JOIN THE FIGHT to end corporate ownership of the Government!

[Bowfinger]

No. Just stop. You've been cherry picking lines off the site, misquoting, making naive assumptions that's ridiculous, and now you can't make a clear interpretation of the word PERSON or ENTITY in the sentence:
No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.
According to you, "person or entity" in that line means corporations only, and judges would clearly interpret that as unions can freely make millions of dollars of donations.

I can't even imagine the kind of mental gymnastics you must undergo to make that kind of leap of logic. :|

That's what he does. You can safely ignore him.

 

[Bowfinger]

I'd rather we ban political ads on TV altogether. Not only would that remove much of the need for politicians to take bribes (err, I mean "donations") from corporations, who wants to watch that shit anyway?

Agreed 110%. TV has become a huge factor in the decline of American politics. It not just encourages, but virtually requires that substance takes a back seat to the superficial, that we get sound bites and puffery instead of a meaningful look at positions and past performance. Let's get rid of political TV advertising entirely.

 

[Bowfinger]

By the way, I think one of the comments at the Wolf PAC site has much better wording. It would also makes it crystal clear it refers to all sorts of organizations, including corporations.

The following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

ARTICLE 28

Section 1. For all constitutional and legal purposes, entities created by operation of law are not persons, and do not have the rights of people.

Section 2. No entity not a person, and no people other than citizens, shall contribute to any political purpose. All contributions to political purpose shall be made public, with the name of the contributor and amount and nature of the contribution, and the name of the recipient.

Section 3. The Congress shall have power to enforce the provisions of this article by appropriate legislation.
​

Of course someone with actual legal training would need to review this for potential loopholes. It also seems to me Section 3 is superfluous, but maybe not. Finally, I'd really like to see an explicit declaration that money and other valuable considerations do NOT qualify as "speech" under the First Amendment. Otherwise, it seems to me American politics will always be tainted by some level of legalized bribery masked as Free Speech.

 

[hal2kilo]

look what we need is no money in politics. No corps no unions no donations. All run on tax payer money with a national voting holiday.

This is what we need. All of us.

I'll say it again, and repeat it till the cow come home. The answer is publicly funded elections. We'll obviously have to figure out how the usual scum that floats to the top is eligible for this funding. Here goes the "So you want Big Gubment picking winner and losers" crowd.

 

[Aikouka]

the only way i would only improve your suggestion would be to have the federal government - by means of the FCC mandate that the candidates get FREE air time rather than paying millions of dollars a pop that would come from taxpayers.

I thought about this as well, and it simply will not work for one reason... time. Certain ad spots are worth more than others, and I bet you'll have complaints over who gets what commercial spot.

That's why I think the Internet could be a useful tool.

 

[cybrsage]

No. Just stop. You've been cherry picking lines off the site, misquoting, making naive assumptions that's ridiculous, and now you can't make a clear interpretation of the word PERSON or ENTITY in the sentence:
No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.
According to you, "person or entity" in that line means corporations only, and judges would clearly interpret that as unions can freely make millions of dollars of donations.

I can't even imagine the kind of mental gymnastics you must undergo to make that kind of leap of logic. :|

Not cherry picking at all. You keep refusing to post the first several lines of the proposed idiotic amendment, pretending they are not there. Here is the full quote. I got there from your link. It very explicity mentions Corporations. Remove the idiotic mention of Corps and it becomes unbiased. It explicitly says corps cannot give any money, but unions (sine they are not corps) can give money. It then says all elections must be publically financed...but what are the politicans going to do with the money they raise (which they can get from unions but not corps)?

28th Amendment

Posted by Aaron Wysocki 917pc on October 19, 2011 · Flag

Corporations are not people. They have none of the Constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.
http://www.wolf-pac.com/28th

 

[cybrsage]

By the way, I think one of the comments at the Wolf PAC site has much better wording. It would also makes it crystal clear it refers to all sorts of organizations, including corporations.

The following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

ARTICLE 28

Section 1. For all constitutional and legal purposes, entities created by operation of law are not persons, and do not have the rights of people.

Section 2. No entity not a person, and no people other than citizens, shall contribute to any political purpose. All contributions to political purpose shall be made public, with the name of the contributor and amount and nature of the contribution, and the name of the recipient.

Section 3. The Congress shall have power to enforce the provisions of this article by appropriate legislation.
​

Of course someone with actual legal training would need to review this for potential loopholes. It also seems to me Section 3 is superfluous, but maybe not. Finally, I'd really like to see an explicit declaration that money and other valuable considerations do NOT qualify as "speech" under the First Amendment. Otherwise, it seems to me American politics will always be tainted by some level of legalized bribery masked as Free Speech.

This is FAR FAR better than the drivel at the top of that page. However, how do you prevent the fed gov from harboring troops in a company, or taking their things without a warrant, etc., if corps are not US Persons? Same goes with unions, if they are not US Persons, how do we prevent the fed gov from tapping their phone lines without a warrant?

Even worse, if the DNC and GOP are not US Persons, how do we stop the fed gov from tapping their phones without a warrant?

We can pass laws, and maybe they have passed laws about it already (no idea), but until protections are legally in place we cannot talk about abolishing US Person status for non-living entities.