US Elections 2012?
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Re: US Elections 2012?This!(Original post by pr0view)
I think it could be a close one in reality because the two candidates are pretty much the same. Both war warmongering liars and hypocrites. -
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Re: US Elections 2012?His approval rating is 46%.(Original post by BP22)
Just looking at the real-time analysis on Stazoo and based upon that, Obama is doing very well!
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were closer to 60% at this point their presidency. -
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Re: US Elections 2012?Largely the same.(Original post by Wawasan)
God knows what will happen if Romney gets it... -
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Re: US Elections 2012?Lower taxes.(Original post by anarchism101)
Largely the same. -
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Re: US Elections 2012?Not really. Just the burden of taxation moved a little bit. Romney will do the same corrupt business party stuff, just with different businesses.(Original post by Brevity)
Lower taxes. -
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Re: US Elections 2012?The extent to which money effects the outcome of presidential elections in the US is really depressing. As it stands, Mr "Corporations Are People" Romney seems to be beating Obama in terms of the amount of campaign finance he's receiving, which bodes well for him. He received $10 million dollars the other day from a casino magnate called Sheldon Adelson, who despises what he sees as Obama's "socialist" (
) policies -- this despite the fact that he's earned more under Obama than any other American. It's like an alternate universe, man.
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Re: US Elections 2012?Whenever people bring this up, I always feel this is a bit of a cheap shot. In context, Romney clearly means that the wealth created by corporations eventually ends up in the hands of people. Obviously it might end up in the hands of more or less people, but there's some increase of wealth in the end.(Original post by Addzter)
Mr "Corporations Are People" Romney...
And anyway the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations do enjoy many of the same rights as people (in Citizens United, say).
It might not be "Read my lips: no new taxes", but I'm pretty certain there'll be (20%) lower taxes for all: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...-tax-cut-plans(Original post by anarchism101)
Not really. Just the burden of taxation moved a little bit. Romney will do the same corrupt business party stuff, just with different businesses. -
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Re: US Elections 2012?I don't think it's a cheap shot at all. If he meant to say that the wealth created by corporations ultimately ended up in the hands of people (who doesn't believe that anyway?) then why didn't he actually say that instead of "corporations are people, my friend"?(Original post by Brevity)
Whenever people bring this up, I always feel this is a bit of a cheap shot. In context, Romney clearly means that the wealth created by corporations eventually ends up in the hands of people. Obviously it might end up in the hands of more or less people, but there's some increase of wealth in the end.
And anyway the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations do enjoy many of the same rights as people (in Citizens United, say).
So what if the Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing unlimited amounts of money to flow into politics? That doesn't mean they were right. Can't you see how patently insane the ruling in Citizens United is? -
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Re: US Elections 2012?Well, I think he said that because he was dismissing a heckler--so it wasn't exactly the perfect moment to elaborate of his theories of corporate personhood. But, you'll notice, the very next thing he says (an elaboration of his previous "corporations are people, my friend" comment, probably in response to the heckler dismissing him, as you are now) is "everything corporations own ultimately goes to people".(Original post by Addzter)
I don't think it's a cheap shot at all. If he meant to say that the wealth created by corporations ultimately ended up in the hands of people (who doesn't believe that anyway?) then why didn't he actually say that instead of "corporations are people, my friend"?
I think it's a cheap shot because it clearly extrapolates something said unthinkingly as a tenant of his faith, or a facet of his world-view, which I think is probably a bit more complex than this simplistic quote allows.
The thing is, whilst Citizens United does sound absurd on the face of it, the judges of the Supreme Court are not idiots. There are reasons that they rule the way they do--even the conservative ones, as much as we'd prefer to think they're unthinking dogmatists. Yet, there's never any attention to paid to their judicial reasoning: it's always the headline "Citizens United = unlimited corporate political spending". Again, bit cheap and easy, you know?(Original post by Addzter)
So what if the Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing unlimited amounts of money to flow into politics? That doesn't mean they were right. Can't you see how patently insane the ruling in Citizens United is?
Especially because it's quite simple to understand why the court ruled as it did. If the First Amendment does anything, it restricts federal restrictions on freedom of speech of individuals and freedom of the press. Since corporations are simply an association of citizens (also guaranteed by that amendment) united in a purpose which is commerce, a logical extension of the First Amendment is they cannot be denied political speech. The First Amendment cannot distinguish between citizens (because otherwise it'd allow you to, say, ban a proportion of the citizenship from speech) so, if you accept that corporations are associations of people for business (which in your reply, you imply you do) then, since the Amendment cannot discriminate, then it cannot exclude political speech by corporations.
