the tweet-nots?
(I am amused by the idea of Trump social media site being forced to host the literal Communist Party USA candidates, but that's a different matter).
> Any one who publishes their work, cites their sources, and signs their (real) name is a journalist.
This definition is so broad as to include me. Thanks, I guess, but I don't think I warrant that status.
We definitely have too many candidates. In practice, other filters, rightly or wrongly, cull the herd to only "serious candidates". Basically, ability to raise money and get endorsements. If you squint, they both kinda look like forms of social proof.
The political parties used to be the filter, but now they're impotent. For better or worse.
--
> I don't think I warrant that status.
Maybe not. But name some "journalists" in corporate media who have your credibility and authenticity.
By my definition, you are far more of a journalist than most talking heads and pundits can even claim to be. (Whereas anonymous coward me is not.)
A "professional journalist" also has the resources to do fact checking and corrections (errata).
Most of the news and analysis I consume today comes from podcasts, bloggers, and books.
That's not great.
Using Manufacturing Consent's thesis of media filters, because I don't have another model, it comes down to who is "in charge". Right now, our society's choices for mass news are corporate propaganda and corporate recommenders (algorithmic hate machines). Some people can afford to buy high quality bespoke news. Some are quirky or crazy enough (news junkies) to keep their own ledger (bozo list).
There are some exceptions. HN, metafilter, user groups (aka special interest groups) like some subreddits and ravelry.org, can also provide higher signal to noise over a longer time frame.
--
Thanks for humoring me and reading this far. I write to understand and it helps me to go thru the effort.
No, which is why no one is stopping you from typing in a URL in your browser and visiting a website.
But a computer owner should be able to decide what goes on on their computer (even google or Facebook). The network that connects everyone is what should be regulated and forced to be “free” or “unrestricted”.
How do you feel about the Civil Rights Act?
The discussion would then be about if we legally protect members of tribe with certain gender, skin color, cultural affiliation, etc, why would we not protect a tribe of certain political views, that is an interesting question that I am not sure how to delineate.
Because they're "stopping me" already, as of late.
Prop 209 then Prop 16.
At first you were racist by being racist. Then you were racist for not wanting to repeal anti-racist laws.
Just like how not having blind auditions for orchestras was racist (not hiring enough minorities). And now having blind auditions is racist (not hiring enough minorities).
It does not ban nor prevent the use of the word "gay."
> 3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur [for many students]
So I guess technically you can say the word, as long as you don’t explain what it means?
There is no age at which it is inappropriate to listen about these extremely basic facts of the world.
In the broader context this topic would be dull as dishwater and boring as toilet training if a certain type didn't make it interesting if only as a measure of their obsession with sex and other people's mere existence transgressing on useless norms that they somehow assume are vital to our society.
Outside of your fantasies teachers aren't violating your kids boundaries by having a same sex partner or a last name nor yet by telling them some households have two mommies or two daddies. What you are actually concerned about is constant exposure to reality may lead your kid to believe that its normal and acceptable for a man to love another man or a woman another woman which is ok because a substantial minority are gay and it is indeed ok for them to love whom they love.
Instead you'd rather in your words "destroy public schooling" one of the most obvious wins of the modern era to avoid... your kid learning about... adam and steve.
The number of people home schooling went up during the pandemic but it is a single digit percentage not spreading like "wildfire". I expect home schooling to be sufficient for only a minority while a larger portion might well benefit from a partially or wholly online experience.
My kind is American or more broadly Westerner I suppose and I was not aware of any effort to conquer me.
Would it have been inappropriate if she said her and her husband was having a baby? In todays society would it have been in appropriate if she said her and her wife? How do you think these same conservatives would have felt if little Johnny came home and mentioned to their parents that their teacher spoke about her wife?
At least in my country, what the GP is saying is almost the precise opposite of how the pupil-teacher relationship is conceptualized. Indeed, people often bemoan teachers who just think they're providing a service, instead of taking their responsibility as mentors seriously.
