A First Amendment Analysis of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission - Part 1 of 3

A few weeks before the 2008 primary election, a non-profit corporation called Citizens United tried to release a video criticizing Hillary Clinton. Federal campaign finance laws made this illegal, so Citizens United sued. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that those campaign finance laws were unconstitutional because they violated the First Amendment. President Obama criticized the Supreme Court's decision, and many others have blindly followed.

This video explains why President Obama was wrong and the Supreme Court was right.

Part one of three.

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News & Politics

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• first amendment
• free speech
• citizens united
• federal election commission
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[Writerspark1]

Anyone seeking unbiased discussion of Citizens United will be disappointed by this biased but well-executed explanation. It's explanation of the issue, while accompanied by a professional-looking Power point presentation, takes not only a blatantly corporate view of the matter but a distinctly right wing lean whet it suggests that the only government worth corrupting is a good government and the only good government is small government.

Don't be fooled. This presentation is right wing BS.

[infoRipple]

@Writerspark1 My argument is very actually different. A big government, one that is involved in every aspect of daily life, is not a good government. Intrusive, big government, by its over-involvement, invites corruption. A small government that is involved in very little is far less likely to be corrupted because the draw isn't there; it can't give out favors. Big corporations WANT big government, because it gives them subsidies and bailouts and regulates smaller competitors out of the market.

[GameGuru151]

@inforipple

"What makes non-profits any more trustworthy than for profit corporations, and what makes an individual a better source of campaign funds than a corporation?"

The fact non-profits are not concerned with making someone wealthy. They are independent of a selfish motive. The state should serve the interests of the greatest number of people possible. "Of the people, by the people" A corporation represents the interests of one, to at most a few people with a huge amt of money.

[infoRipple]

@GameGuru151 Non-profits are concerned with power. They are by definition biased organizations seeking to change the world for the benefit of some group or another. Don't pretend that the only motive for evildoing is money; that is just naive.

As for corporations only representing the interests of one or a few, that's simply false. Big corporations--the ones that everyone is so worried about--have thousands upon thousands of shareholders, each of whom have different values and goals.

[infoRipple]

@chuckkottke

What do you mean "qualifying candidates?" Who would decide who qualifies? The government? A committee of bureaucrats? That sounds alot like government controlling political speech to me.

[infoRipple]

Whenever you give government the power to censor speech, freedom suffers. The Federal Election Commission is fundamentally a censorship organization--it decides how much any given group is permitted to speak. A prime example of this is the FEC's attacks on The Campaign For Liberty (a nonprofit corporation) soon after Obama took office.

Even if it were not offensive to liberty to censor speech, it is foolish to think that a government organization could do it impartially.

[kewpified]

@Writerspark1 "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." Thomas Jefferson. I will agree that information should be facts not biased opinions. First present clear facts at the end of which one could than insert there opinion.

[chuckkottke]

How bad does the corruption have to get? I believe we have the Right to Fair Elections, and all qualifying candidates deserve equal access to and equal time on the broadcast commons, the modern public square. Obviously our government is corrupted by special interests who finance the ads and get in return favorable legislation + appointments, and those elected officials then return as lobbyists to rake in the dough from the quid pro quo.

[infoRipple]

@liberalmike1994

What makes non-profits any more trustworthy than for profit corporations, and what makes an individual a better source of campaign funds than a corporation?

Is your concern that candidates receive such large amounts of money to fund their campaigns, or that the money comes from corporations? Remember that Obama spent over $745 million dollars to win in 2008--and this is while the laws struck down in the Citizens United Case were still in effect.

[liberalmike1994]

the problem is that it doesent just apply to non profit corporations. part of the decision stated that a corporation counts as a person(in terms of free speech) however this simply isnt the case and will enable canidates supported by big buisness an almost endless supply of campaign funding.