CDZ Communism, Capitalism, Fascism

Which of the major political systems is most conducive to healthy human communities?

  • fascism (nationalist)

  • communism (globalist)

  • capitalism (globalist)

  • capitalism (nationalist)


Results are only viewable after voting.
“Multinational political rights” justifies why many well-read Americans are against the goals of a One World Order. It will be interesting to read the transcript from the World Economic Forum next month regarding their global assessment.

It’s bad enough that mega corporations, such as Microsoft as you’ve mentioned, are acting like monopolies. Mega corps are being called out for their actions and rightfully so. Microsoft is abusing its power and court records contain the case details. Once a mega-corp inhales all other competitors, there are obvious reasons to review our laws with a fine toothed comb and decide what laws address the digital age and what constitutes fair doctrine for our country. One major problem with our anti-trust laws on the books is that they were written about 100 years ago, and that was of course way before these types of digital companies were in existence. It’s time for an upgrade!

To support the idea that these mega corps need equal political say would be a fair assessment and outcome, if that’s truly what you mean, but that’s not what you’ve implied. Btw- I can list examples if you’d like of Microsoft’s abuses of power.

You asked -when is the cut off for political rights, as far as a person who’s worked hard, becomes CEO of mega corp, and why should they not have political rights? Equal yes, as in equal to one voter. Just going off the cuff here, I’d say Microsoft‘s political clout is likely about 100 million times compared to the average citizen’s, does that sound about right? Surely you aren’t going to stick with that 1-1 equal status in political power nonsense? Okay, remove the word nonsense as honestly you are well-versed here and I will be reading more about this topic later to catch up.

It’s bad enough that mega corporations, such as Microsoft as you’ve mentioned, are acting like monopolies.

I am typing to you on a Mac OS. I don't have even one single example of Microsoft software on this computer. Not one.

Something is either a monopoly, or it is not. Microsoft is not a monopoly. End of story.

By the way, I have another computer running Linux. Again, not one single example of MS software on that computer either.

Not a monopoly.

Americans are against the goals of a One World Order.

Out of genuine curiosity, what are some of the bad goals of the One World Order? And who specifically is pushing those goals?

Mega corps are being called out for their actions and rightfully so.

I don't have a problem with being called out. Obviously I support freedom of speech. What I have a problem with, is giving government every growing amounts of unlimited power, in the name of stopping those companies.

Because what happens is, that power ultimately will be used against the people calling for government to be given that power.

For example, when you call for regulations, that ultimately end up being used to stop small business. No matter how much you think a regulation is going to stop say... Monsanto, it's not. It never is. What happens is, Monsanto has the money to meet that regulations. It's the smaller competitors that don't, and end up selling out to Monsanto.

Regulations end up benefiting the big companies, and taking freedom away from the public. Never hurts the big companies. Never.

Once a mega-corp inhales all other competitors

Name one example of a Mega-corp that inhales all other competitors, where government regulation was not the cause.

I’d say Microsoft‘s political clout is likely about 100 million times compared to the average citizen’s, does that sound about right?

Then why was Amazon kicked out of New York, by a bar tending bimbo in her 20s?

Again, I will grant you that obviously companies have more influence, than individual citizens. And as I said before, I have no problem calling them out.

But when you try and regulating or legislate against that power, I would say to you that this is counter productive.

Why? Because the problem is the public, and the politicians, not the companies. When a corrupt public, vote for corrupt politicians, no amount of laws and regulations will stop corruption.

No amount. There are literally millions of examples. But the most obvious for me, is again the Clinton's and Al Gore in the 1990s. Dozens of finance laws were broken. Blatantly broken. We had the tapes of Al Gore shaking down people for money straight from his political office.

Nothing happened.

Another example would be Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in 2004. The congressional investigation found clear undeniable evidence that Fannie and Freddie both violated tons of accounting rules, and hundreds of people in Congress defending Fannie and Freddie, and attacked the Federal Regulators who pointed out the violations, rather than Fannie and Freddie who broke the rules.

And of course the Republicans were proven right, when Fannie and Freddie ended up being the largest bailouts of the entire sub-prime crash.

Why did that happen? Because when they broke the laws, people defended them. And the irony is, the public blamed Bush, rather than the Democrats who defended Fannie and Freddie. Maxine Waters is still in office.

And you think more rules, more laws, is going to help that how? When you support people who openly violate the laws, how is more laws going to fix anything? Explain, I'd love to know.

And here you are trying to justify the removal of freedoms, and repeal of constitutional rights, is going to fix this?
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.
Neither communism nor capitalism are political systems. If you're talking economics I think a mix of all three is the healthiest, like we have here in the US and most of the world. The exact proportions may vary but most countries have mixed economies.
Communism is in fact a political system
 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.


Fascism and communism are both types of socialism....they both exist for the state....yes...communism claims otherwise but always ends up with an elite that controls the government...
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.


Fascism and communism are both types of socialism....they both exist for the state....yes...communism claims otherwise but always ends up with an elite that controls the government...
So only capitalism is not governed by an elite? Which capitalist countries can you offer as examples? Certainly not the US with it Trumps, Bushs, Clinton, Kennedys, etc. McConnell is worth over $3 mill and Pelosi over $100 mill and they are far from the richest.
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.


Fascism and communism are both types of socialism....they both exist for the state....yes...communism claims otherwise but always ends up with an elite that controls the government...
So only capitalism is not governed by an elite? Which capitalist countries can you offer as examples? Certainly not the US with it Trumps, Bushs, Clinton, Kennedys, etc. McConnell is worth over $3 mill and Pelosi over $100 mill and they are far from the richest.


Nope.....only in capitalism is the system fluid where anyone can move freely from poor to rich and rich to poor and the general welfare of even the lowest is higher than just about any country in the world that is ruled by socialism...

Under socialism...the elites are rich, no middle class, then the poor......who eat their pets, zoo animals and can't get basic necessities...
 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.


Personal rules I follow: I respond to people at the level they respond to me. As long as you don't accuse me of things, I won't accuse you. If you don't call me names, I don't call you names.

But if you start throwing punches, I'm going to punch back.

As it relates to this discussion, as long as you keep replying to the topic, I'll do the same.

Also, by the way, you are in fact in the CDZ forum, so personal attacks are not supposed to happen here anyway. If you did start trying to insult me, I'd have the moderators remove your posts.

:)

Anyway....

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.


I don't see NYC corporations giving millions to PA politicians to ensure their ability to frack.

Their employees DO support Fracking, as do about half the state.

As for your specific influence in PA, that actually is my point. You can influence things in PA, as do others.

Take for example, Penn Environment, a special interest group aiming to ban fracking. Where do they get their funding? We don't know for absolute certain, because they have chosen to keep their donor lists completely secret. However, what we do know is that they are affiliated with groups from ... California, Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and several Washington DC based Democrat run funds, like Environment America.

So we have people across the entire country, funding anti-fracking campaigns in states none of them even care about, because they are "fly over country".

Now let me ask you... if your ran a company, and you decided to open a factory in the next state over, if people in California can spend millions to try and ban your factory, shouldn't you also have the right to spend money in support of your factory?

You claim you have zero influence, but you do. The people of New Mexico have influence. Colorado have influence. Washington DC have influence.

Now if you want to actually make that a law, that no Union can spend money, on legislative fights in other states, and no environmental group can spend money on legislative fights in other states, and so on and so on, until no one is allowed to spend a single penny on anything that does not happen in their own state........

Ok then I'll agree with that. But that would have to apply to absolutely everyone equally, meaning Unions, meaning Greenpeace, meaning Serria Club, meaning absolutely everyone everywhere, all has to have that same ban.

And then you also have to ban lobbying by unions, by pensioners, by civic organizations in Washington DC as well. No more Lobbying from California, for pollution controls in Ohio. No more green energy lobbying from New Mexico, for wind farms in Ohio. No more of any of that. Ban it all. All of it.

Because if you can fund lobbying the destruction of my business, no matter how right or wrong (and I would argue most of it is entirely wrong), then I should have the right to fund counter lobbying, and that's where we are right now.

And of course this logically means we're talking about a massive repeal of freedom of speech.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

This is such a strange and baffling concept you are trying to push here.

"I don't recognize corporations as people, and thus don't recognize a corporations 1st amendment rights."

Then you don't support 1st Amendment rights period.

What do you think corporate first amendment rights are? There is now 'magic' corporate person. When a company donates to a politicians, what exactly do you envision that being? Who do you think gives the money? It's a person. An American citizens with a 1st Amendment right.

Because let me tell you how that information is determined: When they say "Exxon gave XXXX amount of money to Y Politician", do you know how they find that information out?

There is no "Exxon Corporate Man" that shows up, out of the void like Thanos in Avengers, and donates to a politician.

The way they come up with "Exxon gave XXX to Y politician", is that people have a donor list. They have a list of American citizens that donated their own private money, to a politician.

They then cross check that list, and find out what companies they work for. Then they say that company they work for, gave to X politician.

I do not know where you work. But let's say that you worked at Pizza Hut. Say you donated $100 to Obama, or Trump. If they could find out where you worked, and found you worked at Pizza Hut, they would add your donation, to all the other donations by people who worked at Pizza Hut, and then say "Pizza Hut donated XXX Million to Obama (or Trump, or whoever)."

Do you see the problem? When you say that corporations shouldn't have 1st Amendment rights, you are saying people shouldn't have first amendment rights. There is no "corporation" that you can deny a right to. There are only people in a corporation that you deny rights to.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.

So here's my problem with that. Donations are the only..... ONLY.... speech you have as an individual citizen.

Donations are the only way you have, of letting your voice be heard in Washington. That's it. End of story.

If you supported Obama, did he call you up, and listen to your concerns from 2008 to 2016? If you supported Trump, did he read your tweets on Twitter and address your concerns?

The only way you have, at all... of getting your concerns heard by Washington DC, is through lobbying. The only way.

See, I know what you are thinking, because I've heard this before, and it's an unsupportable theory. You are thinking that if we ban all influences, that magically the only influence will be the public, and you'll have this utopia of democracy.

First, democracy is terrible, and the influence of the public is only good, if the public itself is good, and the fact is the public is pretty evil. Look around you. You want those people call ALL the shots? No, not a good idea.

But second, and more important is that it is a wrong theory. Without lobbying, and banning all money in politics, the result will be that ONLY the rich and wealthy have influence. ONLY the elite and the power players in Washington will have influence.

Do you really think that if you ban corporate influence, that somehow government will care more about your positions and concerns? No. Of course not. They would care about you less, because now the public has no way to fund the opposition. Now they have no reason to listen to you at all, because you can't even fund a lobbying effort.

See you think that if you ban legal ways of influence government, that no one will have any influence. But we already know from decades of experience, that this isn't so.

Screenshot_2021-01-23 Enron En-Fluence Bill Clinton.png


This picture is garbage, but not everything was uploaded to the internet in the 1990s. This is picture of Bill Clinton (2nd to the right in black), with the executives of Enron.

Enron had a total of $1.2 Billion in government loans throughout the 1990s.

Now you tell me.... If you ban legal lobbying.... you think a President open to corruption like Bill Clinton was, is going to stop going on golfing trips with Corporate CEOs? Do you think so? You think YOU are going to be on the golfing Trip with the president, because he's now open to hearing the concerns of the public since you banned lobbying?

Of course not. The elite in Washington DC, are going to hang out with the elite. And they would love for you not to be able to voice your concerns with lobbying, because then they can hang with their rich buddies, and do whatever they want.

