Money Is Not Free Speech

No matter how many times well funded lobbyists and political organizations say it and no matter how gravely wrong the U.S. Supreme Court got it, money is not free speech.

The Citizens United case brought the subject directly to the highest court and the majority, including Antonin Scalia got it wrong. They essentially took a position that says money in and of itself is an expression of free speech, irrespective of how much of it is dumped into an issue or political candidate and no matter how fact free the message is. It says that free speech isn't free, it's for sale to the highest bidder and that those who have no money to combat those messages are equal because you can still stand on the corner, in your legally designated space, and see if you can get someone to listen.

Hillary Clinton has said that she would fight for a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United but that is highly unlikely to happen and it isn't necessary. Congress can take legislative action to stop Citizens United and establish limits on all of the money being dumped into our political system. The Supreme Court can take action on cases laid before it but Congress does not have to stand mute on the subject, it can act but it has little motivation to do so because no punishment has been inflicted by the electorate at the ballot box.

Some people try to argue that it's not about the amount of money, in fact more money should flow in, it's just about transparency. So if after the commercial has ran it says, billionaire x paid for this as opposed to all of those various alleged citizens groups which are wholly funded by that billionaire, it makes it all okay. No it doesn't, you and I still lack equal footing.

If citizen x has ten million dollars to spread their message and you don't even have one dollar, where is the free speech?

Our founding fathers, who get quoted and more often misquoted by so many were deeply concerned about the negative influence that money could have on our democracy. They were equally concerned about the negative influence of political parties which they didn't view as being constructive organizations.

We need to fundementally change our elections starting with severe money restrictions and shortening the duration of campaigning so that politicians are not compelled to be in a constant state of fundraising and require the assistance of these nebulous "citizen organizations".

If you don't agree with me that's fine but I can't hear you and my words are worth exactly what you paid me for them.