Tag Archives: campaign finance

For-Profit Politics

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By Jay Hansen

First of all, allow me to apologize for the somewhat sporadic timing of my posts as of late. I’ve taken on another new project similar to the one I mentioned in a personal note from some months back that ultimately turned into my column at LargeInCharge Magazine (which, if you haven’t checked out yet, you should right now. My second column is coming out any day now!), but this new project is of even greater magnitude. Plus, that week where my job was extremely busy two weeks ago gave me a lot of time to think. I thought about a whole lot of topics I wanted to write about, but not many of them are necessarily related to current events. So in a matter of speaking, I’m not suffering from a lack of creativity, but an unstable overload of it. April is shaping up to be a very full month for me, but I’m going to do what I can to keep up with the website.

I’ve been so busy lately, as a matter of fact, that last week (Tuesday, to be exact) marked a whole month since I wrote a letter to state Senator Al McAffrey about Citizens United wherein I asked him if he’d be willing to sponsor legislation at the state level to call for a constitutional convention of the states to amend the US constitution and overturn the ruling. To be honest, I was a little shocked I didn’t get a response. Seriously; not even so much as an automated confirmation that he received the message, which makes me worry I may have gotten his e-mail address wrong or sent it to the wrong place. No matter what though, I’m going to try and make it a point to call his office soon, even if only to leave a message about if he got my e-mail or not. I’d prefer it if he read the e-mail before I physically speak with him because so many of my points are better elaborated in it, but still condensed to a moderately short e-mail. Still, you know what they say; beggars can’t be choosers. For all I know his lack of response could have something to do with some weird Oklahoma policy about people from outside his district contacting him (it’s not allowed in some places).

Regardless of what may happen with Senator McAffrey, though, my commitment to campaign finance reform remains the same. If I receive no response from him I have at least one other in-office Oklahoma legislator I’ve considered contacting about the issue, but here soon I may have to just compile a list of the entire state Congress and just start going down it member by member.

In the hours and hours of time over the past couple of weeks I’ve spent in deep thought over political and social issues I started thinking more about the flaws of our two-party system, especially here in Oklahoma where third-party candidates are consistently barred from ballots by the state government and one of only seven states where write-in candidates are not allowed (almost all of those seven are Republican-controlled states as well; not helping their “anti-democracy” image any). Let’s not even get started on independent candidates; the cost of (successfully) running for federal office is minimum $10,000 in some places. No independent, average citizen could ever afford that.

For those that have been around for a while, you may remember my correspondence with my own state Senator, Clark Jolley. One point in particular that I made in an article about why “artificial people” shouldn’t be treated one and the same as real people under the law was in response to the Senator’s claim that transparency laws alone are enough to prevent political corruption. Here’s an excerpt;

You claim that transparency alone is enough to prevent corruption, but that is clearly not true. Do truth in labeling and mandatory nutritional information laws on food prevent people from eating unhealthily? Do warning packages on cigarettes deter people from smoking? You could say that with knowledge people have the freedom to choose such lifestyles despite the fact that they know it’s bad for them, but here’s the problem when applied to politics; we operate on a two-party system. Here in Oklahoma especially, the two-party system is vigorously defended. Both candidates these days receive bribes, be it in the form of direct donations or indirect donations such as political ads and manipulative propaganda, meaning that no matter which candidate a voter picks he or she will still be incentiveized to represent their donors (again, direct or indirect) more than their voting base. To apply this to my food labeling analogy, imagine there were only two companies from which to purchase food, and both companies packed their food full of sodium, sugars, and were generally extremely unhealthy, “empty calorie” foods. Would you make the case that truth in labeling laws would be enough to fix the problem?

It’s my metaphor comparing the political parties to food companies that really stuck with me, and has been rattling around in my brain for a few days. I didn’t answer my own rhetorical in that article for the sake of brevity, but in case it wasn’t clear my point was that transparency, while beneficial, is incapable of solving the problem by itself. This is just as true for companies subjected to truth in labeling laws as it is for politicians that are required to report some forms of donations made to them that get posted on some obscure website somewhere. As a matter of fact, the laws regarding political transparency are no where near as stringent as those of food companies because at least the list of what’s in the food (nutritional information) accompanies the product wherever it goes on its packaging. The same is not true for politicians. We see them every day on TV, read their statements online and in print, and hear their talking points constantly but never in the media do we get to see the “nutritional information” about our politicians. Citizens can go an entire election without knowing the truth behind a politician’s donors, be they contributing directly or indirectly, and that is largely because of the efforts of lawmakers to keep it as “hush hush” as possible and because of a media terrified to actually challenge politicians or call out their donors out of fear of losing access to them, and thus, ratings.