Screenshot_2021-01-23 Elite parties obama - Google Search.png


Remember Obama hosting those massive elite, rich and wealthy only, parties in Washington DC, that there were no billionaires in the room, talking to Obama about their concerns?

You think if you ban lobbying, that you'll be at one of these events?

The only chance you have, of having your concerns as a private citizen, reach the ears of law makers in Washington DC, is lobbying.

You shut that off, you are cutting off your only method of having your voice heard. You won't stop a single multi billionaire from talking to the President if he wants to. Not one. Honestly, what you are you going to do then? Ban parties? Ban social events for government officials? Good luck with that.

Here's is what you need to do. Here's the real solution. Vote for people who won't be bought.

Bush in 2001, was approached by Enron executives the same way they approached Clinton before in the 1990s. Bush said no. Bush said he's not bailing out Enron, nor providing government loans.

Enron failed. There's a reason Enron didn't fail in the 1990s under Clinton, but did in the 2000s under Bush.

Vote for better people. Maxine waters should have been run out of Washington decades ago. Kennedy should have been in prison, instead of serving more terms in Congress.
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.


Fascism and communism are both types of socialism....they both exist for the state....yes...communism claims otherwise but always ends up with an elite that controls the government...
So only capitalism is not governed by an elite? Which capitalist countries can you offer as examples? Certainly not the US with it Trumps, Bushs, Clinton, Kennedys, etc. McConnell is worth over $3 mill and Pelosi over $100 mill and they are far from the richest.

But here's the problem with that. In the US, anyone can be part of the rich and wealthy. Anyone can. There are dozens of people who came to the US as immigrants, who started with nothing, and today are on the Forbes 400.

Further, the people who rule us as you say, yes some are wealthy like the Kennedys, but not all. In fact Clinton and the Obama's were not part of the rich wealthy elite, until they got into politics. Bill Clinton was the son of a traveling salesmen who died in a car accident, and his mother was nothing. She went off to learn to be a nurse, and left Billy Clinton with her parents.

And we have dozens of other examples. AOC for example was a bar tending bimbo in her 20s. She wasn't part of the rich wealthy elite, and yet she was able to kick Amazon out of her own district, to make sure her supporters couldn't get better jobs.

How does a bimbo from a bar, kick around one of the largest corporations in the entire country, and world, if Capitalism is governed by the elite?

Because Capitalism isn't really a political system, as much as it is an economic. The rich, and the non-rich in government, are there only by the vote of the public. Trump being very rich, was not protected from being voted out.

Now it is true, that in general, wealthy people are the ones who end up being able to get into politics. That's not because the system prevents people from getting into politics. It's because people don't vote for homeless beggars or plumbers or truck drivers.

And plumbers and truck drivers, don't have time to run a campaign. Go read up on what it costs to run a national campaign, in both time, and money, and almost as important as either, mental and emotional costs.

Thomas Sowell back in the day, was asked, almost begged by people, to run for election. For a very short time, he seriously considered breaking into politics, but before he made the call, he went and talked to a retired politician. If I remember the story right, the guy asked him for a photo of his children and wife, and then told him that those people in that photo are now props in a play. They will be attacked by all sides, and they must look, act, even eat and breath according to the 'play' of being in politics. Thomas Sowell said any thought of running for election was butchered and buried right then and there.

People who run for election must have an unbelievable drive to succeed, and they must have the money to fund that drive, and they must have TIME to engage in that drive. You can't be dealing with family or friends, or running your new startup business, or anything else. You must be like Bill Gates, where you already spent your decades of blood sweat and tears building the company, and now you have time.

So yes, naturally, most people in politics are wealthy, because that's what it takes to be in politics. You can complain about that, but that is universally true. Throughout the whole world this is true. Throughout all history this is true, that for the most part, the wealthy are in politics because the wealthy can afford being in politics.

Now socialism on the other hand.....


In that system, it really is a rule of the elite. You are either in the party, and party of the ruling class... or you are not, and never will be. In a socialist system, AOC would still be tending a bar, and she would have stayed tending that bar until she died.

In most socialist systems, this is how it is. Under communist pre-1978 China, if you were born in the communal farms, you were born poor... you lived poor... you died poor. And that was the end.

You never could move up. You could never join in politics. You could never be with the wealthy elite, or even have a chance. You just stayed were you were, and died. It's that simple.

Meanwhile, the elite always are wealthy, and live above the great unwashed. Hugo Chavez lived in luxury while people were starving. Maduro today, is seen eating meals on TV, while his people slaughter cats, to have something to eat, and then dig through trash cans.

That's how socialism works. No one but the elite can be the elite. You have no freedom to advance in society.
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.


Fascism and communism are both types of socialism....they both exist for the state....yes...communism claims otherwise but always ends up with an elite that controls the government...
So only capitalism is not governed by an elite? Which capitalist countries can you offer as examples? Certainly not the US with it Trumps, Bushs, Clinton, Kennedys, etc. McConnell is worth over $3 mill and Pelosi over $100 mill and they are far from the richest.


Nope.....only in capitalism is the system fluid where anyone can move freely from poor to rich and rich to poor and the general welfare of even the lowest is higher than just about any country in the world that is ruled by socialism...

Under socialism...the elites are rich, no middle class, then the poor......who eat their pets, zoo animals and can't get basic necessities...
You have your ideological blinders on. In every country the elites are rich. Some socialist countries are poor but some, like China, are much better off and do have a middle class. As for social mobility, we just had a President who was born rich while the President of Venezuela started life driving a bus.
 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.


Personal rules I follow: I respond to people at the level they respond to me. As long as you don't accuse me of things, I won't accuse you. If you don't call me names, I don't call you names.

But if you start throwing punches, I'm going to punch back.

As it relates to this discussion, as long as you keep replying to the topic, I'll do the same.

Also, by the way, you are in fact in the CDZ forum, so personal attacks are not supposed to happen here anyway. If you did start trying to insult me, I'd have the moderators remove your posts.

:)

Anyway....

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I don't see NYC corporations giving millions to PA politicians to ensure their ability to frack.

Their employees DO support Fracking, as do about half the state.

As for your specific influence in PA, that actually is my point. You can influence things in PA, as do others.

Take for example, Penn Environment, a special interest group aiming to ban fracking. Where do they get their funding? We don't know for absolute certain, because they have chosen to keep their donor lists completely secret. However, what we do know is that they are affiliated with groups from ... California, Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and several Washington DC based Democrat run funds, like Environment America.

So we have people across the entire country, funding anti-fracking campaigns in states none of them even care about, because they are "fly over country".

Now let me ask you... if your ran a company, and you decided to open a factory in the next state over, if people in California can spend millions to try and ban your factory, shouldn't you also have the right to spend money in support of your factory?

You claim you have zero influence, but you do. The people of New Mexico have influence. Colorado have influence. Washington DC have influence.

Now if you want to actually make that a law, that no Union can spend money, on legislative fights in other states, and no environmental group can spend money on legislative fights in other states, and so on and so on, until no one is allowed to spend a single penny on anything that does not happen in their own state........

Ok then I'll agree with that. But that would have to apply to absolutely everyone equally, meaning Unions, meaning Greenpeace, meaning Serria Club, meaning absolutely everyone everywhere, all has to have that same ban.

And then you also have to ban lobbying by unions, by pensioners, by civic organizations in Washington DC as well. No more Lobbying from California, for pollution controls in Ohio. No more green energy lobbying from New Mexico, for wind farms in Ohio. No more of any of that. Ban it all. All of it.

Because if you can fund lobbying the destruction of my business, no matter how right or wrong (and I would argue most of it is entirely wrong), then I should have the right to fund counter lobbying, and that's where we are right now.

And of course this logically means we're talking about a massive repeal of freedom of speech.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

This is such a strange and baffling concept you are trying to push here.

"I don't recognize corporations as people, and thus don't recognize a corporations 1st amendment rights."

Then you don't support 1st Amendment rights period.

What do you think corporate first amendment rights are? There is now 'magic' corporate person. When a company donates to a politicians, what exactly do you envision that being? Who do you think gives the money? It's a person. An American citizens with a 1st Amendment right.

Because let me tell you how that information is determined: When they say "Exxon gave XXXX amount of money to Y Politician", do you know how they find that information out?

There is no "Exxon Corporate Man" that shows up, out of the void like Thanos in Avengers, and donates to a politician.

The way they come up with "Exxon gave XXX to Y politician", is that people have a donor list. They have a list of American citizens that donated their own private money, to a politician.

They then cross check that list, and find out what companies they work for. Then they say that company they work for, gave to X politician.

I do not know where you work. But let's say that you worked at Pizza Hut. Say you donated $100 to Obama, or Trump. If they could find out where you worked, and found you worked at Pizza Hut, they would add your donation, to all the other donations by people who worked at Pizza Hut, and then say "Pizza Hut donated XXX Million to Obama (or Trump, or whoever)."

Do you see the problem? When you say that corporations shouldn't have 1st Amendment rights, you are saying people shouldn't have first amendment rights. There is no "corporation" that you can deny a right to. There are only people in a corporation that you deny rights to.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.

So here's my problem with that. Donations are the only..... ONLY.... speech you have as an individual citizen.

Donations are the only way you have, of letting your voice be heard in Washington. That's it. End of story.

If you supported Obama, did he call you up, and listen to your concerns from 2008 to 2016? If you supported Trump, did he read your tweets on Twitter and address your concerns?

The only way you have, at all... of getting your concerns heard by Washington DC, is through lobbying. The only way.

See, I know what you are thinking, because I've heard this before, and it's an unsupportable theory. You are thinking that if we ban all influences, that magically the only influence will be the public, and you'll have this utopia of democracy.

First, democracy is terrible, and the influence of the public is only good, if the public itself is good, and the fact is the public is pretty evil. Look around you. You want those people call ALL the shots? No, not a good idea.

But second, and more important is that it is a wrong theory. Without lobbying, and banning all money in politics, the result will be that ONLY the rich and wealthy have influence. ONLY the elite and the power players in Washington will have influence.

Do you really think that if you ban corporate influence, that somehow government will care more about your positions and concerns? No. Of course not. They would care about you less, because now the public has no way to fund the opposition. Now they have no reason to listen to you at all, because you can't even fund a lobbying effort.

See you think that if you ban legal ways of influence government, that no one will have any influence. But we already know from decades of experience, that this isn't so.

View attachment 447379

This picture is garbage, but not everything was uploaded to the internet in the 1990s. This is picture of Bill Clinton (2nd to the right in black), with the executives of Enron.

Enron had a total of $1.2 Billion in government loans throughout the 1990s.

Now you tell me.... If you ban legal lobbying.... you think a President open to corruption like Bill Clinton was, is going to stop going on golfing trips with Corporate CEOs? Do you think so? You think YOU are going to be on the golfing Trip with the president, because he's now open to hearing the concerns of the public since you banned lobbying?

Of course not. The elite in Washington DC, are going to hang out with the elite. And they would love for you not to be able to voice your concerns with lobbying, because then they can hang with their rich buddies, and do whatever they want.

View attachment 447384

Remember Obama hosting those massive elite, rich and wealthy only, parties in Washington DC, that there were no billionaires in the room, talking to Obama about their concerns?

You think if you ban lobbying, that you'll be at one of these events?

The only chance you have, of having your concerns as a private citizen, reach the ears of law makers in Washington DC, is lobbying.

