Votes for sale! Free Speech for sale!

Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 5 months ago to Politics
46 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

Free Speech IS for sale and the final auction is currently in progress. Cui Bono or follow the money started in 1819.

First Step - Corporations Are People

The 1819 Supreme Court Decision in Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. Dartmouth College had been granted a corporate charter by King George III awarding land and the right toadminister the college. In 1819 the trustees deposed the college president.

The New Hampshire legislature passed legislation taking away the college's King George charter, putting the State of New Hampshire in charge making it a State college.

The Supreme Court ruled while all political ties had been severed with King George III as a goverenment, the charter still constituted a contract with King George, the person.

The Supreme Court held this contract fell under the Contracts Clause of the US Constitution which forbids laws overturning contracts among persons, and held it applied to corporations as well. Dartmouth College remained private and under control of trustees.

Rights of contract and property now applied to corporations." (and did not limit the type nor the purpose.)


Second Step - Corporations as Citizens

The First Clause of the 14th Amendments you will recall set forth the privileges, immunities of citizens, banned depriving life, liberty, or property without due process and banned denying any person equal protection of the laws.

Corporations then challenge the powers of the State Governments under 14th Amendment.

The corporations held the 14th separated the properties of group entities from individual properties of their members for purposes of protecting investors from claim s against the corporation and also held the properties of the group with the properties of the members. Since corporations were persons they had the same constitutional protections as persons had"...(in effect wanting to have it both ways.)

"...in 1886 the railroads brought" suit to the Supreme Court in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. In Santa Clara County. Using a tax exemptio that allowed people paying mortgages on their property to deduct the amount of their mortgages from their taxes.

The precedent of corporate as a citizen with full rights of Citizenship came out of this case. Not from any anything written in favor or against by any of the justices. The precedent came from an remark made by Chief Justice Waite that was taken down by a clerk and appeared in the head notes for the case.

'The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids any state to deny any person with in it's jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are of the opinion it does not.' The Chief Justice at that time was former Railroad attorney.

Third Step.."Corporations as Persons and as Citizens gain wider advantages.

3A 1889 the court overtly granted due process Amendment to corporations;

3B 1893 it was Fifth amendment protections of double jeopardy;

3C 1906 Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable search and seizure.

Fourth Step - Corporations Gain the Right to interfere in balloting.

3D 1978 the right to make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns."

Fifth Step - Money As Free Speech

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice

Though a corporation could not go to the polls and vote, as a 'person' it has the right of free speech since it's shareholders have the right of free speech.

(https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/htm

Sixth Step "Money Is Free Speech applies to Corporations."

Since eople have a right to as much speech as they want and since money is speech, corporations including LLC's and non profits have the right to spend as much money as they want on elections with only one limit. The 5 to 4 vote by a conservative court."

Seventh Step - The left came out against that decision as it supported corporate support to anyone from anyone. is corporate power of purchasing votes. Since the left enjoys a large group of support from billionaires an millionaires one has to wonder why. The answer is they are using the anti-corporate method to gain the direct method currently denied by the court.

"Any individual should be able, under free speech, to contribute to any campaign in any part of the nation." Or as I put it some months ago. "I have the right without explanation to take away your rights without exception."

http://endcitizensunited.org/about-us/ as an organization is now reversing the steps again to get rid of the need for 'bagmen" and allow direct access to candiates and issues in any part of the nation.

That is the current goal and last step.

Which means anyone especially the big money billionaire can interfere in your local precinct, district, town, county or State and buy all the candidates, officials, and heavily influence balloting anywhere they want they need no geo-political ties to interfere in your elections.

How much can you afford to contribute in the purchase of free speech if George Soros decides to target your local election?

Which should give you a clue as to who is behind all this. Like Same Sex it's George, http://moveon.org, ACLU and the secular progressives who saw a good deal and acted on it. But not to your benefit.

I got all of the above direct from Yoda's writings....George Lakoff. They are very open about it and believe you and I can do nothing to stop them.

Votes For Sale will be followed by Government for Sale - A Progressive Production coming soon to a precinct near your doorstep.

PS there is something that can be done ....Couch Potatoes need not apply.

The same method used to get Same Sex passed. Get it into the courts,Use a friendly bought and paid for judge. Bingo!

The antidote is any number of citizens rights violated especially due process based on no valid geo-political connection. Those who MAY not vote MAY not contribute which if applied does not violate any free speech as all ballots are level by level inclusive of every registered voters interests. All the way from top to bottom

It also addresses the issue of buying politicians


































All Comments


Previous comments...   You are currently on page 2.
  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And there is no one that takes responsibility for their unethical actions. Those actions are done by individuals who have no fear of prosecution, and the ones who are exposed have multi-million dollar golden parachutes. The game has been riiged to favor the pirates and looters. It is time it stopped.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    and they still get to buy protection from Congress and the State and Local Governments. When's GMC going to deliver my car and yours.. The one's we paid for under corporate Obamacare.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Much as I would like to see that I have to think about it in this context. I would like to see a reversal of the extent to which corporations are granted rights and a ruling on geo-poliitical aspects of vote buying especially where their is no equal or valid interest or connection and their is an usurption of other rights plural as a consequence. What Shipley and friends want is the unrestricted right to influence outcomes using money with no geographical restrictions from whence it came or two where it goes. In fact they already have that right

    The other reason for supporting money as free speech is greed. How much would the media lose every two years and all the rest of the bottom dwelling crumb feeders.