That’s why I recently signed the White House petition to force politicians to have pins and stickers slapped onto their clothing every time they appear before a camera or in Congress displaying all the logos of the companies that have donated to them like a NASCAR driver’s jacket (which, to give credit, I believe Bill Maher was the first to come up with years ago). It’s hardly meant to be taken seriously, but I’d still encourage everyone to sign it to make a point. Right now, despite the assertions of politicians like Senator Jolley, we do not have real transparency. Just like the food company Monsanto just spent a small fortune to prevent their foods containing genetically modified organisms from being labeled as such in the state of California, politicians do whatever is necessary to keep the truth under wraps.

And you want to know why? They’re incentivized to. Just like Monsanto could lose millions in profits if the truth got out, so too could politicians lose millions if we got lists of who their donors were and it is held up in comparison to their voting record. That is why politicians will support laws and policies that make “transparency” laws as weak as possible and the truth nearly impossible to find while simultaneously fighting any reforms to our elections and campaigning, not to mention real strengthening of transparency laws about which they disingenuously boast. If you want real transparency, you’d sign the above petition. Sure, it may be silly and goofy, but hey, it’s something, which is a whole lot better than the nothing or nearly nothing we have now. At least in signing the petition you can acknowledge the cycle of corruption that I’ve just explained and demand better.

On top of that, my thoughts on my food company metaphor extended beyond just transparency laws. Let’s revisit the hypothetical; say there is a country that only has two food companies. The quality of both company’s food has declined significantly over time, resulting in poor health for the nation’s citizens, and even charges of poisoning that caused consumers to get sick and die have been levied against both companies. If word got out about what these two companies actually put in their food via truth-in-labeling laws, or if the companies actually became regulated by the government, people would be much less likely to eat their food and business would go down. The companies would then have a profit motive to actually work together to prevent such regulations and enable them to get away with their corrupted business practices. According to libertarians, this is an example of social cooperation between corporations.

If you couldn’t tell where this is going, the same is just as true for the Democratic and Republican Parties. Republicans are vehemently opposed to campaign finance despite its popularity amongst their base, while Democrats claim to be in favor of it but never actually take action to support it.

Earlier I referred to this as a “duopoly,” and in the legal world a duopoly wherein both companies collaborate to control “the market” is often treated the same as a monopoly or considered a trust. In the political world, “the market” is the free market of ideas, which isn’t manipulated by acts like price gouging as the capitalistic free market is, but rather propaganda and misleading information, which as we all know is put out both by politicians and the media every single damn day.

It’s undeniable that both Democrats and Republicans actively manipulate the “free market” of politics. They often do so collaboratively to prevent voters (the “consumers” of this free market) from learning the truth or having real competition by way of third-party or independent candidates. Just look at how restricted voter rights are here in Oklahoma as I outlined earlier for a prime example of that. In addition, no informed citizen could honestly tell you that political parties in America today are not for-profit organizations based on the massive amounts of special interest cash flowing into the parties as organizations and to the individuals within it.

So really, what’s the legal difference between a corporate trust, and a political one?

*blows off dust from brain’s 11th-grade US History filing cabinet*

Quote from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act:

“Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony…”

The only difference is that we’re talking about political parties and the trade of ideas and philosophies instead of companies or governments and the trade of goods and services. Political parties conspire together to maintain the current power structure, or the Trust made up between the Republican and Democratic Parties, for the purposes of financial profit for them and their organizations. Personally, I see no difference between a for-profit company and a political party any more in this respect, so at the very least from a philosophical perspective, I don’t see why we shouldn’t, or even couldn’t, regulate political parties the same way we do corporations, trusts, and monopolies, and possibly with the very anti-trust laws and policies we already have.