You shut that off, you are cutting off your only method of having your voice heard. You won't stop a single multi billionaire from talking to the President if he wants to. Not one. Honestly, what you are you going to do then? Ban parties? Ban social events for government officials? Good luck with that.

Here's is what you need to do. Here's the real solution. Vote for people who won't be bought.

Bush in 2001, was approached by Enron executives the same way they approached Clinton before in the 1990s. Bush said no. Bush said he's not bailing out Enron, nor providing government loans.

Enron failed. There's a reason Enron didn't fail in the 1990s under Clinton, but did in the 2000s under Bush.

Vote for better people. Maxine waters should have been run out of Washington decades ago. Kennedy should have been in prison, instead of serving more terms in Congress.

I think there is vast difference between a company funding lobbying and a company giving money directly to a politician. I have no problem with a person giving money to a candidate (in the absence of public funding), any person, but a board of directors or a ceo giving a politician company money, as a cost of doing business, if corrupting. You may consider corporations to be more moral and ethical than a US citizen but I disagree. I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.
 
“Multinational political rights” justifies why many well-read Americans are against the goals of a One World Order. It will be interesting to read the transcript from the World Economic Forum next month regarding their global assessment.

It’s bad enough that mega corporations, such as Microsoft as you’ve mentioned, are acting like monopolies. Mega corps are being called out for their actions and rightfully so. Microsoft is abusing its power and court records contain the case details. Once a mega-corp inhales all other competitors, there are obvious reasons to review our laws with a fine toothed comb and decide what laws address the digital age and what constitutes fair doctrine for our country. One major problem with our anti-trust laws on the books is that they were written about 100 years ago, and that was of course way before these types of digital companies were in existence. It’s time for an upgrade!

To support the idea that these mega corps need equal political say would be a fair assessment and outcome, if that’s truly what you mean, but that’s not what you’ve implied. Btw- I can list examples if you’d like of Microsoft’s abuses of power.

You asked -when is the cut off for political rights, as far as a person who’s worked hard, becomes CEO of mega corp, and why should they not have political rights? Equal yes, as in equal to one voter. Just going off the cuff here, I’d say Microsoft‘s political clout is likely about 100 million times compared to the average citizen’s, does that sound about right? Surely you aren’t going to stick with that 1-1 equal status in political power nonsense? Okay, remove the word nonsense as honestly you are well-versed here and I will be reading more about this topic later to catch up.

It’s bad enough that mega corporations, such as Microsoft as you’ve mentioned, are acting like monopolies.

I am typing to you on a Mac OS. I don't have even one single example of Microsoft software on this computer. Not one.

Something is either a monopoly, or it is not. Microsoft is not a monopoly. End of story.

By the way, I have another computer running Linux. Again, not one single example of MS software on that computer either.

Not a monopoly.

Americans are against the goals of a One World Order.

Out of genuine curiosity, And what are some of the bad goals of the One World Order?who specifically is pushing those goals?

Mega corps are being called out for their actions and rightfully so.

I don't have a problem with being called out. Obviously I support freedom of speech. What I have a problem with, is giving government every growing amounts of unlimited power, in the name of stopping those companies.

Because what happens is, that power ultimately will be used against the people calling for government to be given that power.

For example, when you call for regulations, that ultimately end up being used to stop small business. No matter how much you think a regulation is going to stop say... Monsanto, it's not. It never is. What happens is, Monsanto has the money to meet that regulations. It's the smaller competitors that don't, and end up selling out to Monsanto.

Regulations end up benefiting the big companies, and taking freedom away from the public. Never hurts the big companies. Never.

Once a mega-corp inhales all other competitors

Name one example of a Mega-corp that inhales all other competitors, where government regulation was not the cause.

I’d say Microsoft‘s political clout is likely about 100 million times compared to the average citizen’s, does that sound about right?

Then why was Amazon kicked out of New York, by a bar tending bimbo in her 20s?

Again, I will grant you that obviously companies have more influence, than individual citizens. And as I said before, I have no problem calling them out.

But when you try and regulating or legislate against that power, I would say to you that this is counter productive.

Why? Because the problem is the public, and the politicians, not the companies. When
a corrupt public, vote for corrupt politicians, no amount of laws and regulations will stop corruption.
No amount. There are literally millions of examples. But the most obvious for me, is again the Clinton's and Al Gore in the 1990s. Dozens of finance laws were broken. Blatantly broken. We had the tapes of Al Gore shaking down people for money straight from his political office.

Nothing happened.

Another example would be Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in 2004. The congressional investigation found clear undeniable evidence that Fannie and Freddie both violated tons of accounting rules, and hundreds of people in Congress defending Fannie and Freddie, and attacked the Federal Regulators who pointed out the violations, rather than Fannie and Freddie who broke the rules.

And of course the Republicans were proven right, when Fannie and Freddie ended up being the largest bailouts of the entire sub-prime crash.

Why did that happen? Because when they broke the laws, people defended them. And the irony is, the public blamed Bush, rather than the Democrats who defended Fannie and Freddie. Maxine Waters is still in office.

And you think more rules, more laws, is going to help that how? When you support people who openly violate the laws, how is more laws going to fix anything? Explain, I'd love to know.

And here you are trying to justify the removal of freedoms, and repeal of constitutional rights, is going to fix this?
First let me be more clear about the distinction between a monopoly and a corporation acting like a monopoly. You questioned my statement of about mega corporations, such as Microsoft, acting like monopolies - different than a monopoly; Microsoft acts like a monopoly and I've seen it firsthand. Recently, I wanted to use a different browser on my computer. Due to Microsoft's user agreement, I can no longer do that unless I choose one that's Microsoft approved (Google of course, Bing, and Yahoo). As a user of any computer, as a consumer who has individual rights I should be able to decide which feature I use and don't use. The fact that they do not allow a user to select Duck Duck Go is because it is not Microsoft approved, and I cannot think of any other reason besides a political one. EDIT: the engine I want does not harvest nor sell your information. As you likely know, search engines decide which links to pull up, based upon previous usage, user's location, and recent events it would seem. What needs to be added to that is that a search engine can absolutely select which links to leave out and only give you a narrowed down list of choices. Using the phrase "Trump" will produce umpteen negative links unless you use Duck Duck Go to retrieve pros and cons, not all cons. Try it, or use another less controversial phrase and try to "go back in time" and see what happens. Bam. I was hit was recent events having nothing to do with my question about past events. Likely, you'll have recent information pull up without anything related to specific question. This is an action to limit one's search. No company has the right to prevent knowledge; Microsoft's changes are controlling my actions and limiting information and now considers any effort to use non-approved engines means I need to buy a new (certainly not Microsoft owned) computer. Now, Microsoft, under it's new TOS/TOA's guidelines, are forcing all users to choose only a few specific businesses...thus acting like a monopoly.

More than my personal experience which is limited in scope to one and in the name of fairness, I'd like to quote the man who created Microsoft-Bill Gates: From his first days in the computer industry back in the 1970s, Bill Gates said repeatedly “We want to monopolize the software business.” Do you have evidence he's changed his mind beyond perhaps more recent politically correct statements that could be viewed as suspect?

BTW-many examples of Microsoft abusing its power are contained within that article, perhaps worth a look.

You stated that : a corrupt public, vote for corrupt politicians, no amount of laws and regulations will stop corruption. Collective grouping seems to be a running thread in your posts. Individuals can be corrupt and many are yes, and true they form groups. The real problem stems from a majority of in-the-dark voters as many are clueless about where a candidate stands on all issues. It takes effort and many voters don't want to make the effort. Fortunately, I hope to tide is changing with more and more voters becoming informed. Another related problem is that most voters stop tracking a candidate once elected. It isn't that a majority of corrupt voters are voting in corruption knowingly, but uninformed (and misinformed) voters are electing many a shyster.... thus the need for the frequently used adjective shyster. Overall, politicians are pretty good at polishing themselves daily during election cycles. They are fully aware that once elected they won't be scrutinized much except by a smaller subset. That's the problem. It's a running line that politicians will peddle their wares to get elected by promising the world on occasion. This is on the voters, in that we somewhat agree.

Individual rights should never be outweighed by corporation rights. I think we agreed on this point, but our difference in perception is that I concern myself with the protection of individual rights whereas you seem more concerned about group rights/corp rights. Is that a fair assessment? Perhaps it's that you support international capitalism and I support national capitalism.

Collective rights is a step toward groups having more rights than individuals, and this should never be the case. Let's think about groups that would fully benefit from having more clout than people. No thanks, and I only had to think for 1.5 seconds. Nationalism can be tainted by various forms of collectivism, and one reason it's so important to not fall for the current rhetoric of grouping people together. There is a purpose to doing this, and it's a direct assault on protecting individual rights. It's never rational to blame entire groups of people for the actions of a few, but we see it happen time and time again due to media influence mostly. This is the worst form of collectivism as it enforces the "us versus them" mindset and fuels the generators for supporting collectivism and people are just a number type of thinking.

In response to your questions: what are some of the bad goals of the One World Order? who specifically is pushing those goals? Collectively grouping entities is a step towards international socialism on the larger scale. The slippery slope of falsely promoting globalism "in the name of connectedness" is now being used by many who want collectiveness not connectedness. This isn't the road that the US should travel if we are to maintain life, liberty, and the pursuit of monetary rewards. Collective capitalism is a move towards a New World Order, first with groups having more rights than individuals, followed by mega corps dictating policy. This cannot happen as we are a country based upon individual rights, first and foremost.

As far as who is pushing for it? The phrase alone: New World Order has been used by many past presidents and financial leaders. This seems to be in support by many who subscribe to such a belief as far as how to make it happen:
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
—David Rockefeller, NWO Banker

Sadly, many players across the globe with deep pockets support that concept.

Microsoft's clout has nothing to do with Amazon nor what happened in AOC's district, so I cannot give you any type of example where Microsoft violated Amazon's rights. Microsoft violates individual rights.

Voters are not collectively evil. Evil ideas are magnified when people hold the same thoughts yes, but to say that: Even your statement that: paints an "all or nothing" concept which is false, although there are many mentally maladjusted individuals in the mix.

You've made an assumption (or two) that I'd like to remove - not once did I suggest increased government regulation. As a voter with a strong lean towards the Libertarian Party platform, I support smaller government control. I do not want to be instructed on anything by the government, nor do they have that right unless I've broken the law.

Big bank bailout along with Freddie and Fanny? I never backed any of that while it was happening. Crooks prospered, many now enjoying themselves after relocating to finer waters, and Barney Franks a crook among crooks. So we agreed there. Failed businesses should be "allowed" to fail in a working free-market economy. Any additional governmental oversite fails miserably. What a crock that entire fiasco. "Too big too fail" should be restricted to diaper promotions.
 
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Do you mean global trade? I don't know what "globalist trade" is. I also don't believe I said anything about post or pre-WWII
 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.
That's like saying a school's administration is a person because there is no school administration of zero persons.

Corporations aren't persons, and here's why we should care.

A corporation as a corporation exists for the financial benefit of its shareholders. It exists for profit. A corporation is indifferent to whether it makes its profit selling a better mousetrap or it makes its profit grabbing you off the sidewalk and harvesting your organs. Corporations don't have ethics. Certainly the shareholders and directors and officers do, sometimes, and a corporation has to comply with applicable laws, of course, but the corporation itself has only one value: profit. This is why the Citizens United decision was such a flawed decision. A corporation can "vote for" policies that no civic-minded member would support individually, so our political system is perverted by private profit, or, to put it another way, our political system is corrupt. And we see the results all around us.

