The Glade 4.0

Which IMHO is wrong. Unions and corporations are not individuals. They are organizations that have their own agendas, offering up carrots to their members to forward those agendas, which are notoriously short sighted and usually without regard for long term consequences.

I tend to agree. However...you don't. If, as you keep trying to tell me, corporations aren't evil, then corporations don't make decisions--people do. And those corporations won't spend money to influence an election unless the people who make the decisions okay it and approve the influence. And those people...are just people. There's no difference between the corporation spending a bunch of money to influence the election, than 'Joe Plumber' (or Bill Gates, for that matter) doing the same.

I believe that corporations, just like organized religions, worker's unions, and governments, form organic "meta-entities" that have behavior encoded right into their structure, and it takes massive changes--far beyond merely swapping executives or board of directors--alterations to the basic structure and design of the organizations, to fundamentally change their behavior in any meaningful way. So yes, that leads to concerns when it comes to campaign spending.

Which IMHO is wrong. Unions and corporations are not individuals. They are organizations that have their own agendas, offering up carrots to their members to forward those agendas, which are notoriously short sighted and usually without regard for long term consequences.

What's your source for this, out of curiosity?

Then you misunderstand the essential position I take on government, and corporations. You are correct that both of them are the very similar constructs. Which is why they both must be heaviliy regulated. We just handed government over to private corporations. Yes, those are comprised of individuals. Those individuals control an inordinate amount of power now that there is no limit to the amount of money those individuals can spend through their company. Individuals are actually more limited in their ability to donate now than corporations are.

Furthermore, we just handed over the reigns of power to foreign multinational corporations, which can now spend an unlimited amount of foreign money to influence our domestic politics. The USA used to be a representative democracy. Now, that democracy will only represents the interests of these entities, which is to say, the interests of the few humans that control them.

We're seriously ****.

Then you misunderstand the essential position I take on government, and corporations. You are correct that both of them are the very similar constructs. Which is why they both must be heaviliy regulated. We just handed government over to private corporations. Yes, those are comprised of individuals. Those individuals control an inordinate amount of power now that there is no limit to the amount of money those individuals can spend through their company. Individuals are actually more limited in their ability to donate now than corporations are.

Furthermore, we just handed over the reigns of power to foreign multinational corporations, which can now spend an unlimited amount of foreign money to influence our domestic politics. The USA used to be a representative democracy. Now, that democracy will only represents the interests of these entities, which is to say, the interests of the few humans that control them.

We're seriously ****.

Top 10 Heavy Hitters:
AT&T Inc $44,027,485
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $41,751,311
National Assn of Realtors $35,438,725
Goldman Sachs $31,413,462
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $31,359,957
American Assn for Justice $31,319,029
National Education Assn $30,068,167
Laborers Union $28,814,400
Service Employees International Union $27,911,232
Carpenters & Joiners Union $27,769,683

Corporations consolidate their power, through money, in a way that individuals simply cannot compete with.

Look, free speech is essential to a democracy. However, when you have something like corporate money tipping the scales, you eliminate the value of that speech. It changes from the quality of an idea to the quantity of a talking point, ad campaigns, and what essentially amounts to psyops on our own people. And again, I have to point out that the conservative supreme court just opened our democratic process up to influence from foreign companies.

Wow. Those are mostly all Unions....

How does an organization "offer up a carrot" to forward "those agendas?"

If it isn't a person, it cannot have an independent agenda.

Look, I have an issue with them being treated as individuals too, but if you (and many others here) are going to rail against it, you need to become more cohesive in your arguments, as Talya pointed out to Monty earlier.

Other than the fact that individuals do not have members (in the sense meant here, to head off the sexual innuendo) how is this any different from individuals?

There are numerous examples of those carrots. Everything from money, better benefits, gifts, etc.

I didn't say it was an independent agenda, so much as it was an organizational agenda. Yes, those agendas are set by the leadership of those organizations, but again they are short sighted things typically focused on short term financial gain, and often don't take into account long term consequences. And because of the amount of power/wealth that can be amassed by those company agendas, the carrot is VERY large for the leadership.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

The biggest difference is the amount of influence/damage that can be done by corporations and unions.

The average individual doesn't have $44 Million to throw around on driving their political agenda.

Aizle:

Barack Obama exceeded your $44,000,000 mark with his campaign.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

So what?

There are numerous examples of those carrots. Everything from money, better benefits, gifts, etc.

I didn't say it was an independent agenda, so much as it was an organizational agenda. Yes, those agendas are set by the leadership of those organizations, but again they are short sighted things typically focused on short term financial gain, and often don't take into account long term consequences. And because of the amount of power/wealth that can be amassed by those company agendas, the carrot is VERY large for the leadership.

Aizle:

Does it matter if Obama did it personally or through the collective donations received by a de facto organization. It would seem, at least to me, that all the Court ruling does is legitimate how political campaigns are currently run.