Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Lew Rockwell Weighs in on the Recent Supreme Court Decision on Political Campaign Contributions

Lew writes:
Are Campaign Donations ‘Free Speech’?
Clearly not, it seems to me, despite los Supremos. Of course, people interested in electoral politics should be able to spend as much money as they want promoting or denouncing one power-luster as versus another, or 100 of them. But how is paying a government candidate of a government political party in a government election to rule us “speech”?

Lew, of course, makes a very important point here.

Further, the focus should be less on the mechanics of how politics functions, and more on the idea that the role of government should be shrunk, so that there is less reason to attempt to curry favor with politicians in anyway.

10 comments:

  1. Good point Bob. If I have grain piled high in the back yard and a rat problem develops, it's not really going to go away until I get rid of the grain.

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  2. Lew makes a good point. However, there is an even bigger one. The Supreme Court is an agent of the state, and has a vested interest in its existence. These are not neutral 3rd parties. They are appointed for life by politicians and are very frequently government employees that have risen up through the ranks. In order to do that, you have to have some aspect of political savvy.

    Yet people look at these tenured life-time appointed government employees to somehow make impartial decisions in the best interests of the "public" over and above the government.

    This is the biggest ruse currently perpetuated on the public. It is akin to having the foxes guard the hen house, and then wonder what's being served up for dinner.

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  3. If I am forbidden from placing an advertisement saying "Elect Fred Jones to the Senate" because I have already spent "too much" on the campaign of Fred Jones, is my speech being limited? YES. Where does ANY citizen get the right to tell me how much I can say or do to promote the interests of Fred Jones? If nobody has such a right, how can they delegate such a power to anyone else? They can't. If people arrogate such a rights-violating authority to themselves anyway, the only effect that exercising it will have is to drive the quid-pro-quo actions of politics underground, where nobody will be able to trace out who paid what to whom, when, and for what. Limiting "campaign finance" not only violates natural rights, it is a ridiculous attempt to control what others think and unleashes potential hosts of unintended consequences. Mr. Rockwell, the problem is in the government authority and not in how people are chosen to exercise it.

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    1. Do you have any idea who Lew is? He knows the problem is government authoritarianism... beginning and end.

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  4. It doesn't matter who Lew is. Restricting a person from spending as much money as he wishes to support the candidate of his choice is a restriction on the person's right to self-expression (free speech). If I wish to send $10,000 to presidential candidate Ron Paul or Barak Obama the government should not have the power to restrict my support of either candidate. By supporting either or both candidates I am expressing my political beliefs, hence my right to free speech.

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    1. Free speech via the barrel of a gun.

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  5. I disagree with Lew on this. Campaign donations (as wasteful and stupid as they are) are a form of speech. It is just another way of saying you support candidate A or candidate B.

    If campaign donations are not speech, then is burning the American flag not speech also?

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  6. "But how is paying a government candidate of a government political party in a government election to rule us “speech”?"

    The whole debate is a loser, because if you see government for what it is, people spending money to buy control over you is an act of violence in most cases. It's the same logically speaking as them using their money to have someone kill you or just beat you up.

    If they were spending money solely to lobby for the reduction or elimination of the government, then that would be a peaceful example, or valid use of "money as speech". The times this actually occurs within the government system is rare obviously, so most of it is in the name of coercion.

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    1. Exactly! Well said Nick.

      -Montana

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  7. The Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United vs FEC didn't say that spending money was speech; It said that speech couldn't be restricted based on the source of the speech:

    Story of Citizens United v. FEC, The Critique
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJEeKez1Jlw

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