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"Money is speech" is a reddit-ism. The argument is closer to "limiting spending can be tantamount to limiting speech." Should the president of the US (regardle

by niam 22d ago

"Money is speech" is a reddit-ism. The argument is closer to "limiting spending can be tantamount to limiting speech." Should the president of the US (regardless of party) be able to restrict your ability to spend money on a web server because it hosts a forum about humanrights/guns/birthcontrol/etc? Or to run a news channel/blog that focuses on a particular perspective? If not, little prevents the most endowed campaigns from changing their form factor from ads to propoganda platforms. And buying out news platforms becomes more enticing. Whatever line you think is reasonable to draw here, would you trust a bad president with it? And would it actually solve the problem?

lapcat 22d ago
> Whatever line you think is reasonable to draw here, would you trust a bad president with it? I don't think this is a good argument, because it's oddly specific. You can't trust a bad President to properly enforce any law. That much should be clear right now. A bad President is a general danger to the country and to the world. Among other powers, the President is the commander-in-chief! Of course Congress has the power to impeach and remove a bad President, so you don't get a bad President without also having a bad Congress. In other words, we'd have much bigger problems than campaign finance. And I would claim that we get a bad President and a bad Congress precisely because we have no campaign finance limitations anymore.
- niam 22d ago
  The President is an example (and actual) enforcement mechanism for the State. Not the argument. We want to ban independent political expenditure past a certain dollar threshold. Great. How do we do that without torching legitimate civic and commercial participation, and without accidentally entrenching rich participants even more? I'm unconvinced you can do that, and unconvinced that ads are a worthy enough evil to be worth the try, particularly if it requires amending over the First Amendment. ("If" is an operative word.)

by niam 22d ago

lapcat 22d ago

> Whatever line you think is reasonable to draw here, would you trust a bad president with it? I don't think this is a good argument, because it's oddly specific. You can't trust a bad President to properly enforce any law. That much should be clear right now. A bad President is a general danger to the country and to the world. Among other powers, the President is the commander-in-chief! Of course Congress has the power to impeach and remove a bad President, so you don't get a bad President without also having a bad Congress. In other words, we'd have much bigger problems than campaign finance. And I would claim that we get a bad President and a bad Congress precisely because we have no campaign finance limitations anymore.

niam 22d ago
The President is an example (and actual) enforcement mechanism for the State. Not the argument. We want to ban independent political expenditure past a certain dollar threshold. Great. How do we do that without torching legitimate civic and commercial participation, and without accidentally entrenching rich participants even more? I'm unconvinced you can do that, and unconvinced that ads are a worthy enough evil to be worth the try, particularly if it requires amending over the First Amendment. ("If" is an operative word.)