People have a right to unlimited spending on their own political speech.

(Not that it will be decided here on debate. org or anything grandiose like that, but nevertheless, it's a crucial question for us to discuss. ) I hope to win this debate in the eyes of people on debate. org, but I also hope to convince my opponent, in case parsimony23 is ever arguing this case in front of the Supreme Court; it would be comforting to know that ol' Pars would be arguing my side of the issue. Now that being said, I think that most definitional issues have been clarified. Not all of them, however: what exactly counts as the actions of a single political actor? Is my opponent excluding all contributions and donations from groups of organizations to other organizations -- including Super PACS? Well, my opponent says that Corporations are assemblies of individuals (which is a problematic political characterization as we will soon see) but if we accept my opponent's logic, then a PAC or Super PAC representing a group of corporations would also be an assembly of corporate persons, which may not be exactly the same thing as an assembly of individual people ontymologically speaking, but hell, if corporations have the same 1st Amendment rights as the rest of us, why wouldn't groups of corporations in PACs or Super PACs? The scope of this debate would be ridiculously narrow if Super PACs are excluded. Now on the issue of corporate personhood, my opponent tried to cite precedent: It is worth noting that neither case which my opponent cited was a ruling about corporate personhood. There is, in fact, judicial precedent negating the rights of corporations as citizens or persons who are entitled to equal protection of the laws. See, e. g. , Paul v. Virginia, (75 US 168 [1869]) and Munn v. Illinois, (94 U. S. 113 [1877]) . [1]. The idea that corporations are mere "assemblies of individuals" obscures the hierarchical structure of corporations. When Verizon's executives choose to spend money on a political ad, are they really speaking for all 177,000 of their employees? Do the employees of said company, the people whose labor is necessary for the generation of money going into those ads, do they really agree with the Executives on every matter? Even the ones who want to unionize? Furthermore, does every single stock/shareholder approve of their company's political activities? Are corporations assemblies of individuals? Well, in a sense they are, but if a company can speak with one "voice" on political matters than it would have to be an assembly of like minded people. "Money is not speech; it is, however unfortunately, essential to speech insofar as a political actor wants to send its message by some means beyond standing atop a roof and shouting at the top of its lungs. " Well there you have it: money is not speech! Is it really essential to speech? Is standing atop a roof and shouting at the top of one's lungs the only alternative to spending vast sums of money? I can say whatever I want, looking into my webcam, I can post it on youtube and I can spread my message via social media. I can go to a rally and carry a sign and chant slogans (closest thing to the rooftop scenario, but it has the power of other people doing the same thing). I can write, call, email, or send twitter messages to elected officials. Why is money essential to the speech of other political actors if I can speak my mind without money, and if I don't have the option of burning 100K - 10 milion dollars on the American's for Apple Pie (revolving doors, subsidies, and bailouts) Super PAC? In a true free contest of ideas, my ideas should have just as much weight as Enron's. Extending on Contention 2: Pfizer shouldn't be able to drown out the sound of my speech with it's "speech" (though as my opponent points out, money does not equate speech). ". .. 'money primary' and 'donor class. ' Unless I misunderstand them, these terms are, at best, rhetorical devices, which I believe have no place here". Both terms are quite real. Let us consider the facts, and as we do so, I'll be elaborating on contention 1. There is a money primary before the primaries begin, and half of the money comes from a small class of donors. By August 2015, fewer than 400 families had contributed nearly HALF of all the money raised. In the case of the GOP, more than half of all their money had come from 130 families. [2]. My opponent says we need to empower the disenfranchised, I'm mystified as to how we can do this when the incredibly enfranchised have this much power (without campaign finance laws). My opponent speaks of the might and power of the USFG -- in my mind, a key reason to stop it's domination by an elite. Sources: [1]. . http://reclaimdemocracy.org...;[2] . http://www.nytimes.com...;