    The billionaires would still get to influence the two federal offices. But only the state delegates to the congress and the State offices within their own state. on down the line.

    Another powerful special interest group where greed and power would be for vote buying is Congress itself. They do it through such mechanisms as Davis-Bacon funneling tax dollars or borrowed deficit dollars to the unions whose members are required to donate to PACs - if they want to work.

    Try leafing through the Constitution and Amendments and finding how many ways this situation violates your rights as a citizen.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 5 months ago
    There will always be those who would corrupt a good thing. No matter how noble or well thought-out, the scammers will find a way. Take as an example a discount department store called E.J. Korvette. When they opened their doors, as a small chain, they had prices sensationally low. As a result, their volume was fantastic. Suppliers fell all over themselves selling to them in huge quantities. Everyone wondered how they could do it. The fact of the matter was - they couldn't. After about two years, Korvette declared bankruptcy. Hardly any of their suppliers were paid in full. Just enough to keep them hooked. The result? Consumers couldn't believe their good fortune as they fought the mobs at Christmastime to buy products below cost, and the owners strolled away with estimated millions since it was the corporation and not them that was liable. Why didn't the suppliers sue the individuals? After all, some of them were among the world's largest manufacturers. They would have if they could have found them. Or, maybe not. Once they totaled up the cost of locating the miscreants, suing them with an excellent chance of losing even though the scam was obvious, most of them apparently decided it wasn't worth it. It was a case of greed overcoming common sense and an example of using a corporation as a (illegal?)weapon.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That wasn't a suggestion is a statement of legalized fact.

    Question? How many votes does a corporation have?

    Question? How much can you as an individual afford to buy?

    Doesn't it make you feel rather small, weak, insignificant, marginalized and relegated to being one of the insignificant parts of a 'real' entity?

    It should. But then that's the role you chose. Reframing didn't work this time.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What you refer as "buying votes" is having a large platform to spread your speech. It's still speech, nothing makes the people who listen to it have to vote for you because you spent a lot of money. Spending an unlimited amount of money does not guarantee you win the election.

    Of course most of the population is sadly uneducated, uninterested and likely to chase the latest 30 second ad, but you aren't going to solve that by limiting the rights of people to contribute to candidates who further their interests and philosophy.

    And since a corporation has interests in influencing the regulation of it's activity and its taxation it has the right, derived from the rights of its owners, to advocate in its own best interest. It's called speech.

    Now, if you are suggesting that bribery is going on, that's a crime no matter who does it.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It's called geo-political limitations.If you may not vote you cannot contribute nor interfere in any geo-political area where you are not registered to vote. It protects the rights violated by the Money is Free Speech rule a case where that 5-4 ruling based on the commerce section denied five or six rights. Court left it's brains behind the door in a jar on that one. I use the voters pamphlet and the ballot as the yardstick. Any one can look at their copy and the limits are clearly set out. What you see from local to Federal and the rest is none of your business. Those who elect not to participate still have free speech simply by attending various meetings or engaging in conversation or letters to the editor or the blogs etc.

    I should point out I didn't do all the leg work on this. I found it clearly spelled out in Yoda Lakoffs manual of how to Frame and Reframe a debate. Secular Progessives are the driving force behind gettng unlimited direct access using money to do so. the list twist in this rather serpent-ine path from Dartmouth and King George to King George Soros.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by JuliBMe 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I may be out of my depth and I've only skimmed some of the above so far. However, my mind tends to simplify quickly and break an issue down to its root. So, wouldn't the best way to eliminate or "fix" all of this be to repeal the 16th amendment and institute "loser pays" laws in each state?

    I promise I will come back and read all of the above after I've had my coffee! LOL. I love to learn and this issue and the history you are all discussing interests me.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The larger solution set is the limitation on government. Corporations need to lobby legislatures and support candidates for the same reasons that any individual does: to protect their rights. That they also have the power to violate the rights of others or avoid the consequences or their actions -"too big to fail" - is simply the result of the government powers in the first place.

    In The Invention of Enterprise (reviewed here: http://libertarianpapers.org/wp-conte... the editors and authors make the point that in every society, capable people make use of whatever tools the norms encourage and allow. In ancient Rome, business was denigrated, so successful businessmen turned the operation over to their freedman and slaves, and retired to the country to live on farms. Meanwhile, Anthony, Caesar, Sulla, and all the rest plundered foreigners and brought the material goods back for the greater glory of Rome.

