Source: https://dalehusband.com/2010/06/10/shane-killian-sells-out/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 22:47:01+00:00

Document:
But that was before he started also producing videos about economics and politics. Then he went off the deep end!
When I started doing political videos in addition to science videos, I knew already that many intelligent and skeptical people turn it all off and become dogmatists in the political arena, but I had no idea I’d have to go as basic as explaining what the free market is. With so much written about it, so much information freely available, not understanding this is akin to not understanding why sunrise is an illusion. When someone as intelligent as Thunderf00t doesn’t even understand it, you realize that this is a serious problem, and something must be done. So this video is going VERY basic, about what the free market is, and what it is not.
When attempting to appeal to your audience, do not insult them first. Stating your opinion should be enough.
And Shane NEVER attempted to refute CodeNameDoug’s rebuttal, not with comments on CodeNameDoug’s video, nor with a video of his own. FAIL!
Watch the part from 3:50 to 6:57, which Killian was trying to refute.
It should be noted that you can have a truly free market economy without slavery and you can also have capitalism with slavery. That slavery has been abolished is itself a limit on the issue of “property rights”. There are no absolutes when it comes to such issues.
As Thunderfoot noted, under capitalism profit, and the economic power that comes with it, is considered good. It is also considered inevitable, as Shane Killian said. Why Killian would try to deny the obvious idea that profit is good (if it isn’t, why would most people persue it even in non-capitalist economies?) is a mystery to me.
But rather than take the hint, Killian kept making a fool of himself.
And again, Shane Killian never answered the rebuttal.
Uh, he argues that corporations should be allowed to spend all the money they want to publish or broadcast ads promoting candidates they favor up to the time of an election, and calls anyone who disagrees with him liars. WTF? But corporations are NOT people, and spending money to promote a candidate is NOT free speech! If it is, then giant corporations like ExxonMobil and McDonald’s would have a louder voice in elections than any grassroots movement imaginable, including labor unions and most non-profit organizations like the James Randi Educational Foundation that Killian mentioned. The reason is obvious to most people, but appearantly not to a Libertarian fanatic like Killian: such corporations provide essential goods and services to the public, while most non-profit groups do not. Therefore, unions and other special interest groups will ALWAYS have less money to spend on campaigns than giant for-profit corporations. Also, corporations can be taken over and run by non-Americans who in turn can endorse financially any candidates in America they happen to favor right up to an election, thus threatening America’s independence. Is Killian not familiar with the issue of “unintended consequences”?
So when Shane Killian claims to be against the “corporatism” that he says dominates America’s economy, I think he is LYING! Hey, he called others liars, including me, so this is payback!
@mrgetrealpeople Competition, real life, the fact that it’s impossible… MAN, you dogmatists are paranoid!
So, what exactly is one SUPPOSED to do if one finds out that someone has lied? If the mere act of saying that someone lied makes you lose credibility, then how can ANYONE be called out a liar?
Bottom line: the decision DOES NOT DO WHAT THEY SAY IT DID. Not even CLOSE.
@shanedk How did you prove anyone to be a liar in your video? All you did was contradict them and spin it to make the Supreme Court decision look like a gift to the people. Sorry, I don’t beleive that in the long run that will be the case.
@DaleHusband Now YOU’RE the one lying. I QUOTED the decision. I showed it saying something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to what they claim it says.
And you keep attacking me with NO evidence for your claims. That’s dogmatist behavior. You’re protecting your cult leaders, nothing more.
@shanedk Again, you are calling me a liar because I disagree with you. Yes, you quoted the decision, but you only the part of it you wanted us to see. And is it “dogmatic” to say that the Supreme Court decision gives total freedom to corporations like Exxon and McDonald’s to finance candidates who will them [sic] , once elected, push for deregulation and more corporate bailouts, among other things?
@DaleHusband Ah, the part I WANTED you to see. Okay, fine: why don’t YOU quote the part of the decision backing up what they’re saying? You could have done that at ANY point; I even LINKED TO THE ENTIRE DECISION IN THE VIDEO INFO BOX. Why don’t you? People who AREN’T liars do that kind of thing. People who ARE just keep doing what you’re doing.
Actually, the 500 character limit of commenting on YouTube videos would have prevented me from quoting the Supreme Court decision to show what I was concerned about. Hence this new blog entry.