To Senator McAffrey – Wolf-PAC and Citizens United

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By Jay Hansen

I’ve written about Wolf-PAC on this website several times before. Wolf-PAC is a national organization supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and get big money out of politics. Recently, they launched a Google Group called WolfPAC Research. It is a group dedicated entirely to researching information about state legislatures such as legislative calendars, elected officials likely to support the movement, and generally basic, essential information to help the group further its goal. After posting some information about Oklahoma’s legislative calendar I was asked to contact some state lawmakers. For now, I’ve decided to start with just e-mail, but hopefully I can find time to speak with Senators and members of the House eventually. I started with Senator McAffrey, a well-known progressive in the state of Oklahoma, and hope that he is receptive to the idea.

I chose to just do e-mail for now because my own schedule is very chaotic and starting with a nice ice-breaker e-mail that both outlines what we’re doing and even has a little fun doing it (hence my post-script) would be better than playing telephone tag. We’ll just have to see, but right now here’s my little contribution to the movement.

Letter

Dear Senator McAffrey,

My name is Jay Hansen. I’m a life-long and fifth-generation Oklahoman. Both sides of my family came here in the land run and have made it their home ever since, even through the Depression and Dust Bowl. I’m writing you today because there is an issue in America that desperately needs people’s attention, especially those in state governments. America is suffering from a plague of corruption in government by way of special interest money and big donors. As humans, we are incentivized to “work for” the person that signs our paychecks, and now we live in a society where politicians (particularly at the federal level) get tremendous gifts in the way of campaign donations and job offers from massive corporations, banks, and special interest groups. This has created an incentive structure for politicians to not “work for” their actual voting constituents, but rather their donors because of the near-limitless amounts of money and favors they are doing for them. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, if politicians don’t put their voter’s interests first we aren’t living in a real democracy, so as a fair and free democracy, we must act to place strict regulations on campaign finance and end the influence of big money in our elections.

I am a member of an organization called Wolf-PAC. We are a national group working with state legislators across the country to support state-based legislation to call for a constitutional convention of the states in order to pass an amendment to the US constitution ending corporate personhood and overturning the Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. the FEC. Already California, Minnesota, Montana, Vermont, Hawaii, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Texas among other states and smaller municipalities have at least introduced legislation if not passed it through their state Congresses calling for an amendment to get money out of politics. This is not an issue of left or right, liberal or conservative, or red or blue. This is genuinely something to which we can all agree; when a politician represents anyone other than his or her voters, democracy and justice is not being served and it must be rectified. That is why huge majorities of Americans – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – all opposed the Citizens United court ruling, and similarly why our federal Congress’ approval rating is so dismally low. People have figured out that their representatives don’t actually represent them, which is why putting an end to money in politics is entirely in the hands of the states.

I’m writing you to ask if you would be willing to introduce such legislation at the state level here in Oklahoma. I know there will be fierce opposition in such a heavily stacked Congress, but even just introducing the measure could at least start the conversation, and shine a light on those state officials that continue to defend the corruption in our system that now so many average citizens see. There are many reasons as to why such legislation is desperately needed but I chose to first contact you via e-mail for the sake of brevity. I would like to speak with you over the phone about this issue if at all possible, especially if you have further questions, concerns, or just an interest to learn more. I specifically chose to contact you Senator McAffrey because I have heard much about you through the Brennan Society and know you have a track record as a strong progressive willing to stand up for the little guy. There is no greater David and Goliath story of modern America than that of the American citizen versus corporate and special interest in the battle for our Republic, so I hope you can help us.

Thank you for reading my letter, and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Jay Hansen

E-mail: owner@inthereddest.com
Phone (cell): (Not posting this on the website!)
Wolf-PAC Website: http://www.wolf-pac.com/
My personal website: http://www.inthereddest.com

PS – If you didn’t notice, Texas is now listed in the states moving in this direction. This means we’re being beaten by Texas on this issue, Senator McAffrey. I, for one, don’t think I can tolerate that.

America’s Dumbest Senator?

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By Jay Hansen

You know, I spend a lot of my time perusing the progressive blogosphere and media circuits online, and a question seems to be starting to bubble up at increasing rates lately. Is Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma in fact the dumbest member of the Senate? Don’t take my words lightly here; achieving the title of “dumbest” with our current Senate is no small feat. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized as much. But Inhofe has always had his own special brand of crazy that I’ve written about on here several times. I’m also not talking about Congress overall, so members of the House don’t count in this particular question. God knows Congressman Louie Gohmert in Texas gives him a real run for his money, not to mention Representatives Broun, Desjarlais, or Bachmann.