Correct. which is why the concept of 'limited liability' for businesses was heavily regulated by our founding 'libertarians', and only granted by state charterst o companies that served some public service , and not just to any idiot who had a filing fee. It is a subsidy, like a stop-loss position in the stock market, and it is now abused no end, nothing but a license to steal now. Shareholders have no responsibility for paying losses or debts of their 'corporate person', they can defraud with complete protection for the assets and cash they loot from their 'corporate person' and put in their pockets. which is why it's so popular with 'private equity' scams to make millions bankrupting sound companies. like GOP Hero Mitt Romney did for years. Wall Street's financial scams have sucked the life out this country, massively rewarding the unproductive and crooked at the expense of those are productive, and they hypocritically whine about the 'lack of a work ethic' in the U.S.
 
In a fascist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the nation and its citizens. It is explicitly nationalist.

In a communist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the party and the international proletariat. It is explicitly globalist.

In a capitalist system, the State is supreme and exists for the benefit of the market and the rich. It is implicitly globalist, but, through state intervention, can have nationalist characteristics imposed.

It is clear that an important political dividing line is globalist vs nationalist.
This was most helpful in learning more about two types of capitalism: national capitalism versus global/international capitalism. Thanks OP for giving my brain a few more connections! Without your thread I'd still be in the dark. I can almost hear a few brain cells now chatting away and firing backwards! lol

 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.


Personal rules I follow: I respond to people at the level they respond to me. As long as you don't accuse me of things, I won't accuse you. If you don't call me names, I don't call you names.

But if you start throwing punches, I'm going to punch back.

As it relates to this discussion, as long as you keep replying to the topic, I'll do the same.

Also, by the way, you are in fact in the CDZ forum, so personal attacks are not supposed to happen here anyway. If you did start trying to insult me, I'd have the moderators remove your posts.

:)

Anyway....

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I don't see NYC corporations giving millions to PA politicians to ensure their ability to frack.

Their employees DO support Fracking, as do about half the state.

As for your specific influence in PA, that actually is my point. You can influence things in PA, as do others.

Take for example, Penn Environment, a special interest group aiming to ban fracking. Where do they get their funding? We don't know for absolute certain, because they have chosen to keep their donor lists completely secret. However, what we do know is that they are affiliated with groups from ... California, Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and several Washington DC based Democrat run funds, like Environment America.

So we have people across the entire country, funding anti-fracking campaigns in states none of them even care about, because they are "fly over country".

Now let me ask you... if your ran a company, and you decided to open a factory in the next state over, if people in California can spend millions to try and ban your factory, shouldn't you also have the right to spend money in support of your factory?

You claim you have zero influence, but you do. The people of New Mexico have influence. Colorado have influence. Washington DC have influence.

Now if you want to actually make that a law, that no Union can spend money, on legislative fights in other states, and no environmental group can spend money on legislative fights in other states, and so on and so on, until no one is allowed to spend a single penny on anything that does not happen in their own state........

Ok then I'll agree with that. But that would have to apply to absolutely everyone equally, meaning Unions, meaning Greenpeace, meaning Serria Club, meaning absolutely everyone everywhere, all has to have that same ban.

And then you also have to ban lobbying by unions, by pensioners, by civic organizations in Washington DC as well. No more Lobbying from California, for pollution controls in Ohio. No more green energy lobbying from New Mexico, for wind farms in Ohio. No more of any of that. Ban it all. All of it.

Because if you can fund lobbying the destruction of my business, no matter how right or wrong (and I would argue most of it is entirely wrong), then I should have the right to fund counter lobbying, and that's where we are right now.

And of course this logically means we're talking about a massive repeal of freedom of speech.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

This is such a strange and baffling concept you are trying to push here.

"I don't recognize corporations as people, and thus don't recognize a corporations 1st amendment rights."

Then you don't support 1st Amendment rights period.

What do you think corporate first amendment rights are? There is now 'magic' corporate person. When a company donates to a politicians, what exactly do you envision that being? Who do you think gives the money? It's a person. An American citizens with a 1st Amendment right.

Because let me tell you how that information is determined: When they say "Exxon gave XXXX amount of money to Y Politician", do you know how they find that information out?

There is no "Exxon Corporate Man" that shows up, out of the void like Thanos in Avengers, and donates to a politician.

The way they come up with "Exxon gave XXX to Y politician", is that people have a donor list. They have a list of American citizens that donated their own private money, to a politician.

They then cross check that list, and find out what companies they work for. Then they say that company they work for, gave to X politician.

I do not know where you work. But let's say that you worked at Pizza Hut. Say you donated $100 to Obama, or Trump. If they could find out where you worked, and found you worked at Pizza Hut, they would add your donation, to all the other donations by people who worked at Pizza Hut, and then say "Pizza Hut donated XXX Million to Obama (or Trump, or whoever)."

Do you see the problem? When you say that corporations shouldn't have 1st Amendment rights, you are saying people shouldn't have first amendment rights. There is no "corporation" that you can deny a right to. There are only people in a corporation that you deny rights to.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.

So here's my problem with that. Donations are the only..... ONLY.... speech you have as an individual citizen.

Donations are the only way you have, of letting your voice be heard in Washington. That's it. End of story.

If you supported Obama, did he call you up, and listen to your concerns from 2008 to 2016? If you supported Trump, did he read your tweets on Twitter and address your concerns?

The only way you have, at all... of getting your concerns heard by Washington DC, is through lobbying. The only way.

See, I know what you are thinking, because I've heard this before, and it's an unsupportable theory. You are thinking that if we ban all influences, that magically the only influence will be the public, and you'll have this utopia of democracy.

First, democracy is terrible, and the influence of the public is only good, if the public itself is good, and the fact is the public is pretty evil. Look around you. You want those people call ALL the shots? No, not a good idea.

But second, and more important is that it is a wrong theory. Without lobbying, and banning all money in politics, the result will be that ONLY the rich and wealthy have influence. ONLY the elite and the power players in Washington will have influence.

Do you really think that if you ban corporate influence, that somehow government will care more about your positions and concerns? No. Of course not. They would care about you less, because now the public has no way to fund the opposition. Now they have no reason to listen to you at all, because you can't even fund a lobbying effort.

See you think that if you ban legal ways of influence government, that no one will have any influence. But we already know from decades of experience, that this isn't so.

View attachment 447379

This picture is garbage, but not everything was uploaded to the internet in the 1990s. This is picture of Bill Clinton (2nd to the right in black), with the executives of Enron.

Enron had a total of $1.2 Billion in government loans throughout the 1990s.

Now you tell me.... If you ban legal lobbying.... you think a President open to corruption like Bill Clinton was, is going to stop going on golfing trips with Corporate CEOs? Do you think so? You think YOU are going to be on the golfing Trip with the president, because he's now open to hearing the concerns of the public since you banned lobbying?

Of course not. The elite in Washington DC, are going to hang out with the elite. And they would love for you not to be able to voice your concerns with lobbying, because then they can hang with their rich buddies, and do whatever they want.

View attachment 447384

Remember Obama hosting those massive elite, rich and wealthy only, parties in Washington DC, that there were no billionaires in the room, talking to Obama about their concerns?

You think if you ban lobbying, that you'll be at one of these events?

The only chance you have, of having your concerns as a private citizen, reach the ears of law makers in Washington DC, is lobbying.

You shut that off, you are cutting off your only method of having your voice heard. You won't stop a single multi billionaire from talking to the President if he wants to. Not one. Honestly, what you are you going to do then? Ban parties? Ban social events for government officials? Good luck with that.

Here's is what you need to do. Here's the real solution. Vote for people who won't be bought.

Bush in 2001, was approached by Enron executives the same way they approached Clinton before in the 1990s. Bush said no. Bush said he's not bailing out Enron, nor providing government loans.

Enron failed. There's a reason Enron didn't fail in the 1990s under Clinton, but did in the 2000s under Bush.

Vote for better people. Maxine waters should have been run out of Washington decades ago. Kennedy should have been in prison, instead of serving more terms in Congress.

I think there is vast difference between a company funding lobbying and a company giving money directly to a politician. I have no problem with a person giving money to a candidate (in the absence of public funding), any person, but a board of directors or a ceo giving a politician company money, as a cost of doing business, if corrupting. You may consider corporations to be more moral and ethical than a US citizen but I disagree. I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.


Well I don't think that corporations are inherently more moral or ethical. I will say they can be, because citizens routinely vote for what they think is best for them, and worst for the country.

A perfect examples would be Venezuela, or Greece. The public voted for who promised to give them the most stuff, and the natural results of that is total destruction of the country.

I can promise you, that had the government listened to the corporations, Venezuela would still be a 1st world country in Latin America. Similarly, if the government of Greece had listened to the corporations on what the effect of high taxes was going to be, people wouldn't have been burning sticks in the winter to keep warm.

And here's the reason why.

People who have nothing to lose, or think they have nothing to lose, will vote for policies that destroy the country, because again... they have nothing to lose. Or at least they think they have nothing to lose.

For example, rental housing in NYC. People who live in rentals, have no reason to not vote for any politician that promises lower rents. They have nothing to lose... or at least they think they don't.

The problem is, when you put in place rent controls, you ended up with the slums, because the land lords can't afford, and also have no incentive, to maintain the property. Eventually you end up with the building being abandoned, and condemned, and now people don't have a place to live.

This is why when the constitution was written, only those with property and or business (usually tied to property) were allowed to vote. Only people with something to lose, could vote. Only people with a stake in the country, could vote.

If you ever read Atlas Shrugged, there was a great moment in the book, where the politicians are meeting with the Union leaders, to gain their support. I forget exactly how the dialogue works, but the bottom line is the Union guys admit that the policies are terrible for the nation, but they are great for the Unions, and he's there for their benefit.

That's the reality.

I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

Again, the irony of that statement, is that by banning lobbying, you would directly result in the situation you claim to be against.

If you eliminate the ability of anyone anywhere having a voice in government, then only those people who can afford that $400,000 Washington DC private parties, are going to have any influence on government. Only those super wealthy, super elite, insiders in Washington, are going to have the ear of the top officials in government.

You can't stop that. That will never go away. There is no system on Earth or throughout history, where you don't have super wealthy talking to the elites. No system.

This is why most socialist systems end up slaughtering people, because that's the only way to prevent influence. But even that does not work in the long run. The Soviets under Stalin slaughtered the wealthy and elites. But within 10 years, they simply had a new group of wealthy elites running industry, who had the ear of the leadership, at the exclusion of the public.

You say you want Democracy over Oligarchy, and yet that is exactly what you promote. Why do you think so many in government repeatedly call for cutting back on freedom of speech? Why do you think Bill Clinton, who repeatedly was hanging out with big CEOs like those at Enron, was also the biggest proponent of campaign finance reform?

Why do you think that is? Why would someone who benefited from hanging with the rich CEOs of companies, support banning lobbying and finance reform?

Because it wouldn't affect him. Just his competitors. He was going to hang with the CEOs whether you banned lobbying or not. But by ending lobbying, he would cut off the opposition to his cronyism.

This is why we should support more freedom of speech, not less. It won't result in the "democracy" that you think. It will result in the opposite. It will cause the very oligarchy, you claim to be opposed to.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.