2. Austin is overruled, and thus provides no basis for allowing the Government to limit corporate independent expenditures. Hence, §441b’s restrictions on such expenditures are invalid and cannot be applied to Hillary. Given this conclusion, the part of McConnell that upheld BCRA §203’s extension of §441b’s restrictions on independent corporate expenditures is also overruled. Pp. 20–51. (a) Although the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions. It is a ban notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak, for a PAC is a separate association from the corporation. Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence. Laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 464. This language provides a sufficient framework for protecting the interests in this case. Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or viewpoints or to distinguish among different speakers, which may be a means to control content. The Government may also commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers. There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic lead to this conclusion. Pp. 20–25.
(b) The Court has recognized that the First Amendment applies to corporations, e.g., First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti , 435 U. S. 765 , and extended this protection to the context of political speech, see, e.g., NAACP v. Button , 371 U. S. 415 . Addressing challenges to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the Buckley Court upheld limits on direct contributions to candidates, 18 U. S. C. §608(b), recognizing a governmental interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. 424 U. S., at 25–26. However, the Court invalidated §608(e)’s expenditure ban, which applied to individuals, corporations, and unions, because it “fail[ed] to serve any substantial governmental interest in stemming the reality or appearance of corruption in the electoral process,” id. , at 47–48. While Buckley did not consider a separate ban on corporate and union independent expenditures found in §610, had that provision been challenged in Buckley ’s wake, it could not have been squared with the precedent’s reasoning and analysis. The Buckley Court did not invoke the overbreadth doctrine to suggest that §608(e)’s expenditure ban would have been constitutional had it applied to corporations and unions but not individuals. Notwithstanding this precedent, Congress soon recodified §610’s corporate and union expenditure ban at 2 U. S. C. §441b, the provision at issue. Less than two years after Buckley, Bellotti reaffirmed the First Amendment principle that the Government lacks the power to restrict political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity. 435 U.S., at 784–785. Thus the law stood until Austin upheld a corporate independent expenditure restriction, bypassing Buckley and Bellotti by recognizing a new governmental interest in preventing “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of [corporate] wealth … that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” 494 U. S., at 660. Pp. 25–32.
(c) This Court is confronted with conflicting lines of precedent: a pre- Austin line forbidding speech restrictions based on the speaker’s corporate identity and a post- Austin line permitting them. Neither Austin ’s antidistortion rationale nor the Government’s other justifications support §441b’s restrictions. Pp. 32–47.
(1) The First Amendment prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for engaging in political speech, but Austin ’s antidistortion rationale would permit the Government to ban political speech because the speaker is an association with a corporate form. Political speech is “indispensable to decisionmaking in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.” Bellotti, supra, at 777 (footnote omitted). This protection is inconsistent with Austin ’s rationale, which is meant to prevent corporations from obtaining “ ‘an unfair advantage in the political marketplace’ ” by using “ ‘resources amassed in the economic marketplace.’ ” 494 U. S., at 659. First Amendment protections do not depend on the speaker’s “financial ability to engage in public discussion.” Buckley , supra, at 49. These conclusions were reaffirmed when the Court invalidated a BCRA provision that increased the cap on contributions to one candidate if the opponent made certain expenditures from personal funds. Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n , 554 U. S. ___, ___. Distinguishing wealthy individuals from corporations based on the latter’s special advantages of, e.g., limited liability, does not suffice to allow laws prohibiting speech. It is irrelevant for First Amendment purposes that corporate funds may “have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” Austin, supra, at 660. All speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech, and the First Amendment protects the resulting speech. Under the antidistortion rationale, Congress could also ban political speech of media corporations. Although currently exempt from §441b, they accumulate wealth with the help of their corporate form, may have aggregations of wealth, and may express views “hav[ing] little or no correlation to the public’s support” for those views. Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment , and there is no support for the view that the Amendment’s original meaning would permit suppressing media corporations’ political speech. Austin interferes with the “open marketplace” of ideas protected by the First Amendment . New York State Bd. of Elections v. Lopez Torres , 552 U. S. 196 . Its censorship is vast in its reach, suppressing the speech of both for-profit and nonprofit, both small and large, corporations. Pp. 32–40.