What most recently has drawn out this question is the controversy over the nomination of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to the position of Secretary of Defense by the Obama administration. For those that don’t know, allow me to explain how utterly ridiculous this entire fabricated “controversy” really is.

Hagel, despite being a Republican, is strongly opposed by many Republicans because he once had the audacity to say that he was “not the Senator from Israel, but the Senator from Nebraska” when criticizing the lobbying power Israel has over the US government, and that America’s interests and Israel’s aren’t always identical. He’s also said that war with Iran is not inevitable, and that the Iraq war, in retrospect, did not go well (even though he initially supported it). For these unforgivable transgressions of Republicanism, Hagel was branded as anti-Semitic by neo-conservatives who promptly launched a merciless propaganda campaign against him. Some even went as far as to just flat-out lie in what is one of the best examples I’ve seen of why conservative media, and those that listen to it, fail so hard.

A writer for the right-wing website Breitbart.com wrote an article called “Secret Hagel Donor? White House Ducks Question on ‘Friends of Hamas.’” In the article, Ben Shapiro (author) insinuates that Hagel is receiving funding from an organization called Friends of Hamas. Of course, extensive research has proven that no such organization does exists or ever has existed. Shapiro just made it up out of thin air, and yet his lie quickly spread. Moe Lane from RedState, another conservative website, picked up the lie in an article restating Shapiro’s ridiculous point that if the White House isn’t hiding anything, why won’t they answer their questions? You know, the ones about if the non-existent terrorist organization is funding the current nominee to Secretary of Defense? They just couldn’t imagine any other reason for the White House not responding to their question other than guilt. From there, the same lie goes to Andrew Stiles from the National Review to conservative, “pro-Israel” news organizations Arutz Sheva and Algemeiner. Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt then picked it up and asked Senator Rand Paul about it, who only fed further into the baseless lie by adding to it the credibility of an in-office Senator saying he had “seen the information” and it was “concerning,” even though there’s absolute no real information. Remember; this was completely made up. There is no “Friends of Hamas,” and yet, from there, it gets picked up by the big boys of conservative propaganda; FOX “News.”

Former FOX “News” contributor Mike Huckabee, FOX “Business” host Lou Dobbs, and another National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy all spoke on national television about this “Friends of Hamas” organization. The appropriately named McCarthy even went as far as to say that a “report came out” with details, and added that the White House was “not denying it very vigorously,” thereby giving it the false presence of credibility despite the fact that he just admitted it was both unconfirmed and that the White House was denying it, just not “vigorously” enough for him personally. Frank Gaffney of the right-wing think tank Center for Security Policy threw in his two cents, saying that just because it’s possible these entirely fabricated rumors of Hagel could be true, the Senate should reject his appointment. So apparently, because Republicans brazenly lied enough times about Hagel and got enough people to believe it, Hagel shouldn’t be confirmed. That’s the reasoning of right-wing think tanks.

Republicans continually lied about Hagel, and that didn’t work, so next they bizarrely demanded to know more about the Benghazi attack before confirming him, even though Hagel wasn’t even in the government, let alone the administration, when the attack happened. Throughout the Republican’s obsession with Benghazi, they’ve demanded testimony from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and multiple accounts of who the President had talked to the day of the attack. The spoken word and statements of the White House was not enough, of course, so the next day the White House provided written documentation that the Obama administration had been in communication with the President of Libya on the day of the attack. Finally, when Republican Senators did get a chance to actually interrogate Hagel over Benghazi, they used their time to ask 144 questions about Israel, not Libya, leading to this tragically appropriate SNL skit;

After all of this insanity, and despite the fact that even Senate Republicans acknowledge Hagel’s appointment is inevitable, Republicans still filibustered Hagel’s appointment to Secretary of Defense. This is the very first time in all of US history a cabinet appointment has been successfully filibustered.

And they did all of this because Hagel once said that he works for the American government, not the Israeli government. On top of that, none of the Republican grand-standing even worked; polls of the American people have continually been in Hagel’s favor since his nomination.