Finally, if you accept the spending money in advertising is a form of political speech, it follows quite logically that you must allow unlimited campaign finance by corporations (anyway, the law isn't as imbalanced as you think: it allows unlimited contributions by unions, too). So whether or not the Supreme Court was "right" is always up for debate (no doubt you think it was right in desegregating schools in Brown v. Board of Education, or guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion in Rode v. Wade), but Citizens United is definitely a (if not the only only) "right" interpretation of the Constitution. -
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Re: US Elections 2012?(Original post by Brevity)
Well, I think he said that because he was dismissing a heckler--so it wasn't exactly the perfect moment to elaborate of his theories of corporate personhood. But, you'll notice, the very next thing he says (an elaboration of his previous "corporations are people, my friend" comment, probably in response to the heckler dismissing him, as you are now) is "everything corporations own ultimately goes to people".
Again, nobody is disputing that corporations are made up of people, and that the wealth they produce ultimately ends up in the pockets of people, but that doesn't make them equal to a person. When Romney said "everything corporations own ultimately goes to people", he wasn't correcting himself, he was qualifying his previous statement.
Well if he misspoke or accidentally misrepresented his views, why has he not said so? If I was a presidential candidate and I said something I didn't mean to say, I'd set the record straight as soon as possible.I think it's a cheap shot because it clearly extrapolates something said unthinkingly as a tenant of his faith, or a facet of his world-view, which I think is probably a bit more complex than this simplistic quote allows.
You made a (very elegant) leap from the first amendment guaranteeing free speech, to the first amendment guaranteeing the right for corporations being allowed to spend as much money as they like on political advertising. Which is insane.The thing is, whilst Citizens United does sound absurd on the face of it, the judges of the Supreme Court are not idiots. There are reasons that they rule the way they do--even the conservative ones, as much as we'd prefer to think they're unthinking dogmatists. Yet, there's never any attention to paid to their judicial reasoning: it's always the headline "Citizens United = unlimited corporate political spending". Again, bit cheap and easy, you know?
Especially because it's quite simple to understand why the court ruled as it did. If the First Amendment does anything, it restricts federal restrictions on freedom of speech of individuals and freedom of the press. Since corporations are simply an association of citizens (also guaranteed by that amendment) united in a purpose which is commerce, a logical extension of the First Amendment is they cannot be denied political speech. The First Amendment cannot distinguish between citizens (because otherwise it'd allow you to, say, ban a proportion of the citizenship from speech) so, if you accept that corporations are associations of people for business (which in your reply, you imply you do) then, since the Amendment cannot discriminate, then it cannot exclude political speech by corporations.
Finally, if you accept the spending money in advertising is a form of political speech, it follows quite logically that you must allow unlimited campaign finance by corporations (anyway, the law isn't as imbalanced as you think: it allows unlimited contributions by unions, too). So whether or not the Supreme Court was "right" is always up for debate (no doubt you think it was right in desegregating schools in Brown v. Board of Education, or guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion in Rode v. Wade), but Citizens United is definitely a (if not the only only) "right" interpretation of the Constitution.
First of all, cash equalling speech means that rich people (those who need the least help from government) have far more influence over how the country is run than poor people. You point out that unions can spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising too, but unions have far less money to spend than corporations, and the power of unions is declining all the time because their membership numbers are falling. Why should a corporation made up of 1,000 people have more influence than a non-profit group made up of 10,000 people?
Secondly, corporations exist for one reason: to make profit. It stands to reason therefore that they'd prefer to back politicians whose policies would help them to make even more money, regardless of whether those politicians' policies would benefit society as a whole.
Thirdly, corporations are, of course, made up of people, but they're controlled by only a handful of those people. Therefore, it's not the will of everyone in the company that decides which politician they should back, but the will of whoever controls the company. If you believe that corporations derive their right to free speech from the fact that it's made up of actual people with free speech, then that means corporations can decide what their workers say, rather than the workers themselves.
Sorry if I'm rambling on and not really saying anything coherent, but I'm pretty tired. If you write a response, I'll try and say something more intelligent in the morning.