Just to be clear - an informed electorate is sort of key for American Democracy so openly arguing against any form of education is a pretty clear argument against some really basic tenants of America.
and by their definition that somehow topics around queer people & gender can be inappropriate; this is not sex education and no, nurses are not handing out hormones to pre-teens.
Many of these laws specifically enable people to sue teachers, governments, officials, women who had an abortion, etc.
That enables conservative & religious fanatics to have the last say and impose their moral worldviews onto the rest of us.
The fact that gay people exist is not 'appropriate' in many of their minds. Which is gross and sad. And therefore these laws give the vocal minority the power to force the rest of us back into the closet.
This isn't remotely true. Your rural local government -
a) generally has to serve the interests of its constituents, ie the fuckup mayor or do nothing member of the county commissioners board will eventually be called out, shamed in public, and lose reelection.
b) unlike Disney, does not move in lock step chasing quarterly profit - which is a very good thing, as it allows for long term cooperative efforts, like bringing a sanitation system to a small town of 800 people.
c) Are by-and-large the most useful people when it comes to pushing back against encroachment by companies who would prefer a company town. Your county commissioner, county seat mayor, etc, almost always have interests that run counter to the largest factory in the area, which is a blessing. That's not to say corruption doesn't happen, but most people are honest, and try to help the folks they represent as best they can.
Disney is far closer to the factories that try to bully, cajole, and coerce their way to a better bottom line, than it is the elected body of a rural area.
You mean the same local government where I grew up that within my still living parents lifetime enforced Jim Crow laws?
Or do you mean the local government where I live now that specifically said that “religious institutions” can be put up in residential areas but are twisting in all sorts of contortions trying to keep a Hindu temple out?
Or could it be the same state governments that are banning abortion left and right even though it goes against the wishes of their constituents?
Maybe it’s the same local government that condones police stopping minorities far more than non minorities because they “look suspicious”?
On the other hand the residence of Orange County Florida are definitely not in favor of Desantis forcing them (soon us) to take over control of Disney.
I know this not just because of what I heard on the news. Orange County will soon be our legal residence and where we spend the winter (the rest of the time traveling). I thought if nothing else, you could count on conservatives to be good for business and lower taxes. The stunt that the Florida governor did is good for nothing but his own ego.
Then Florida tells Disney to watch its step and the left come out in defense of a massive corporation - “why won’t you leave poor Disney Corp alone!!”
Really amazing to see.
In my world, corporations being subject to the government is the Hallmark of progressivism.
But no one's actually paying attention to the actual actions, just their own view of the motivation
https://deadline.com/2022/05/disney-ron-desantis-dont-say-ga...
If you've ever interacted with local municipal governments in the US, you would know that most municipal government employees would love to take responsibility for the zoning, police, fire, and tax collection at Disney. They would squeeze it for all they can - and they probably will. The concerned citizens (and Disney, who is likely funding their legal case) do not want this squeezing to take place.
Make no mistake, that town is only operating at a loss because Disney's accountants are writing its books. They are shifting income to the corporation and losses to the city, so they can take advantage of favorable financing terms available on muni bonds for those losses. If someone adversarial to Disney were to take over the town, the revenue/cost situation would be very different since the two would no longer be working together to shift profits and losses around. We are about to see how different it will be.
There is a huge movement in the metro Atlanta area to either break off from the larger city or to incorporate county areas so they can have more local control. There is no movement to take over larger responsibilities by the taxpayers.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...
This is a biased source (a little too right-leaning for my taste), but it has a few interesting quotes from public officials:
https://deadline.com/2022/05/disney-ron-desantis-dont-say-ga...
It helps because Disney in Orlando produces something like $20 billion per year, and owns something like $10-100 billion of property and equipment. All of that is now taxable. It's easy to see how this helps a city: A 1% sales tax would net $200 million, and a property tax would also be in the 8 figures.
Police, fire, and other essential services would cost nowhere near this much. Even servicing the debt on $1 billion of bonds would be nowhere near this much.