Now that you understand how extremely, profoundly deep the idiocy and insanity surrounding the Hagel “controversy” from Republicans is, let’s get back to the man of the hour, Jim Inhofe. Speaking with Josh Rogan from Foreign Policy (magazine), Senator Inhofe said that he could not confirm Hagel because of his “soft stance on Hamas.” What soft stance on Hamas? Who has a soft stance on Hamas? The only possible explanation as to why Inhofe believes Hagel is “soft on Hamas” is because of the completely unfounded claim I’ve just explained to you. At least Senator Rand Paul admitted he had “just heard of that,” and played the fake news like a real politician, neither confirming nor denying belief in it. Inhofe just flat out seems to believe every bullshit story written by conservative bloggers without double-checking it.

That’s not even the lynchpin of this story, though. The logical consistency behind Inhofe’s beliefs is that anyone who at any point in their career showed even the tiniest hint of opposition to Israel or support of Hamas is unfit to serve as Secretary of Defense. Well then, I’ve got some bad news for him; Jim Inhofe could not support Jim Inhofe’s bid for Secretary of Defense.

In 2006, Inhofe said Hamas has done “some good things, even as a terrorist group,” and respected their victory in Palestine’s free and fair democratic elections (even though he disagreed with it). Inhofe even went as far as to compare the work Hamas does to that of America’s largest Christian charity, the Salvation Army. That’s far worse than anything Hagel ever said or did… or, rather, did not say and did not do.

That’s the thing about Inhofe; he’s just so damn brazen sometimes it’s shocking. Remember last year when he went on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about the extremely anti-LGBT legislation being considered in Uganda, also known as the “kill the gays” bill? Inhofe said, and I quote, “I certainly don’t have an idea on these accusations of executing gays,” even though two years earlier I had written him about this exact proposition. Inhofe had an uncomfortably close connection to the organization and people supporting the measure (it was three years ago, I can’t remember all the specifics), so I had to ask him about it. In his response, he specifically cited the legislation in question with great detail, so he did know about it, and voiced his opposition to it. So basically, to add insult to injury, Inhofe openly, directly lied on national TV about his opposition to a bill that executes homosexuals. The one time he was on the right side of history on an LGBT issue and he had to cover it up with a lie – an easily disproven one at that. Classy, Inhofe.

But that’s not even the most brazen I’ve seen Inhofe. I had to dig deep into the records to find this. I’ve been writing my representatives for years and years; long before I created this website. One of my exchanges with Senator Inhofe was about Citizens United when it first happened. Naturally, the first response I got was the typical “I support the agreement because it protects freedom of speech” response, to which I responded with the simple, indisputable fact of human nature that money corrupts, and that the ruling could lead to increased corruption amongst lawmakers. To this day, the brevity of his response shocks me. It, in full, read as follows;

–Originally sent March 26, 2010–

Dear Mr. Hansen:

Thank you for your letter and for sharing your opinions.  As your voice in Washington, D.C., I appreciate being made aware of your views.

It is a great honor to serve the people of Oklahoma as a United States Senator, and I strive always to act in the best interest of our great state.  Please know that I believe in the highest integrity and standards for government officials.  Moreover, I am working diligently to ensure a streamlined and effective federal government.

Again, thank you for your letter. I appreciate you taking the time to inform me of your views. Please do not hesitate to contact my office again with any questions, comments or concerns.

Sincerely,

James M. Inhofe
United States Senator

–End message–

The line “I believe in the highest integrity and standards for government officials” is the one that really blew me away, especially considering how fresh and naive I was to the world of politics at the time of this letter. In that line, Inhofe basically said that he believes politicians are incorruptible; that they are somehow super human and immune to the influential power of money. It stuck with me so much that I remembered to go dig up this letter nearly three years later just for this article. Inhofe, a supposed conservative that preaches about how people shouldn’t trust or depend upon the government, believes that we should have total, constant, blind trust that the politicians running it aren’t corrupt and never put special interest or their donors ahead of their constituents.

But wait; it gets even better. Not only is Inhofe’s ideology inconsistent on this front, not only is it obviously untrue that politicians are always of “high integrity,” but Inhofe himself does not believe it. All it took to completely discredit him was a simple search on Inhofe’s own website for “special interest.” I found a quote of Inhofe talking about the influential power of special interest, particularly environmental organizations, and just replied to his message to point out that his stance on the issue is impossibly contradictory, to believe that politicians are always of “the highest integrity” but can also be “bought” by special interest. Unfortunately, I could not find the original article I linked to him three years ago, but I did find another in which he speaks of special interest which you can read here, though it is not as damning as the original I found.

