merle lefkoff wrote:
Sarbajit misses the boat completely. The reason that the government
"may not suppress that speech altogether" is because under U.S. law
corporations have the same rights as people. This is the problem,
because corporations are NOT by any stretch of the imagination a
person. Using the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to gain the
legal financial takeover of the electoral process is a disaster for
democracy. What needs to be changed, however, is not the recent Supreme
Court decision, but the legal definition of "corporation."
sarbajit roy wrote:
Dear Group,
As a non-US member I also find this interesting.
As an ordinary citizen who has personally argued and won some cases
before the Supreme Court of my country (India) on Free Speech issues
(one coincidentally involving large corporations and television
broadcasting), I was actually quite impressed with the reasoning in
the majority ratio handed down by your Supreme Court (although to be
frank, I am not up to speed on the case law of your country).in
"*Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission*". The message I got
from the judgement is that the Court is adamant on ensuring that
citizens are fully informed no matter what the source of information
is so long as the mandatory disclaimers are in place and the bias is
spelled out up front. "*/The Government may regulate corporate
political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but
it may not suppress that speech altogether/*." Heck, now Osama-BL Inc.
has the right to buy air-time and tell you what he thinks of the
Georges Bush,
I also find that the petition you signed is based on a limited and
incorrect understanding of the judgement, and is designed on the
premise that "*you can get at least one half of the American public to
sign anything if you word the question properly*".
It would be instructive to those interested to read the actual
majority opinion summarised here
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZO.html
Just in passing, if some people imagine that a "Constitutional
democracy" is a good thing, read this for an alternative view from one
of the greatest philosophers of our age .. its brilliant in parts.
http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb1.htm
Sarbajit
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 7:42 PM, Robert J. Cordingley
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Given the opining in this list, US members might find this site of
interest:
http://movetoamend.org/
Perhaps a chance to actually do something?
Thanks
Robert
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