    Corporations are persons under law. In fact, they can be protected from their own boards of directors, if a suit of exploitation is brought.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by DrZarkov99 10 years, 5 months ago
    The simplest way to fix the problem of corporate/special interest buying of elections is to limit contributions and participation in the political process to registered voters. No collective body can vote, so corporations, unions, PACs, NGOs wouldn't be able to buy influence. Lobbying could only be done in the form of citizen petition, with all signatories registered voters, and no form of value exchange allowed. I would raise the allowed amount of political contributions for individuals, with full transparency of the list of contributors.

    None of the above requires a constitutional amendment, takes nothing from the legal protections for corporations, and brings the entire political process out in the open.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Now they are related. In States using fraudulent methods they are easier to control by the direct access method (not yet legal) or the Corporate PAC method (legal) which means control of voting officials. Control to small f fascism means by any means or methods necessary.and available.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I do not know anything about the problem in Oregon. I do understand, generically, the problem with absentee ballots. That being as it may, you have tied together two unrelated topics: corporations and voter fraud.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And we already have the unverified Oregon Ballot -another reason to call it New Amsterdam.

    They are now mailing out ballots to old unverified addresses with no way to tell who signed or who influenced votes cast.

    Add winner take all and top two primary vote getters for the general ballot there is literally no way of knowing the final outcome and it's
    wide open to fraud. Software makes it worse. One example if no one from other than the two leftist parties allowed on the ballot there are no poll watchers from the others.

    That's up to the states but with a decent federal Congress they could refuse to seat any delegates from Oregon until they cleaned up their act.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, that is one of the advantages of multinational corporations: they supersede nations and can shop for governments and laws in an open market.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 5 months ago
    Corporations are an improvement over Shariah Law; and they have ancient roots of their own in Roman Law. Before corporations as we understand them today were invented, unrelated people could only come together for business as partnerships. By law, if one partner died, the partnership was dissolved. No one can speak for a dead person. Limiting businesses to partnerships would make modern enterprise impossible.

    The family business is a different matter. Under traditional law, left over from agrarian times, the family business is a kind of farm, owned by the pater familias, and ownership passed by inheritance. In order to avoid the limitations of partnership, every co-owner would have to be adopted into the family. In that case, the head of the family decides your shares and your profits. That is what privilege is, literally, private law. The pater familias can do whatever on the farm. In Roman times, he could sell family members into slavery.

    However, Roman law also recognized the collective entity: the herd. The herd exists independent of any one animal. If you buy or sell the herd, some die and others are born along the way. It is the same herd. The Romans granted charters to groups of individuals: burial societies and fire fighters were among the first. Some people claim that the Benedictine Order, chartered in 579, is the oldest corporation. Wikipedia has other ideas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... but note that many of them are family businesses. (In maritime law, the ship herself is charged with piracy regardless of the individuals in her crew.)

    The modern corporation was the steam engine of commerce. It allowed the creation and management of capital on the scale demanded by the industrial revolution, and wholly beyond the needs of simpler, land-based societies. Shariah Law demands partnerships. Also, it forbids the payment of interest. Anyone who lends money becomes a partner and shares in the profits. It worked well enough for simpler times and places. However, even Shariah recognize something called a waqf. A waqf is like a foundation. It was created first over wells: everyone needs it; no one can own it; it must be managed for the common good. Sometime later - I know only about Cairo 1600 - the waqf was used to create family foundations that let merchants aggregate their wealth without it being redivided by inheritances.

    In the West, universities were founded and chartered as corporations to allow them to survive their founders. They also could make their own laws for their own communities: Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, Padua, Heidelberg, ... When Cambridge found its original charter unhelpful, they went to Parliament for one -- and got a seat in Parliament as a result. Sir Isaac Newton served a term; but lost the next election.

    As for the modern corporation, you could not own most of your comforts without them. To condemn the entirety because of the actions of a few individuals is collectivism.

    In the future, the corporation may be the legal structure by which a software earns its legal rights. We already have electronic filing. There is no way to know who the original actor is. She might be a program.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    LMAO I had to go look him up. I don't see any of that until the DVD comes out. EDIT In the last few minutes I found the McVeigh linkage (wikpedia) to Bowman but also noted the comment the Unabomber's favorite book was Earth In The Balance (ghost?) written by or fore Al Bore. the John Ross book Unintended Consequences featured Henry Bowman but it's a collector's item lowest price on Kindle turned out to be $44.00 and some as high as $200.00 in book form...So...I did not raid my book fund I'll look for it at the used book store.
    '
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by $ 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    True but I kept the lineage of this one in the manner of pure sourcing KISS principle. Backgrouond, history, current status, end goal and probable ending and offered a solution.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 5 months ago
    Don't forget corporations buying international "trade" agreements that take priority over national sovereignty and constitutional rights.
    Reply | Permalink  

  • Comment hidden. Undo