(2) This reasoning also shows the invalidity of the Government’s other arguments. It reasons that corporate political speech can be banned to prevent corruption or its appearance. The Buckley Court found this rationale “sufficiently important” to allow contribution limits but refused to extend that reasoning to expenditure limits, 424 U.S., at 25, and the Court does not do so here. While a single Bellotti footnote purported to leave the question open, 435 U. S., at 788, n. 26, this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy. Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co. , 556 U. S. ___, distinguished. Pp. 40–45.
(3) The Government’s asserted interest in protecting shareholders from being compelled to fund corporate speech, like the antidistortion rationale, would allow the Government to ban political speech even of media corporations. The statute is underinclusive; it only protects a dissenting shareholder’s interests in certain media for 30 or 60 days before an election when such interests would be implicated in any media at any time. It is also overinclusive because it covers all corporations, including those with one shareholder. P. 46.
(d) The relevant factors in deciding whether to adhere to stare decisis, beyond workability—the precedent’s antiquity, the reliance interests at stake, and whether the decision was well reasoned—counsel in favor of abandoning Austin, which itself contravened the precedents of Buckley and Bellotti. As already explained, Austin was not well reasoned. It is also undermined by experience since its announcement. Political speech is so ingrained in this country’s culture that speakers find ways around campaign finance laws. Rapid changes in technology—and the creative dynamic inherent in the concept of free expression—counsel against upholding a law that restricts political speech in certain media or by certain speakers. In addition, no serious reliance issues are at stake. Thus, due consideration leads to the conclusion that Austin should be overruled. The Court returns to the principle established in Buckley and Bellotti that the Government may not suppress political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity. No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations. Pp. 47–50.
Is ExxonMobil a corporation? Yes. Does this mean ExxonMobil can take its vast profits and use them to put out ads to support the campaigns of candidates it favors, right up to election day? Yes! And does this imply that such politicians, once elected, would do favors for ExxonMobil in return for those contributions from it that promoted them earlier? YES! That’s already been happening for decades and can only get WORSE now!
BTW, Killian claims in his video on the free market…..
slavery, by definition, cannot exist in a free market. Slavery is every bit as antithetical to the free market as government tyranny.
But the U S Constitution permitted slavery when it was first ratified. American slavery involved black people being bought and sold openly and freely, without government intervention. And it took a Civil War and a new Constitutional Amendment rammed through by an anti-slavery congress and state governments to abolish it. So is Killian claiming that a free market didn’t exist in America until then? Of course it did! And wouldn’t the slaveholders of the South regard the actions of the Union in abolishing slavery and forcing them to give up their slaves as government tyranny? Indeed they did! What confusing “logic” Killian employs!
But we’re NOT primarily a capitalist society! We’re primarily a CORPORATIST society, and have been for full on a century now! These are NOT problems stemming from the free market. The reasons for the racial disparity stem from government actions.
Now let’s put it all together: you’re a young black person in a poor area. The government’s housing projects have essentially segregated you from the rest of society. Few businesses are going to want to come into the area because of the high crime rates caused by the War on Drugs. They might be willing to take on that risk if they can get costs low enough, but Minimum Wage laws nix that possibility. If you try to start your own business, you hit road blocks set up by our corporatist government, in the form of regulations, licensing laws, and so forth. Pretty much your only option to keep from starving is to sell drugs, or go into prostitution or some other black market activity–a dangerous activity, and one that is not even very profitable for the lowest rungs of black market distribution systems.
There is no guarantee that any “free market” will end these racial problems. That is entirely an unfounded assumption of Shane Killian. In the absence of government force, in fact, white owned businesses may once again be free to refuse service to blacks and other minorities, as they did in the South for decades. It took government force to stop that.
And how is letting corporations have MORE influence over elections supposed to end the “corporatism” Killian sees as one of the problems in American society? It WON’T! It will only worsen the problem, as anyone with a sincere and consistent sense of logic can see.
If we can imprison terrorist suspects at Gitmo for years without trial, in clear defiance of the Bill of Rights, anything desired by the corporations can happen!
Just as slavery had to be abolished by a new Constitutional Amendment, so we also need a new Constitutional Amendment abolishing the granting of any rights of for-profit corporations to contribute money to political campaigns. Let’s do it NOW!
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