That's my point. You cutting off your own ability to have your concerns heard, is going to have the opposite effect. Because someone is going to dance with the president, whether your vote or not. Someone is going to be talking to the president, whether you ban lobbying or not.

You will never be on equal footing. Never. There is no country in the world, and no country in history, where Bob the carpet installer, had an equal voice.

However, at least Bob the carpet installer could support the union of carpet installers, or the National Rifle association, or the Serria club, or the Tax Payers Union, or any number of groups, that could represent Bob the Carpet Installer, and lobby government on Bob's behalf.

But whether you ban that or not, there will always be someone at the mega Washington parties, who paid $400,000 to get in, and talk to the president. If you ban your own speech, you only banned your own speech, not theirs.
 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.


Personal rules I follow: I respond to people at the level they respond to me. As long as you don't accuse me of things, I won't accuse you. If you don't call me names, I don't call you names.

But if you start throwing punches, I'm going to punch back.

As it relates to this discussion, as long as you keep replying to the topic, I'll do the same.

Also, by the way, you are in fact in the CDZ forum, so personal attacks are not supposed to happen here anyway. If you did start trying to insult me, I'd have the moderators remove your posts.

:)

Anyway....

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I don't see NYC corporations giving millions to PA politicians to ensure their ability to frack.

Their employees DO support Fracking, as do about half the state.

As for your specific influence in PA, that actually is my point. You can influence things in PA, as do others.

Take for example, Penn Environment, a special interest group aiming to ban fracking. Where do they get their funding? We don't know for absolute certain, because they have chosen to keep their donor lists completely secret. However, what we do know is that they are affiliated with groups from ... California, Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and several Washington DC based Democrat run funds, like Environment America.

So we have people across the entire country, funding anti-fracking campaigns in states none of them even care about, because they are "fly over country".

Now let me ask you... if your ran a company, and you decided to open a factory in the next state over, if people in California can spend millions to try and ban your factory, shouldn't you also have the right to spend money in support of your factory?

You claim you have zero influence, but you do. The people of New Mexico have influence. Colorado have influence. Washington DC have influence.

Now if you want to actually make that a law, that no Union can spend money, on legislative fights in other states, and no environmental group can spend money on legislative fights in other states, and so on and so on, until no one is allowed to spend a single penny on anything that does not happen in their own state........

Ok then I'll agree with that. But that would have to apply to absolutely everyone equally, meaning Unions, meaning Greenpeace, meaning Serria Club, meaning absolutely everyone everywhere, all has to have that same ban.

And then you also have to ban lobbying by unions, by pensioners, by civic organizations in Washington DC as well. No more Lobbying from California, for pollution controls in Ohio. No more green energy lobbying from New Mexico, for wind farms in Ohio. No more of any of that. Ban it all. All of it.

Because if you can fund lobbying the destruction of my business, no matter how right or wrong (and I would argue most of it is entirely wrong), then I should have the right to fund counter lobbying, and that's where we are right now.

And of course this logically means we're talking about a massive repeal of freedom of speech.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

This is such a strange and baffling concept you are trying to push here.

"I don't recognize corporations as people, and thus don't recognize a corporations 1st amendment rights."

Then you don't support 1st Amendment rights period.

What do you think corporate first amendment rights are? There is now 'magic' corporate person. When a company donates to a politicians, what exactly do you envision that being? Who do you think gives the money? It's a person. An American citizens with a 1st Amendment right.

Because let me tell you how that information is determined: When they say "Exxon gave XXXX amount of money to Y Politician", do you know how they find that information out?

There is no "Exxon Corporate Man" that shows up, out of the void like Thanos in Avengers, and donates to a politician.

The way they come up with "Exxon gave XXX to Y politician", is that people have a donor list. They have a list of American citizens that donated their own private money, to a politician.

They then cross check that list, and find out what companies they work for. Then they say that company they work for, gave to X politician.

I do not know where you work. But let's say that you worked at Pizza Hut. Say you donated $100 to Obama, or Trump. If they could find out where you worked, and found you worked at Pizza Hut, they would add your donation, to all the other donations by people who worked at Pizza Hut, and then say "Pizza Hut donated XXX Million to Obama (or Trump, or whoever)."

Do you see the problem? When you say that corporations shouldn't have 1st Amendment rights, you are saying people shouldn't have first amendment rights. There is no "corporation" that you can deny a right to. There are only people in a corporation that you deny rights to.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.

So here's my problem with that. Donations are the only..... ONLY.... speech you have as an individual citizen.

Donations are the only way you have, of letting your voice be heard in Washington. That's it. End of story.

If you supported Obama, did he call you up, and listen to your concerns from 2008 to 2016? If you supported Trump, did he read your tweets on Twitter and address your concerns?

The only way you have, at all... of getting your concerns heard by Washington DC, is through lobbying. The only way.

See, I know what you are thinking, because I've heard this before, and it's an unsupportable theory. You are thinking that if we ban all influences, that magically the only influence will be the public, and you'll have this utopia of democracy.

First, democracy is terrible, and the influence of the public is only good, if the public itself is good, and the fact is the public is pretty evil. Look around you. You want those people call ALL the shots? No, not a good idea.

But second, and more important is that it is a wrong theory. Without lobbying, and banning all money in politics, the result will be that ONLY the rich and wealthy have influence. ONLY the elite and the power players in Washington will have influence.

Do you really think that if you ban corporate influence, that somehow government will care more about your positions and concerns? No. Of course not. They would care about you less, because now the public has no way to fund the opposition. Now they have no reason to listen to you at all, because you can't even fund a lobbying effort.

See you think that if you ban legal ways of influence government, that no one will have any influence. But we already know from decades of experience, that this isn't so.

View attachment 447379

This picture is garbage, but not everything was uploaded to the internet in the 1990s. This is picture of Bill Clinton (2nd to the right in black), with the executives of Enron.

Enron had a total of $1.2 Billion in government loans throughout the 1990s.

Now you tell me.... If you ban legal lobbying.... you think a President open to corruption like Bill Clinton was, is going to stop going on golfing trips with Corporate CEOs? Do you think so? You think YOU are going to be on the golfing Trip with the president, because he's now open to hearing the concerns of the public since you banned lobbying?

Of course not. The elite in Washington DC, are going to hang out with the elite. And they would love for you not to be able to voice your concerns with lobbying, because then they can hang with their rich buddies, and do whatever they want.

View attachment 447384

Remember Obama hosting those massive elite, rich and wealthy only, parties in Washington DC, that there were no billionaires in the room, talking to Obama about their concerns?

You think if you ban lobbying, that you'll be at one of these events?

The only chance you have, of having your concerns as a private citizen, reach the ears of law makers in Washington DC, is lobbying.

You shut that off, you are cutting off your only method of having your voice heard. You won't stop a single multi billionaire from talking to the President if he wants to. Not one. Honestly, what you are you going to do then? Ban parties? Ban social events for government officials? Good luck with that.

Here's is what you need to do. Here's the real solution. Vote for people who won't be bought.

Bush in 2001, was approached by Enron executives the same way they approached Clinton before in the 1990s. Bush said no. Bush said he's not bailing out Enron, nor providing government loans.

Enron failed. There's a reason Enron didn't fail in the 1990s under Clinton, but did in the 2000s under Bush.

Vote for better people. Maxine waters should have been run out of Washington decades ago. Kennedy should have been in prison, instead of serving more terms in Congress.

I think there is vast difference between a company funding lobbying and a company giving money directly to a politician. I have no problem with a person giving money to a candidate (in the absence of public funding), any person, but a board of directors or a ceo giving a politician company money, as a cost of doing business, if corrupting. You may consider corporations to be more moral and ethical than a US citizen but I disagree. I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.


Well I don't think that corporations are inherently more moral or ethical. I will say they can be, because citizens routinely vote for what they think is best for them, and worst for the country.

A perfect examples would be Venezuela, or Greece. The public voted for who promised to give them the most stuff, and the natural results of that is total destruction of the country.

I can promise you, that had the government listened to the corporations, Venezuela would still be a 1st world country in Latin America. Similarly, if the government of Greece had listened to the corporations on what the effect of high taxes was going to be, people wouldn't have been burning sticks in the winter to keep warm.

And here's the reason why.

People who have nothing to lose, or think they have nothing to lose, will vote for policies that destroy the country, because again... they have nothing to lose. Or at least they think they have nothing to lose.

For example, rental housing in NYC. People who live in rentals, have no reason to not vote for any politician that promises lower rents. They have nothing to lose... or at least they think they don't.

The problem is, when you put in place rent controls, you ended up with the slums, because the land lords can't afford, and also have no incentive, to maintain the property. Eventually you end up with the building being abandoned, and condemned, and now people don't have a place to live.

This is why when the constitution was written, only those with property and or business (usually tied to property) were allowed to vote. Only people with something to lose, could vote. Only people with a stake in the country, could vote.

If you ever read Atlas Shrugged, there was a great moment in the book, where the politicians are meeting with the Union leaders, to gain their support. I forget exactly how the dialogue works, but the bottom line is the Union guys admit that the policies are terrible for the nation, but they are great for the Unions, and he's there for their benefit.

That's the reality.

I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

Again, the irony of that statement, is that by banning lobbying, you would directly result in the situation you claim to be against.

If you eliminate the ability of anyone anywhere having a voice in government, then only those people who can afford that $400,000 Washington DC private parties, are going to have any influence on government. Only those super wealthy, super elite, insiders in Washington, are going to have the ear of the top officials in government.

You can't stop that. That will never go away. There is no system on Earth or throughout history, where you don't have super wealthy talking to the elites. No system.

This is why most socialist systems end up slaughtering people, because that's the only way to prevent influence. But even that does not work in the long run. The Soviets under Stalin slaughtered the wealthy and elites. But within 10 years, they simply had a new group of wealthy elites running industry, who had the ear of the leadership, at the exclusion of the public.

You say you want Democracy over Oligarchy, and yet that is exactly what you promote. Why do you think so many in government repeatedly call for cutting back on freedom of speech? Why do you think Bill Clinton, who repeatedly was hanging out with big CEOs like those at Enron, was also the biggest proponent of campaign finance reform?

Why do you think that is? Why would someone who benefited from hanging with the rich CEOs of companies, support banning lobbying and finance reform?

Because it wouldn't affect him. Just his competitors. He was going to hang with the CEOs whether you banned lobbying or not. But by ending lobbying, he would cut off the opposition to his cronyism.

This is why we should support more freedom of speech, not less. It won't result in the "democracy" that you think. It will result in the opposite. It will cause the very oligarchy, you claim to be opposed to.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.

That's my point. You cutting off your own ability to have your concerns heard, is going to have the opposite effect. Because someone is going to dance with the president, whether your vote or not. Someone is going to be talking to the president, whether you ban lobbying or not.

You will never be on equal footing. Never. There is no country in the world, and no country in history, where Bob the carpet installer, had an equal voice.

However, at least Bob the carpet installer could support the union of carpet installers, or the National Rifle association, or the Serria club, or the Tax Payers Union, or any number of groups, that could represent Bob the Carpet Installer, and lobby government on Bob's behalf.

But whether you ban that or not, there will always be someone at the mega Washington parties, who paid $400,000 to get in, and talk to the president. If you ban your own speech, you only banned your own speech, not theirs.

I don't see people voting for their own interests as being a bad thing, but they have to understand what their interests are and when they are being played. I don't see that as very common in the US. One thing I have to give Trump credit for is that he has energized Americans and gotten them more involved in politics (on both sides of the isle). Even in my own family we now constantly bring politics into our discussions.

