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Ok. Can we agree on one thing?

That "money as speech" concept is as outdated as "lemonade stand" economic theory?

Ok. Let's put this in perspective.

Let's use Bezos. He makes 78 billion dollars a year. When the number is that large it is hard to keep a perspective.

A middle class person, say a county judge, makes about 191,000 per year. That's not a bad living. A minimum wage worker who works full time (with $15 as the minimum wage) makes about 30,000 per year. That's a tough living. The judge makes about 6.3 times more than the minimum wage worker. Bezos, however, makes 408,377 times more than the judge. That is, a judge would have to work 408,376 years in order to make a year's worth of money that Bezos makes. That's longer than the recorded human history (5000 years).

That's just one example.

For that minimum wage person who struggles to make a living, there isn't the leisure to learn about the political workings of the national government, let alone participate meaningfully at it.

Now put that perspective on the arguments made by a defender of "money is speech"

"The 1st Amendment guarantees freedom, not equality. Rights are exercised to radically unequal degrees, and the right to speech is no exception. Some people are wealthy and can push their views with their money."

Now how much of that 30K do you think the minimum wage worker can use as "speech"? And how would that measure up against 78,000,000,000 speech that belongs to Bezos?

AtheistReader 7 Dec 4
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One of the worst decisions in the history of the court. A major threat to our democracy. A larger threat than the Russians and Chinese by a long shot.

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Money being equal to speech in our political and legal system, along with the corruption it causes in our politics due to this legalized form of bribery, is the fundamental problem with the US. Until this is fixed, our real, longstanding problems that make life harsh and grossly unfair to workers and the rest of the 99%, will never be solved and our government will serve only corporations, the rich, and Wall Street. The answer is to get rid of legal protection for campaign donations as being speech which cannot be regulated, and replace our current system with public financing of campaigns, along with restoration of the Fairness Doctrine and required free air time for all qualified candidates in elections. Like there already is in Europe.

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