It may go without saying that I did not get a response to that last message.

It’s not just a fundamental lack of logic or consistency that makes Inhofe the dumbest Senator though, it’s the fundamentals of his beliefs and the purest definition of “stupid” there is. Inhofe is openly anti-science, as I’ve written about before. Even though it’s literally his job to represent the people of the state who suffered the worst man-made climatic and environmental disaster of all time (the Dust Bowl), Inhofe does not believe that man-made climatic disasters are even physically possible. Worse, he believes as much because that would imply humans are more powerful than God since they would be altering His creation. This causes him the mild inconvenience of cognitive dissonance since his religious beliefs make no damn sense in the face of science, fact, and reality, so the rest of humanity has to suffer the fallout of global climate change because Inhofe doesn’t want to admit that his personal interpretation of Christianity may be flawed.

And that’s completely setting aside all the money he’s received from the energy, oil, and other industries that have profit motives to combat environmental regulations and spread lies about global warming not being real, which would just take us back to my previous point about corruption.

But why stop at global warming? If Inhofe believes that an empirically provable science is untrue because of how he personally interpreted the Bible, or because of what his personal sky god told him, what can’t Inhofe deny?

Then again, what would you expect from a guy that endorsed Rick Perry for president.

So maybe it’s time we seriously start to consider whether Inhofe is in fact the dumbest Senator in the United States Senate. Other Senators like Ted Cruz aren’t stupid or dumb at all; they’re intellectual, just insane. Others still like Mitch McConnell are just huge corporate whores that sell-out to the highest bidder, often mandating contradictory and seemingly stupid statements, but still falling short of flat-out stupid.

There’s only two possibilities for Inhofe; either he’s flat-out stupid in that he does not understand science or human nature and forgets his own political ideology regularly, or he’s just so brazen and complacent that he’s realized no matter how directly he tells a bold-face lie, his constituents will never call him out on it. The latter would imply that Inhofe both believes and depends upon the fact that Oklahoma voters are among the dumbest voters in America that are either too stupid to notice his obvious lies or are too closed-minded and juvenile to ever question what their infallible government and politicians tell them. Even then though, especially in the information age where we have things like Google to find out a politician’s track record, doesn’t Inhofe’s carelessness in his brazen lies still involve a great deal of stupidity?

So really, either way, Inhofe could very easily be considered the dumbest Senator in Washington, which is no small feat in today’s Congress. The saddest part about that, though, is that it says more about the people of Oklahoma than it does Inhofe.

Artificial People *Shouldn’t* Be Real People

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By Jay Hansen

Apparently Senator Jolley reads my website because he sent me a response to my latest piece despite me not sending it to him. In all honesty, I’m flattered.

See my initial letter to Senator Jolley here

And Senator Jolley’s initial response here

His latest response:

Hi Jay -

Rather than give me credit for thinking up the term “artificial person” or think that I just invented that, you should consult the legal history of the last 200+ years.  In my business law class, By the way, here are the historical reasons why our legal system uses the term “artificial persons”

http://thelawdictionary.org/artificial-persons/

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/artificial+person

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/artificial_person

Hope this further helps explain the dilemma your email suggest. You are wanting to alter rights of an “artificial person” – a term which has been around since well before the 18th century.

Clark

End Message

Allow me to start by saying I wasn’t so much intending to attribute the creation of the phrase “artificial people” to you so much as point out the ironic, even Orwellian, nature of the argument that “artificial people are real people” when phrased that particular way. I’ve changed the title of this piece accordingly. I’m well aware of the fact that law regarding such artificial people goes back a very long time, and that there has been significant judicial precedent at least since the late 19th century from the case Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad. The entire argument, the very discussion that is to be had on the issue of campaign finance, is whether we should continue this precedent and if corporations (among other artificial people) should in fact still count as “people” and if they are entitled to the same rights thereof.

At the time of their enactments centuries ago, laws and court rulings may have made more sense given the power and scope of artificial people at the time. Much like our founding fathers could have never predicted such powerful surveillance and communication technology as we have now when writing the constitution and creating our rights to privacy and civil liberties, initial supporters of laws from so long ago in regards to artificial people had no idea of understanding just how exponentially more powerful and wealthy corporations and special interest groups of the 21st century ultimately became. Frankly, I believe arguments defending such artificial people didn’t even make sense back then, let alone now, but so much is history and not really worth litigating now. What’s law is law, what’s policy is policy, what’s happened has happened. The question I’m now asking is if the time has come to think of the entire idea of artificial people differently, especially given our ever-changing, ever-advancing, ever-shrinking world.

