Yes, but those people are simply willing to ignore the stuff they deem less important due to one overarching issue that is of huge importance to them. There is still no candidate that is an exact match for all their beliefs. For those of us who value a number of things, it's always going to be about making the trade-offs that maximize what we want when we vote.
Perhaps, but that union/church/org represents individuals and those individuals have to sign off on only spending via that output. It makes sure we don't have individuals or companies donating millions to influence. I'm much happier having the union/church/org having a modicum of influence over corporations and zillionairs having great influence.
There you go. We agree that organizations are made up of people. So corporations ARE (made up of) people. So are unions. Why shouldn't a $zillionaire be able to spend his money trying to convince government to cure cancer? All of the cures for this illness seem to be worse than the illness. Give up freedom to gain... a government that restricts freedom.
He can, up to $1000. Otherwise he can donate to all sorts of cancer causes that aren't dealing with elections. I don't see this as a problem at all.
And yes, organizations are made up of people, but they shouldn't represent more people then they actually are. If there are ten people in the org they shouldn't be able to spend and if they had a million members.
He's a $zillionaire, but the government has orders and orders of magnitude more money to spend each year than he's collected in his lifetime. Of course he wants the government to spend the money on research because his spending becomes leveraged. For real good. Why shouldn't a cancer cause be able to petition government? If the FDA bans some substance that is key to the cure, shouldn't they be able to speak out against those anti-stem cell bastards?
If ten people join the org but one of those members is rich as balls, those ten shouldn't be able to spend the equivalent of a million people.
Why should you decide for me if I can advertise or not? Isn't that you restricting my liberty? That's the problem. Government and rules aren't the solution.
The amount of money you have should not preclude you from spending it as you see fit. Especially if you're spending it to cure cancer. Or better yet, spending it to put heat on the current warmongers in office to be less warlike.
There is no way to remove it. GM promises Obama a cushy 8 figure job after he leaves office if he bails them out. Wink, wink. Nod, nod. My view is that if government is powerful enough to be worth buying, it's too big.
The govt in tiny backwater nations are still bought. There is no way to make it small enough. And even if it were possible, as long as money has as much influence as it has there is no way govt would ever shrink significantly. The problem I have with pure libertarianism, communism, anarchism, capitalism or many other isms is that if there is not an answer that totally fixes everything then it's not worth doing something. But sometimes doing something is better then nothing. So I'm not going to claim there are no negatives to my proposal, just that here is a shit load better effects than negative effects. Overall, I think it would greatly divorce organizations from influencing politicians for personal gain. It's not going to fix it in all situations, but it will greatly help.
Libertarianism doesn't claim to fix anything. It claims to be the best we can do, though. How about we make it so the $zillionaire has to make it public that he's spending whatever he is on whatever he is? Then YOU can judge for yourself if you want to side with him or against him. The problem is transparency, not that anyone's bought. We might try going to 2-year budgets instead of restricting liberty. Then a representative couldn't vote on spending for someone that helps elect him without an election in between.
BTW, further. What was Citizens United about? Why was it brought before the Supreme Court in the first place?
Transparency helps and I'd be all for that! But it doesn't do enough. There are tons of ways to obscure who is donating. Donate to an org that supports another org in its advertising, then instead of saying Denny crane donated x amount, it says the society for free gerbils donated. Second, the voting populous shouldn't have to study who all the hundreds of big money donors are in an election. Just remove the influence of the sacks of cash.
I'm not sure anymore (I could google) but whatever the cause, the outcome could be the death knell of America over time. Not immediately, but Unless we figure things out, I believe this very well could be the action that separates the haves from the have nots to the point where a revolution is required. It's not necessarily the outcome, but we better correct this.
Honestly denny please explain why you feel it's important for a wealthy person to be able to spend 100,000 times more money than another citizen?
A man that does not want liberty foremost, will never be happy with what he has. It is double trouble when he defines enough by what others have.