To be clear, I have no issue with companies or unions or any special interest lobbying but I'd draw the line at direct $ contributions. Every group should have the ability to make their case to politicians and the public but the pay-to-play system we have now is corrupting.

PS, I'm no lover of Rand and find her books based on ideology not reality.
 
I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.


Personal rules I follow: I respond to people at the level they respond to me. As long as you don't accuse me of things, I won't accuse you. If you don't call me names, I don't call you names.

But if you start throwing punches, I'm going to punch back.

As it relates to this discussion, as long as you keep replying to the topic, I'll do the same.

Also, by the way, you are in fact in the CDZ forum, so personal attacks are not supposed to happen here anyway. If you did start trying to insult me, I'd have the moderators remove your posts.

:)

Anyway....

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I don't see NYC corporations giving millions to PA politicians to ensure their ability to frack.

Their employees DO support Fracking, as do about half the state.

As for your specific influence in PA, that actually is my point. You can influence things in PA, as do others.

Take for example, Penn Environment, a special interest group aiming to ban fracking. Where do they get their funding? We don't know for absolute certain, because they have chosen to keep their donor lists completely secret. However, what we do know is that they are affiliated with groups from ... California, Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and several Washington DC based Democrat run funds, like Environment America.

So we have people across the entire country, funding anti-fracking campaigns in states none of them even care about, because they are "fly over country".

Now let me ask you... if your ran a company, and you decided to open a factory in the next state over, if people in California can spend millions to try and ban your factory, shouldn't you also have the right to spend money in support of your factory?

You claim you have zero influence, but you do. The people of New Mexico have influence. Colorado have influence. Washington DC have influence.

Now if you want to actually make that a law, that no Union can spend money, on legislative fights in other states, and no environmental group can spend money on legislative fights in other states, and so on and so on, until no one is allowed to spend a single penny on anything that does not happen in their own state........

Ok then I'll agree with that. But that would have to apply to absolutely everyone equally, meaning Unions, meaning Greenpeace, meaning Serria Club, meaning absolutely everyone everywhere, all has to have that same ban.

And then you also have to ban lobbying by unions, by pensioners, by civic organizations in Washington DC as well. No more Lobbying from California, for pollution controls in Ohio. No more green energy lobbying from New Mexico, for wind farms in Ohio. No more of any of that. Ban it all. All of it.

Because if you can fund lobbying the destruction of my business, no matter how right or wrong (and I would argue most of it is entirely wrong), then I should have the right to fund counter lobbying, and that's where we are right now.

And of course this logically means we're talking about a massive repeal of freedom of speech.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

This is such a strange and baffling concept you are trying to push here.

"I don't recognize corporations as people, and thus don't recognize a corporations 1st amendment rights."

Then you don't support 1st Amendment rights period.

What do you think corporate first amendment rights are? There is now 'magic' corporate person. When a company donates to a politicians, what exactly do you envision that being? Who do you think gives the money? It's a person. An American citizens with a 1st Amendment right.

Because let me tell you how that information is determined: When they say "Exxon gave XXXX amount of money to Y Politician", do you know how they find that information out?

There is no "Exxon Corporate Man" that shows up, out of the void like Thanos in Avengers, and donates to a politician.

The way they come up with "Exxon gave XXX to Y politician", is that people have a donor list. They have a list of American citizens that donated their own private money, to a politician.

They then cross check that list, and find out what companies they work for. Then they say that company they work for, gave to X politician.

I do not know where you work. But let's say that you worked at Pizza Hut. Say you donated $100 to Obama, or Trump. If they could find out where you worked, and found you worked at Pizza Hut, they would add your donation, to all the other donations by people who worked at Pizza Hut, and then say "Pizza Hut donated XXX Million to Obama (or Trump, or whoever)."

Do you see the problem? When you say that corporations shouldn't have 1st Amendment rights, you are saying people shouldn't have first amendment rights. There is no "corporation" that you can deny a right to. There are only people in a corporation that you deny rights to.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.

So here's my problem with that. Donations are the only..... ONLY.... speech you have as an individual citizen.

Donations are the only way you have, of letting your voice be heard in Washington. That's it. End of story.

If you supported Obama, did he call you up, and listen to your concerns from 2008 to 2016? If you supported Trump, did he read your tweets on Twitter and address your concerns?

The only way you have, at all... of getting your concerns heard by Washington DC, is through lobbying. The only way.

See, I know what you are thinking, because I've heard this before, and it's an unsupportable theory. You are thinking that if we ban all influences, that magically the only influence will be the public, and you'll have this utopia of democracy.

First, democracy is terrible, and the influence of the public is only good, if the public itself is good, and the fact is the public is pretty evil. Look around you. You want those people call ALL the shots? No, not a good idea.

But second, and more important is that it is a wrong theory. Without lobbying, and banning all money in politics, the result will be that ONLY the rich and wealthy have influence. ONLY the elite and the power players in Washington will have influence.

Do you really think that if you ban corporate influence, that somehow government will care more about your positions and concerns? No. Of course not. They would care about you less, because now the public has no way to fund the opposition. Now they have no reason to listen to you at all, because you can't even fund a lobbying effort.

See you think that if you ban legal ways of influence government, that no one will have any influence. But we already know from decades of experience, that this isn't so.

View attachment 447379

This picture is garbage, but not everything was uploaded to the internet in the 1990s. This is picture of Bill Clinton (2nd to the right in black), with the executives of Enron.

Enron had a total of $1.2 Billion in government loans throughout the 1990s.

Now you tell me.... If you ban legal lobbying.... you think a President open to corruption like Bill Clinton was, is going to stop going on golfing trips with Corporate CEOs? Do you think so? You think YOU are going to be on the golfing Trip with the president, because he's now open to hearing the concerns of the public since you banned lobbying?

Of course not. The elite in Washington DC, are going to hang out with the elite. And they would love for you not to be able to voice your concerns with lobbying, because then they can hang with their rich buddies, and do whatever they want.

View attachment 447384

Remember Obama hosting those massive elite, rich and wealthy only, parties in Washington DC, that there were no billionaires in the room, talking to Obama about their concerns?

You think if you ban lobbying, that you'll be at one of these events?

The only chance you have, of having your concerns as a private citizen, reach the ears of law makers in Washington DC, is lobbying.

You shut that off, you are cutting off your only method of having your voice heard. You won't stop a single multi billionaire from talking to the President if he wants to. Not one. Honestly, what you are you going to do then? Ban parties? Ban social events for government officials? Good luck with that.

Here's is what you need to do. Here's the real solution. Vote for people who won't be bought.

Bush in 2001, was approached by Enron executives the same way they approached Clinton before in the 1990s. Bush said no. Bush said he's not bailing out Enron, nor providing government loans.

Enron failed. There's a reason Enron didn't fail in the 1990s under Clinton, but did in the 2000s under Bush.

Vote for better people. Maxine waters should have been run out of Washington decades ago. Kennedy should have been in prison, instead of serving more terms in Congress.

I think there is vast difference between a company funding lobbying and a company giving money directly to a politician. I have no problem with a person giving money to a candidate (in the absence of public funding), any person, but a board of directors or a ceo giving a politician company money, as a cost of doing business, if corrupting. You may consider corporations to be more moral and ethical than a US citizen but I disagree. I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.


Well I don't think that corporations are inherently more moral or ethical. I will say they can be, because citizens routinely vote for what they think is best for them, and worst for the country.

A perfect examples would be Venezuela, or Greece. The public voted for who promised to give them the most stuff, and the natural results of that is total destruction of the country.

I can promise you, that had the government listened to the corporations, Venezuela would still be a 1st world country in Latin America. Similarly, if the government of Greece had listened to the corporations on what the effect of high taxes was going to be, people wouldn't have been burning sticks in the winter to keep warm.

And here's the reason why.

People who have nothing to lose, or think they have nothing to lose, will vote for policies that destroy the country, because again... they have nothing to lose. Or at least they think they have nothing to lose.

For example, rental housing in NYC. People who live in rentals, have no reason to not vote for any politician that promises lower rents. They have nothing to lose... or at least they think they don't.

The problem is, when you put in place rent controls, you ended up with the slums, because the land lords can't afford, and also have no incentive, to maintain the property. Eventually you end up with the building being abandoned, and condemned, and now people don't have a place to live.

This is why when the constitution was written, only those with property and or business (usually tied to property) were allowed to vote. Only people with something to lose, could vote. Only people with a stake in the country, could vote.

If you ever read Atlas Shrugged, there was a great moment in the book, where the politicians are meeting with the Union leaders, to gain their support. I forget exactly how the dialogue works, but the bottom line is the Union guys admit that the policies are terrible for the nation, but they are great for the Unions, and he's there for their benefit.

That's the reality.

I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

Again, the irony of that statement, is that by banning lobbying, you would directly result in the situation you claim to be against.

If you eliminate the ability of anyone anywhere having a voice in government, then only those people who can afford that $400,000 Washington DC private parties, are going to have any influence on government. Only those super wealthy, super elite, insiders in Washington, are going to have the ear of the top officials in government.

You can't stop that. That will never go away. There is no system on Earth or throughout history, where you don't have super wealthy talking to the elites. No system.

This is why most socialist systems end up slaughtering people, because that's the only way to prevent influence. But even that does not work in the long run. The Soviets under Stalin slaughtered the wealthy and elites. But within 10 years, they simply had a new group of wealthy elites running industry, who had the ear of the leadership, at the exclusion of the public.

You say you want Democracy over Oligarchy, and yet that is exactly what you promote. Why do you think so many in government repeatedly call for cutting back on freedom of speech? Why do you think Bill Clinton, who repeatedly was hanging out with big CEOs like those at Enron, was also the biggest proponent of campaign finance reform?

Why do you think that is? Why would someone who benefited from hanging with the rich CEOs of companies, support banning lobbying and finance reform?

Because it wouldn't affect him. Just his competitors. He was going to hang with the CEOs whether you banned lobbying or not. But by ending lobbying, he would cut off the opposition to his cronyism.

This is why we should support more freedom of speech, not less. It won't result in the "democracy" that you think. It will result in the opposite. It will cause the very oligarchy, you claim to be opposed to.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.

That's my point. You cutting off your own ability to have your concerns heard, is going to have the opposite effect. Because someone is going to dance with the president, whether your vote or not. Someone is going to be talking to the president, whether you ban lobbying or not.

You will never be on equal footing. Never. There is no country in the world, and no country in history, where Bob the carpet installer, had an equal voice.

However, at least Bob the carpet installer could support the union of carpet installers, or the National Rifle association, or the Serria club, or the Tax Payers Union, or any number of groups, that could represent Bob the Carpet Installer, and lobby government on Bob's behalf.

But whether you ban that or not, there will always be someone at the mega Washington parties, who paid $400,000 to get in, and talk to the president. If you ban your own speech, you only banned your own speech, not theirs.

I don't see people voting for their own interests as being a bad thing, but they have to understand what their interests are and when they are being played. I don't see that as very common in the US. One thing I have to give Trump credit for is that he has energized Americans and gotten them more involved in politics (on both sides of the isle). Even in my own family we now constantly bring politics into our discussions.

To be clear, I have no issue with companies or unions or any special interest lobbying but I'd draw the line at direct $ contributions. Every group should have the ability to make their case to politicians and the public but the pay-to-play system we have now is corrupting.

