Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens

Another false premise. When did you get to determine that "whether or not it becomes legal depends on who has the most money?"

What's the point of a ballot box wherein the citizens get to vote in secret?

You live in your own world.

It's not about giving it to one sector. It's about honoring the Constitution and not closing any sector from engaging in free speech, free assembly, and the right to petition the government.

There are individuals, and a lot of them, that could be king makers (Bloomberg, Gates, Koch, Buffett, etc.). If it's a money issue, you can't restrict based upon wealth. You can't restrict upon wealth within corporations, either.

Bears repeating:

Clearly you're not interested in anything I have to say, because you're not comprehending anything I've said.

Corporations now have unlimited ability to fund political issues/causes/and candidates. If you can't do the mental experiment to see where that leads, I don't know what I have to work with here.

Regardless of the cost?

If you think it was that easy then why wouldn't, say, Coca-Cola simply use their "unlimited ability to fund political issues/causes/and candidates" to simply outlaw Pepsi?

Same issue, just a different side of the coin.

Exactly, and exactly why what you propose fails under the Constitution and the concepts of freedom.

You really aren't capable of doing the thought experiment are you. Seriously, think for a minute and I'll bet you can answer your own question. And then realize what a ridiculous question that was.

The greater cost is the loss of freedom by restricting Constitutionally-protected and guaranteed rights.

You're really into the insults, aren't you Kevin? I directly answered your question in the prior post...it was based on a false premise, remember, Mr. Speech-control?

Here's the thing though; those limitations have always been in effect. Here's a fed example: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml

Each state has their own charts; google up your own state and see what comes up.

Those limits have been put in place to try to keep the political process as level as possible. A widely un-balanced political process means ruin and will lead to massive loss of freedoms.

Constitutional free speech is not unlimited; never has been, never will be.

That's because it scares the Hell out of the gov't. Freedom and Liberty always do.

Those state restrictions will fall under Incorporation, as they should.

My apologies, I have a raging headache...probably shouldn't be debating a deep subject with an ice pick in my head. My apologies, and thank you for calling me on that.

But on the political side, it's about balance. You seem to only want to think in absolutes; we don't really have that in government and really never have. Absolutes are for the Anarchist guys.

When something as important as our political process becomes clearly imbalanced, I don't see how you just ignore it because of principle. You said yesterday, you'll always find a way around. That's what un-principled people do (not saying you're unprincipled; I KNOW you are...you were just making a point).

So if unprincipled people are willing to side step our principles, if we simply stand on principle we will lose every time. When they usurp the system, you have to counter or it all comes crashing down. You will never write anything that is airtight, so you have to make adjustments.

So, how do you draw the lines on a financial basis, which is at base your problem, and NOT exclude individuals of incredible wealth, and how do you include them without violating the 1st and 14th Amendments?

How do you restrict corporations of "means" without restricting the smallest community, sportmen's, conservation, etc., groups?

Simply put: you can't. That's why the First Amendment is there in the first place.

GunGeek, I got my shot in there as well. I'm going to try to back out of this. (No guarantee, though. )

Because you have the loudest voice, doesn't mean you're right. That's the situation; corporations have the loudest voice and are in a position to monopolize the entire political process.

Look at the melt down of 2008. When it all came down, Wall Street went to congress and even said, we have to be regulated. As soon as they got their trillion, they fought all regulation. They allowed Dodd-Frank to pass as a diversion; but it didn't correct ANY of the core issues that brought about a collapse. This is a sector that can literally bankrupt America, but they have the power to make sure nothing hinders them in any way. That's not in the best interest of anyone but Wall Street. But the current situation is such that they can just contribute to politicians as much as needed to get their way, or contribute to their opponents to push anyone who doesn't do their bidding out of office. How is this good for America? These ARE the un-principled, and they're running rough shod over all of America.

That made me smile; no hard feelings at all my friend. I truly enjoy political debate.