In terms of local politicians, this helps them because someone with $20 billion in revenue will be happy to pay you a $500k bribe (sorry, donation to your re-election fund) to give them favorable rules.
I don't know much about the Atlanta metro area, but there have been several cases in the past that I have heard of where rich areas try to break away from larger cities. The cities generally don't want this to happen because these districts are profit centers (this is a reverse of the Disney situation, where a potential profit center would be incorporated into a city). Desires for "local control" are usually about money.
This isn’t something I’m just hearing about from the national news. I bought a second home/investment property in Orange County that will become my legal residence once my wife and I start doing the digital nomad thing later this year.
People locally do not want this. No Republican or Democratic governor has ever complained about Disney’s special tax district until DeSantis brought it up specifically because Disney spoke up. DeSantis is not interested in “protecting free speech”.
Does this sound like anything but retribution:
“You’re a corporation based in Burbank, California, and you’re going to martial your economic might to attack the parents of my state? We view that as a provocation, and we’re going to fight back against that,” DeSantis said during an event at a Hialeah Gardens charter school.
The issue is their motive. Motive is critical.
Because that’s what the law was about.
Which is, of course, because there are two sexualities - straight, and political.
> "Clara, my wife, and I went to see bears at Yosemite. It was so exciting! Can you point to Yosemite on a map?"
Everyday situation at any school I ever went to. Schools are not learning factories, they are social places, especially in K-3.
I am not arguing for teaching toddlers about homosexual BDSM culture here. I just think that particular law is overreaching its goals, possibly to stroke the egos of religious zealots.
I've seen tons of recent support for censorship from ideas and speech the (left? I wouldn't consider it actually left) doesn't like. Then you have conservatives moving against these books that promote woke religion and suddenly these same people are very pro free speech.
One could argue that calls for gender-affirming surgeries or treatments are equally, if not, worse. These topics are especially prevalent in the LGBTQ community, as I have found from my experience. Nevertheless, we seem to encourage this kind of behavior whereas we. It is important to be aware of which ideas you are rejecting, especially when the community you seem to be defending is also committing acts of the same caliber.
I’m sure that racist whites thought that MLK was agitating for “equally bad, if not worse” things than Governor Faubus but they were just wrong.
The left has always been pro-censorship: Stalin and Mao, for instance, set up societies with lots of censorship.
The right is also pro-censorship: think Hitler, or any religious conservatives for that matter.
If you're talking about what modern Americans consider "left" and "right", though, I'd agree, but what Americans consider "left" generally isn't very far left, and it depends on who you ask: talk to an internationally-minded American and they'll say the Democratic party is centrist at best, or center-right. Talk to a Trump voter and they'll say that party is "far-left radical communists".
The right is significantly more dangerous now, but I don't see that as a historically universal truth.
Both exist on either end of the ideological spectrum. Right-wing authoritarianism is a thing, and so is left-wing libertarianism.
People on the left need to remember that if they give the government more power to regulate speech online, whether it is to fight disinformation or hate speech or whatever else, the right wing will have the same power the next time they win office. It's so short sighted.
Unless you want our society to vacillate between left-wing censorship and right-wing censorship every time power changes hands, you should oppose giving any more censorship powers to governments.
No one on the left wants the government to do this. What happens is that "many on the left" tend to yell loudly about stuff to the extent that people in power feel they need to moderate their own speech and actions. Virtually no one on the left wants "the government" to do this.
The left, in fact, is extremely dependent on its ability to exercise free speech rights to make this happen. Everyone you want to cite who got "cancelled"? They got cancelled because someone else exercised their first amendment right to a hissy fit. Literally no one is trying to censor you. They're just shouting louder (and, to some extent, better and more convincingly).
But indeed, the count-counter-messaging was too strong and it was shut down, because at the end of the day what amounts a PR organization isn't going to be very useful vs. the ammunition it can provide to people wanting to scream about censorship.