PS, I'm no lover of Rand and find her books based on ideology not reality.

I would disagree with that. Show me one communist system that doesn't involve political power?
Show me one capitalist system that doesn't involve political power. Certainly not the US where corporations are people too (Citizens United).

Corporations are people. Show me a corporation with no people. Name one company that has no people at all. Good luck with that. That is what a company is... it's a group, or even one single person. You have a company of one person. But there is no company of zero people.

I already showed you an example of capitalist without political power. A student in high school, built a massive half billion dollar international company, with a $900 pickup truck, purchased using his income from his part time job.

I could list you millions of examples like that. Take a tribal people in the Congo, where they exchange mud bricks for food, in order to build bigger homes, and of course better arrows and bows to hunt with. That Capitalism.

Now if you are asking show me a capitalist society in which there is no government.... show many any society where there is no government? Even in tribes, you have a the head of the tribe that enforces the rules of their society.

Without some body of enforcing the rules, you have Somalia, with chaos, murder rape and thievery.

Even in communes, you have some body of people in the commune that enforce the rules.

But saying you need government to create Capitalism? No, capitalism is the default standard of all humanity. Go all the way back to the early times in human history, where farmers farmed the land, and exchanged goods for their produce. Capitalism was the defacto standard.

Socialism requires government to create it. Without government, socialism never exists.
Every one of those corporation employees already has the ability to give $ and their vote to a politician so they are already well represented. Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

There are millions of small businesses in this country but I wonder if they exercise more political power than Amazon?

Corporations don't have to live with the effects of pollution but their workers do.

When you read that statement, how do you not see how illogical that is? Corporations are the employees. There isn't a single person in a company that doesn't have to live in the same world as everyone else. So company employee, from the CEO down to the Janitor has to live with pollution, thus yes the corporation does have to live with the effects of pollution. In fact even the shareholders have to live with the effects of pollution.

Again, a corporation is nothing more than a group of people. Which person, walks out with their own private supply of air and water, that no one else in the company has access too? None. We all live on the same planet.

So no that makes no sense.

Further, you seem to be implying that employees wouldn't pollute. Employees pollute all the time. I remember working at a parts store, having guys come in to drop off oil, only to find out our tank was full. They would say "well I'll just pour it down the drain". Now I don't know for certain if they did or not, but I would absolutely be willing to put money on it.

The idea that somehow the corporation is doing anything that people don't do, is ridiculous. The only difference is, corporations make money, and you hate that. For some reason all the pollution that individuals do, you ignore, and pretend that only companies do it.

Further, when a company does illegal dumping, the government eventually finds out, and they are fined, or forced to clean it up, or both.

Regardless, what does this have to do with the prior claim about political power and corporations being people? Are you suggesting that if corporations were not supposedly people, that magically they would have no representation in Washington? That they magically would not ever cause any pollution?

Again, ridiculous. First, there are dozens, literally dozens of examples of policies that were passed by government in the past 10 to 15 years, that companies all opposed.

However, I am not saying that corporations do not have influence. Of course they have influence. Just like all businesses did, back in 1776. Just like they had in England before that, and throughout all human history.

To suggest that companies today have more influence in government, than in the past 2000 years, or more, of human history, is a ridiculous and unsupportable claim.

For starters, and I could list dozens on dozens of examples.... if corporations have such unlimited 'power' in government, why did Amazon get kicked out of New York City, but a pathetic air head know-nothing bimbo girl, who actually said publicly that she was going to "spend a tax deduction" on schools and health care?

How was one of the most powerful, and most wealthy, and largest companies in America today, completely smacked around, by a ridiculous bartender in her 20s? Seriously? Corporations have oh so much power and influence, that an air head, that can't even figure out that you can't spend money NOT COLLECTED.... a tax deduction.... on a school..... an air head that stupid, knocked around one of the largest most wealthy companies in the country?

No. Sorry. The facts don't support such an over exaggeration of corporate power. Influence, yes. They most certainly do have influence. But they don't have the power you claim. Not even close.
Corporations are not altruistic, nor should they be. Their obligation is to the owners/shareholders of the corporation. I wonder how many of the owners/shareholders of the corporations that frac in Pennsylvania live in PA or are more concerned with the water quality there than their personal bottom line.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

So a couple of things there.

First, as someone who has been around CEOs his whole life, I can tell you that nearly every single executive at a corporation is very much concerned with water quality and pollution. You can deny that, but you are ignorant. How many CEOs have you talked with in your life? I have talked with dozens.

Your own 'evidence' of that claim, is that different people came up with different opinions than you, therefore according to your logic, they must not care about pollution. Well.. that is a very arrogant and ignorant argument to make.

Second, you ask the question you wonder how many people who are in the fracking industry, live in PA. That same question could be directed at you. How many people opposing fracking, live in PA? Do you live in PA?

So what's it to you, if the state of PA allows or prohibits fracking? Why is it your concern, to destroy an estimate 50,000 job PA, and who knows how many supporting jobs, created by the Fracking industry in PA?

Do you know someone who died of Fracking pollution in PA? Do you have relatives with cancer in PA, that you can state conclusively is because of fracking pollution? And if not, what business is it of yours?

And by the way, I am fully in support of States governing themselves. If you DO live in PA, then by all means vote. You have a state government that governs the state of PA. VOTE. But understand that your fellow citizens can vote against you, and support Fracking. That's how Democracy works.

I don't think corporations are all-powerful but they do have money and money + politics = corruption. Always has, always will. Therefore, I think limiting corporate donations to ALL politicians is a good thing and not an affront to their rights.

Kind of reminds me of the Nazis in Germany, who slowly rolled back rights, one by one, inch by inch, until there was no one left to oppose them.

You start denying Americans, rights in the constitution, such as the right to vote, because you don't like how they vote... I will guarantee you 100%, that this power will be eventually used against you.

After all, there are tons of people in this country, whose voting I disagree with, and have equally valid concerns about. Take for example, the vote of Unions that get government contracts. Unions would bankrupt the entire country, for the benefit of themselves.

Should we eliminate the Union voting rights as well? How about public school teachers?



Just watch that, and you can see it is obvious that Unions happily damage the country, for their own benefit.

Can we revoke the freedom of speech of teachers? Of Unions? How many other examples would you like?

Lastly, I would like to disagree with your claim that money + politics = corruption.

No. That is false. Evil voters + evil politicians = corruption.

Money is not evil, nor causes evil. Money is simply a mode of exchange. It has no moral leanings either way.

Money in the hand of a righteous person, will allow him to be more righteous.

Money in the hands of a corrupt person, will allow him to be more corrupt.

Money does not cause anything.

You vote in corrupt politicians, you end up with corruption. If you think stopping one source of money into government, is going to stop corruption, you are crazy. Corruption, by the definition of the word, mean that they will find illegal ways of conducting themselves, for personal benefit.

No amount of laws, is going to stop this. Why? Because they are not following the law now. Why would you think that you can regulate away corruption, when they are not following the regulations right now, as they exist?

This is like people saying we need a new gun law, after a crime where a dozen existing Federal laws were violated. If they break 11 laws, why would a 12th law stop them?

Similarly, there are dozens of people in government today, who have broken the law, sometimes for decades, and nothing happened.

Al Gore was caught openly, and unambiguously, calling donors from the very office of the Vice-President, and shaking them down for money. It was not up for debate, not up for argument, we had the audio tapes of Al Gore on the phone, with people, "asking" for money, like he was in a Mafia crime family, asking for protection money.

The public of this country, almost made that guy president. And you think you can stop corruption, with another regulation that no one will follow? Al Gore broke a dozen campaign finance laws, and the public voted for him. Why would any corrupt politician anywhere, feel the need to follow a fiance law, when you voted for someone who violated dozens of laws?

How many examples do you need? Hillary? Kennedy? Barnie Frank? Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters specifically, has been chronicled for almost 15 years, documenting endless corruption. Clearly defined, overt corruption, for over a decade. The public still votes for her routinely.

The problem is the public. It's not corporations. It's not money. It's not lobbying. The public openly supports corruption, and that's why it's a problem.

First off, thanks for the reply, I may not agree with you but I appreciate you taking the time to THOUGHTFULLY reply. I don't think you called me a libtard once!

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.


Personal rules I follow: I respond to people at the level they respond to me. As long as you don't accuse me of things, I won't accuse you. If you don't call me names, I don't call you names.

But if you start throwing punches, I'm going to punch back.

As it relates to this discussion, as long as you keep replying to the topic, I'll do the same.

Also, by the way, you are in fact in the CDZ forum, so personal attacks are not supposed to happen here anyway. If you did start trying to insult me, I'd have the moderators remove your posts.

:)

Anyway....

Your point about me not living in PA is true and I should have little influence on their frac rules (except if they affect other states). It is the people who live in that state who should decide and that is exactly my point. A NYC corporation shouldn't be able to give millions to a PA politician to ensure their ability to frac. If their 50,000 employees want to support it then that is their right.

I don't see NYC corporations giving millions to PA politicians to ensure their ability to frack.

Their employees DO support Fracking, as do about half the state.

As for your specific influence in PA, that actually is my point. You can influence things in PA, as do others.

Take for example, Penn Environment, a special interest group aiming to ban fracking. Where do they get their funding? We don't know for absolute certain, because they have chosen to keep their donor lists completely secret. However, what we do know is that they are affiliated with groups from ... California, Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and several Washington DC based Democrat run funds, like Environment America.

So we have people across the entire country, funding anti-fracking campaigns in states none of them even care about, because they are "fly over country".

Now let me ask you... if your ran a company, and you decided to open a factory in the next state over, if people in California can spend millions to try and ban your factory, shouldn't you also have the right to spend money in support of your factory?

You claim you have zero influence, but you do. The people of New Mexico have influence. Colorado have influence. Washington DC have influence.

Now if you want to actually make that a law, that no Union can spend money, on legislative fights in other states, and no environmental group can spend money on legislative fights in other states, and so on and so on, until no one is allowed to spend a single penny on anything that does not happen in their own state........

Ok then I'll agree with that. But that would have to apply to absolutely everyone equally, meaning Unions, meaning Greenpeace, meaning Serria Club, meaning absolutely everyone everywhere, all has to have that same ban.

And then you also have to ban lobbying by unions, by pensioners, by civic organizations in Washington DC as well. No more Lobbying from California, for pollution controls in Ohio. No more green energy lobbying from New Mexico, for wind farms in Ohio. No more of any of that. Ban it all. All of it.

Because if you can fund lobbying the destruction of my business, no matter how right or wrong (and I would argue most of it is entirely wrong), then I should have the right to fund counter lobbying, and that's where we are right now.

And of course this logically means we're talking about a massive repeal of freedom of speech.

I'm not for denying anyone their rights but I don't consider corporations to 'people' and don't recognize the corporation's 1st amendment rights. I see our political system as requiring politicians to be corrupt since it cost big bucks to get elected and there is the Golden Rule.

This is such a strange and baffling concept you are trying to push here.

"I don't recognize corporations as people, and thus don't recognize a corporations 1st amendment rights."

Then you don't support 1st Amendment rights period.

What do you think corporate first amendment rights are? There is now 'magic' corporate person. When a company donates to a politicians, what exactly do you envision that being? Who do you think gives the money? It's a person. An American citizens with a 1st Amendment right.

Because let me tell you how that information is determined: When they say "Exxon gave XXXX amount of money to Y Politician", do you know how they find that information out?