To my understanding, most law in regards to artificial people’s involvement in politics has involved interpretation of standing law such as the first amendment. At the very least, the current laws of the land have been determined in this way with the Citizens United court case. Given that, most of the law regarding artificial people is based in judicial precedent. Precedent alone is no reason to continue a certain policy. How long did we have the precedent of separate but equal? Did its duration make it any more right? How many years has it been since the Roe v. Wade decision? Would you accept the simple fact that it is the current legal precedent of the Supreme Court in a debate over abortion as reason in and of itself to keep it legal? The last I heard the state of Oklahoma is continuing to challenge the Affordable Care Act in court despite the fact that the Supreme Court has already ruled it constitutional, thereby establishing a precedent. Do you accept the law simply because there is precedent behind it, or do you support state efforts to combat health care reform in court?

These decisions may not be as old as many in regards to the rights of artificial people, but my point is the same; precedent on its own is not reason to continue a policy. More than that, your points about there already being established law about artificial people does nothing to actually defeat the arguments I made in my previous piece. Artificial people have access to near-limitless resources the likes of which real people simply don’t. Artificial people do not generate their own worth and income. Artificial people are not always held to the same consequences of violating the law, and therefore do not always have the same obligation or responsibility to obey it, as real US citizens does. Artificial people, from both inside and outside of the United States, use their monumental power and influence to manipulate elections in which they would otherwise have no input. All of these things combined create an incentive structure for politicians to represent them more than the actual, real people they are elected to serve because of their colossal power and money.

Which brings me to something I have to point out; you never actually answered my primary point from my initial letter. Do you understand that human beings, in their nature, can be corrupted with money? Do you believe that politicians are somehow superhuman and incorruptible by the influence of money?  If you don’t, and you believe politicians are just people capable of being corrupted by money as any other, then you are supporting and perpetuating a system of political corruption, because the incentive structure established primarily by artificial people in this country is almost undeniable.

In your first letter, you posed me two hypotheticals wherein one a small business owner wants to donate a few hundred dollars to a friend’s political campaign, and a second where a national special interest group purchases time on a media outlet to broadcast a smear movie about a particular candidate. Your main point in this letter seemed to be that we cannot have one of these hypotheticals without the other also being legal and protected, and that the former of these two must be legally protected. Does this mean you believe the latter of these two hypotheticals is still ethical and permissible in a democratic society? Does this mean you endorse artificial people manipulating the voting populace however they want, for whatever reason they want?

You claim that transparency alone is enough to prevent corruption, but that is clearly not true. Do truth in labeling and mandatory nutritional information laws on food prevent people from eating unhealthily? Do warning packages on cigarettes deter people from smoking? You could say that with knowledge people have the freedom to choose such lifestyles despite the fact that they know it’s bad for them, but here’s the problem when applied to politics; we operate on a two-party system. Here in Oklahoma especially, the two-party system is vigorously defended. Both candidates these days receive bribes, be it in the form of direct donations or indirect donations such as political ads and manipulative propaganda, meaning that no matter which candidate a voter picks he or she will still be incentiveized to represent their donors (again, direct or indirect) more than their voting base. To apply this to my food labeling analogy, imagine there were only two companies from which to purchase food, and both companies packed their food full of sodium, sugars, and were generally extremely unhealthy, “empty calorie” foods. Would you make the case that truth in labeling laws would be enough to fix the problem?

Don’t get me wrong; I agree that transparency is very important, but it in and of itself is not a fix to the deep-seeded corruption in government today. Saying that it is brushes off the issue as insignificant when clearly America suffers from an epidemic of corruption by special interest and big money. The only way to fix this problem is to overrule the Supreme Court with a constitutional amendment specifying that corporations, among other artificial people, are not the same as real people. I’m not saying that artificial people have no rights; of course they’re entitled to rights and protections under the law. It’s just ridiculous to continue to argue that they deserve the same rights as real people, as was the core of my argument in my last piece. Once that is done, then we can actually begin to have a real conversation about limitations and restrictions on campaign finance again in this nation.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for reading my website.