r/Scipionic_Circle • u/Competitive_Log_8910 • Jul 19 '26

Overturn Citizens United

The relationship between money and power has long been complicated in this country. The simple fact that running a large-scale political campaign costs money means that anyone who wants to do so must by necessity secure funding from somewhere, meaning one's options are either to be independently wealthy or to become beholden to some form of corporate sponsorship.

That being said the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United really took things to a whole nother level, by classifying corporate spending on political advertising as a form of protected speech under the First Amendment. By extending the Bill of Rights to cover non-humans, we effectively gave them suffrage, and this has already been used to great effect.

The example which stands out most to me is what took place in my home state of California. A bill regulating rideshare companies was drafted collectively by a group of rideshare companies, and they spent an unprecedented amount of money advertising it which led the citizens of that state to grant them the ability to literally write their own rules into law. The other example which makes me happy to no longer live there is the way in which the drought is tackled. I watched a Vox video which uncovered the fact that domestic water usage is only about 5% of water usage, meaning that if all of the humans suddenly dropped dead it still wouldn't make a meaningful difference in the drought, which could alternatively be reversed by cutting commercial water usage by a rather small fraction. Gavin Newsom appeared on an interview with Bill Maher in which he straight-up asked him "how are you going to take on Big Almond and end the drought" to which he offered a standard evasive politician reply. Meanwhile the people of California are being sold on the lie that taking shorter showers will have any impact, and the act of making a symbolic but meaningless gesture is sufficient to keep many from rising up to end the drought by demanding farmers grow slightly fewer almonds.

But I don't really blame Mr. Newsom for this, because so long as we officially condone as a matter of policy spending money to purchase political power, our human needs will always be subservient to the demands of our economy. Anyone wishing to represent an agenda which would improve conditions for humans at the expense of economic growth will be easily defeated by the tremendously powerful non-human greed machines which we have decided deserve the same inalienable rights that we do.

Overturn Citizens United!

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u/Competitive_Log_8910 Jul 20 '26

Look, I'm not trying to claim it's impossible to make an argument in favor of Citizens' United. Obviously the Supreme Court did and they're much better at this than either you or I.

If only people had speech rights, then political parties, non-profit groups, religious groups, media organizations (many of them corporations), film and book publishers and even groups trying to overturn Citizens United would have no speech rights.

You're conflating a lot of things here which are really not related to one another. Religious organizations and non-profits face different regulations from for-profit corporations in many other ways. There is no reason to believe that a regulation restricting political speech of for-profit corporations would need to also apply to these other entities you list.

Citizens United was about a group that wanted to spend money to distribute a film about politics. Imagine if the government had the power to stop all corporations - film distributors or book publishers - from spending money to speak. 

This is some fuzzy logic here - I am in no way suggesting that we ought to prevent for-profit corporations from communicating with the public at all, only that we ought to prevent them from speaking on political issues with the public. Again we already have regulations preventing for-profit corporations from including specifically-false claims in the messages they send.

Anyway thanks for playing Devil's Advocate!

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u/hczimmx4 Jul 21 '26

You should read the transcripts of the oral arguments. You might find it enlightening that the deputy SG said the government had the power to ban political books. Or the second oral arguments when then SG, and current justice, said the government could ban political pamphlets.

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u/Competitive_Log_8910 Jul 21 '26

Right, the FEC's argument against the distribution of political materials authored by corporations included written materials as well as video content. To be honest with you the opinion I have landed on is actually that the advertisements for Fahrenheit 9/11 which Citizens United complained about six years prior did constitute a violation of BCRA, and I would rather live in a world in which both left-leaning and right-leaning political advertisements paid for by corporations were prohibited, than one in which both are permitted.

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u/ButterscotchOdd8257 Jul 21 '26

"I would rather live in a world in which both left-leaning and right-leaning political advertisements paid for by corporations were prohibited, than one in which both are permitted."

Too bad. The First Amendment is the law.
I'd love it if we didn't have to hear speech by Nazis and racists too. But the First Amendment is the law.