There is no "Exxon Corporate Man" that shows up, out of the void like Thanos in Avengers, and donates to a politician.

The way they come up with "Exxon gave XXX to Y politician", is that people have a donor list. They have a list of American citizens that donated their own private money, to a politician.

They then cross check that list, and find out what companies they work for. Then they say that company they work for, gave to X politician.

I do not know where you work. But let's say that you worked at Pizza Hut. Say you donated $100 to Obama, or Trump. If they could find out where you worked, and found you worked at Pizza Hut, they would add your donation, to all the other donations by people who worked at Pizza Hut, and then say "Pizza Hut donated XXX Million to Obama (or Trump, or whoever)."

Do you see the problem? When you say that corporations shouldn't have 1st Amendment rights, you are saying people shouldn't have first amendment rights. There is no "corporation" that you can deny a right to. There are only people in a corporation that you deny rights to.

I would limit all special interests from direct contributions to politicians or their PACs. I'd limit corporations and special interests from airing political ads, they'd be limited to their particular interest. Teacher Unions could talk about teacher pay, school funding, school bonds, etc. but banned from speaking about politicians. I'd even go further and publicly fund elections and ban ALL political contributions.

So here's my problem with that. Donations are the only..... ONLY.... speech you have as an individual citizen.

Donations are the only way you have, of letting your voice be heard in Washington. That's it. End of story.

If you supported Obama, did he call you up, and listen to your concerns from 2008 to 2016? If you supported Trump, did he read your tweets on Twitter and address your concerns?

The only way you have, at all... of getting your concerns heard by Washington DC, is through lobbying. The only way.

See, I know what you are thinking, because I've heard this before, and it's an unsupportable theory. You are thinking that if we ban all influences, that magically the only influence will be the public, and you'll have this utopia of democracy.

First, democracy is terrible, and the influence of the public is only good, if the public itself is good, and the fact is the public is pretty evil. Look around you. You want those people call ALL the shots? No, not a good idea.

But second, and more important is that it is a wrong theory. Without lobbying, and banning all money in politics, the result will be that ONLY the rich and wealthy have influence. ONLY the elite and the power players in Washington will have influence.

Do you really think that if you ban corporate influence, that somehow government will care more about your positions and concerns? No. Of course not. They would care about you less, because now the public has no way to fund the opposition. Now they have no reason to listen to you at all, because you can't even fund a lobbying effort.

See you think that if you ban legal ways of influence government, that no one will have any influence. But we already know from decades of experience, that this isn't so.

View attachment 447379

This picture is garbage, but not everything was uploaded to the internet in the 1990s. This is picture of Bill Clinton (2nd to the right in black), with the executives of Enron.

Enron had a total of $1.2 Billion in government loans throughout the 1990s.

Now you tell me.... If you ban legal lobbying.... you think a President open to corruption like Bill Clinton was, is going to stop going on golfing trips with Corporate CEOs? Do you think so? You think YOU are going to be on the golfing Trip with the president, because he's now open to hearing the concerns of the public since you banned lobbying?

Of course not. The elite in Washington DC, are going to hang out with the elite. And they would love for you not to be able to voice your concerns with lobbying, because then they can hang with their rich buddies, and do whatever they want.

View attachment 447384

Remember Obama hosting those massive elite, rich and wealthy only, parties in Washington DC, that there were no billionaires in the room, talking to Obama about their concerns?

You think if you ban lobbying, that you'll be at one of these events?

The only chance you have, of having your concerns as a private citizen, reach the ears of law makers in Washington DC, is lobbying.

You shut that off, you are cutting off your only method of having your voice heard. You won't stop a single multi billionaire from talking to the President if he wants to. Not one. Honestly, what you are you going to do then? Ban parties? Ban social events for government officials? Good luck with that.

Here's is what you need to do. Here's the real solution. Vote for people who won't be bought.

Bush in 2001, was approached by Enron executives the same way they approached Clinton before in the 1990s. Bush said no. Bush said he's not bailing out Enron, nor providing government loans.

Enron failed. There's a reason Enron didn't fail in the 1990s under Clinton, but did in the 2000s under Bush.

Vote for better people. Maxine waters should have been run out of Washington decades ago. Kennedy should have been in prison, instead of serving more terms in Congress.

I think there is vast difference between a company funding lobbying and a company giving money directly to a politician. I have no problem with a person giving money to a candidate (in the absence of public funding), any person, but a board of directors or a ceo giving a politician company money, as a cost of doing business, if corrupting. You may consider corporations to be more moral and ethical than a US citizen but I disagree. I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.


Well I don't think that corporations are inherently more moral or ethical. I will say they can be, because citizens routinely vote for what they think is best for them, and worst for the country.

A perfect examples would be Venezuela, or Greece. The public voted for who promised to give them the most stuff, and the natural results of that is total destruction of the country.

I can promise you, that had the government listened to the corporations, Venezuela would still be a 1st world country in Latin America. Similarly, if the government of Greece had listened to the corporations on what the effect of high taxes was going to be, people wouldn't have been burning sticks in the winter to keep warm.

And here's the reason why.

People who have nothing to lose, or think they have nothing to lose, will vote for policies that destroy the country, because again... they have nothing to lose. Or at least they think they have nothing to lose.

For example, rental housing in NYC. People who live in rentals, have no reason to not vote for any politician that promises lower rents. They have nothing to lose... or at least they think they don't.

The problem is, when you put in place rent controls, you ended up with the slums, because the land lords can't afford, and also have no incentive, to maintain the property. Eventually you end up with the building being abandoned, and condemned, and now people don't have a place to live.

This is why when the constitution was written, only those with property and or business (usually tied to property) were allowed to vote. Only people with something to lose, could vote. Only people with a stake in the country, could vote.

If you ever read Atlas Shrugged, there was a great moment in the book, where the politicians are meeting with the Union leaders, to gain their support. I forget exactly how the dialogue works, but the bottom line is the Union guys admit that the policies are terrible for the nation, but they are great for the Unions, and he's there for their benefit.

That's the reality.

I prefer democracy to an oligarchy like in Russia where they essentially have the mob running the government.

Again, the irony of that statement, is that by banning lobbying, you would directly result in the situation you claim to be against.

If you eliminate the ability of anyone anywhere having a voice in government, then only those people who can afford that $400,000 Washington DC private parties, are going to have any influence on government. Only those super wealthy, super elite, insiders in Washington, are going to have the ear of the top officials in government.

You can't stop that. That will never go away. There is no system on Earth or throughout history, where you don't have super wealthy talking to the elites. No system.

This is why most socialist systems end up slaughtering people, because that's the only way to prevent influence. But even that does not work in the long run. The Soviets under Stalin slaughtered the wealthy and elites. But within 10 years, they simply had a new group of wealthy elites running industry, who had the ear of the leadership, at the exclusion of the public.

You say you want Democracy over Oligarchy, and yet that is exactly what you promote. Why do you think so many in government repeatedly call for cutting back on freedom of speech? Why do you think Bill Clinton, who repeatedly was hanging out with big CEOs like those at Enron, was also the biggest proponent of campaign finance reform?

Why do you think that is? Why would someone who benefited from hanging with the rich CEOs of companies, support banning lobbying and finance reform?

Because it wouldn't affect him. Just his competitors. He was going to hang with the CEOs whether you banned lobbying or not. But by ending lobbying, he would cut off the opposition to his cronyism.

This is why we should support more freedom of speech, not less. It won't result in the "democracy" that you think. It will result in the opposite. It will cause the very oligarchy, you claim to be opposed to.

I don't need to dance with the President I just want him to see me as the equal of anyone else since my vote is equal to any other.

That's my point. You cutting off your own ability to have your concerns heard, is going to have the opposite effect. Because someone is going to dance with the president, whether your vote or not. Someone is going to be talking to the president, whether you ban lobbying or not.

You will never be on equal footing. Never. There is no country in the world, and no country in history, where Bob the carpet installer, had an equal voice.

However, at least Bob the carpet installer could support the union of carpet installers, or the National Rifle association, or the Serria club, or the Tax Payers Union, or any number of groups, that could represent Bob the Carpet Installer, and lobby government on Bob's behalf.

But whether you ban that or not, there will always be someone at the mega Washington parties, who paid $400,000 to get in, and talk to the president. If you ban your own speech, you only banned your own speech, not theirs.

I don't see people voting for their own interests as being a bad thing, but they have to understand what their interests are and when they are being played. I don't see that as very common in the US. One thing I have to give Trump credit for is that he has energized Americans and gotten them more involved in politics (on both sides of the isle). Even in my own family we now constantly bring politics into our discussions.

To be clear, I have no issue with companies or unions or any special interest lobbying but I'd draw the line at direct $ contributions. Every group should have the ability to make their case to politicians and the public but the pay-to-play system we have now is corrupting.

PS, I'm no lover of Rand and find her books based on ideology not reality.


I don't see people voting for their own interests as being a bad thing, but they have to understand what their interests are and when they are being played.

I think that's a bad view, because it is impossible for people to know when they are being played. Take the minimum wage. Do you seriously think the average citizen knows, or has researched the effects of the minimum wage? Or are they just being told that corporations are evil, and people should be paid more?

How are they to know what the long term effects are?

That's the reality of why we were never supposed to be a Democracy, but rather a Representative Republic. Because people who do know, and are in government as Representatives of the public, will often vote in ways that could be counter to what the public thinks they want. Then people say "Corporations own the government!" because people who don't know, assume the reason our representatives voted contrary to what you think you want, you assume it must be because of corporate money, when it could just be what you want was actually something bad.

I see that play out all the time.

Every group should have the ability to make their case to politicians and the public but the pay-to-play system we have now is corrupting.

Again.... if you ban lobbying, there will still be $400,000 pay-to-play systems running in Washington. The only people who will be cut out of the political discussion will be those who lobby, like civic groups and so on. The wealthy elite will always have their own door to enter. You just will have your own door to enter, banned can locked.

I'd draw the line at direct $ contributions.

We already have that system. As far as I am aware, it is illegal to directly contribute to any politician.

Which the result of that has simply been a network of indirect contributions. Example 1: Al Gore arranged in the 1990s for the oil reserves at Elk Hills, to be given to Occidental Petroleum. Turns out Al Gore surprisingly, had (if I remember right) about $100,000 in Occidental Petroleum stock, which increased in value to half a million to two million.

Guess how he got that stock? Quite amazing given how he claimed to be against fossil fuels really, and is still flying around telling people about global warming to this day.

Example 2: When Jorge Cabrera showed up in Washington DC with a large check for Bill Clinton, it was explained to him that this was illegal, but instead to give the money to an outside charity, that worked for inner city blacks, and was favorable to the Clintons.

No lobbying happened. How does this work? You spend $2,000 to get into elite social gathering. Then you talk to the president, who let's you know that your concerns have been heard.... and oh... by the way, there's a charity in Washington DC that could really use your help. You go to the charity, for those needy black kids, and deposit $20,000, and who then campaign for the Clintons, because the Clinton's help black kids, and then Clinton pulls some strings you can get whatever help you need.

Now of course this is unethical and immoral, and in many cases completely illegal, but is also routine.

Banning lobbying doesn't fix that. Again, banning lobbying just means you yourself, have no voice in government. Doesn't stop anyone in the elite.

What you need to do, to stop that... is elect people who are not for sale. As long as politicians are for sale, no amount of laws is going to prevent that.
 

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