Hilariously that statement is a perfect example of the kind of disinformation and memery techniques that that (aborted) department was trying to refute.
Also none of what you said addresses the the proposed legislation.
This is not true. Net neutrality is about service providers not getting to choose which services you connect with. If your ISP decided you can use Hulu but have to pay $10/mo extra for Netflix, that's a net neutrality issue. It's not about the volume of bytes. It's about who the bytes are coming from and going to, which is a content issue.
My bro is the head tech guy for a cable company. He opposes "net neutrality". For B2B reasons. For him, it's about interconnect fees and fairness. Something like they build the pipes and someone, let's say TikTok, hogs all the bandwidth without paying their fair share.
I have no idea if my bro's narrative makes any sense. My bro also believes The Flintstones is a documentary (creationist). So I usually just smile and nod along when he starts to rant about something.
Whereas my understanding is closer to what you've stated; net neutrality is a B2C policy issue.
Whatever the case, my bro and myself, with our very different understandings and priorities, have no overlap in our positions.
I’m biased in that I work at a company that uses a lot of bandwidth. My opinions are my own.
Companies like TikTok pay their fair share. They pay their provider to take their bytes. Their provider pays one of the “big pipe” companies and passes the bytes along. Then they pass it along and charge your bro’s company. Then your bro’s company passes it along and chargers the consumer. This is oversimplified, but it’s the general flow.
What your bro wants to do is skip the line. It’s not enough to charge consumers, he wants to charge the companies, or the consumers more depending on the company.
It’s like UPS opening up your package, seeing there are Nikes in there and wanting to charge either you or Nike extra. You’re already paying for delivery.
That is the disconnect. In their mind you are 'sharing' with all the other people that bought the same thing, whereas you believe you were the only one that bought what they said they would sell you, like any other purchase works.
I imagine lobbyists buffaloing your average elected representative. It's a compelling story. Even if it's untrue.
Ultimately, we value free speech because it leads to a more fair and just society. It's not a rule that is followed by blind faith. Personally, I think allowing unlimited corporate spending on political speech amplifies the voices of a select few so that others are not heard. Essentially censorship of the masses. I fail to see how that leads to a fair and just society.
Corporations cannot donate to (federal) political campaigns, period. See https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...
Now, both individuals and corporations can donate to Super PACs an unlimited amount, yes. But corporations have no different limits than individuals. The whole point of so-called Super PACs is they're theoretically "Independent-expenditure-only political committees" and can't coordinate with candidates. Basically the "We have strong views about abortion" Super PAC can collect as much money as they want from anyone they want* and run as many ads as they want telling people which candidates share their view on abortion and which are monsters.
You may view this as vile and bad, and that's fair, but why should a group of people spending their money together (i.e. a corporation or union or whatever) have fewer rights than an individual spending their money alone?
*Foreign nationals maybe not included in this? Not sure.
When you ban or limit groups of people, like corporations or unions or co-ops, from spending on elections, you give more power to those rich individuals, not less.
For example, Disney's CEO is about five million dollars. Disney the corporation has about 13 billion dollars cash-on-hand.
What's an exorbitant amount? Imagine some people, passionate about their particular political issue, pooling their money together to put up billboards, run radio ads, get a few TV spots, have a spread in the newspaper, buy some instagram ads, whatever. That's speech! Of course it is! Having the government restrict is a terrible precedent. The ability to try and influence other people, to convince them that your position or your candidate is the right one, is also a principle of democracy.
> The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance.
I specifically said individual donations to political campaigns were limited. I think you’re arguing a very pedantic point that I didn’t even make rather than talking about whether or not our society would be better off limiting all forms of political spending.
Let’s say I want to personally spent $1 million supporting a candidate I like. But I’m worried their rival will sue me for libel. So I’d like to form a LLC so that I won’t be personally liable in that case. This seems reasonable to allow.
It's all the other bad side, not the same freaking loonies that keep everything status quo and pat each others backs.