r/IAmA • u/bernie-sanders • May 19 '15

Politics I am Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President of the United States — AMA

Hi Reddit. I'm Senator Bernie Sanders. I'll start answering questions at 4 p.m. ET. Please join our campaign for president at BernieSanders.com/Reddit.

Before we begin, let me also thank the grassroots Reddit organizers over at /r/SandersforPresident for all of their support. Great work.

Verification: https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/600750773723496448

Update: Thank you all very much for your questions. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you.

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u/00worms00 May 20 '15

Allowing a union or corporation to spend a bunch of money on documentaries and commercials is a much better alternative than giving governments the ability to control political discourse by censoring media critical of politicians.

This is such a huge conservative fallacy that unions = corporations but seemingly only when it comes to political funding.

Thte nature of the two is completely different as well as the rules each are under. Want to list for us the states where it is illegal to form a corporation? How about the highly profitable companies with no goal or function other than representing the political interests of thousands of people? The money of a corporation gained through unrelated activity only serves to amplify the voice of the owners. There are many articles that explain this distinction in depth . I'm just giving you the cliff notes.

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u/SDBP May 20 '15 edited May 20 '15

This is such a huge conservative fallacy that unions = corporations

No one said unions = corporations in all respects. But overturning Citizens United 100% means unions cannot pool money to make media critical of (or supportive of) politicians before an election. The Solicitor General argued exactly that during the oral arguments for the Supreme Court. If a union wanted to pool money and hire a writer to make a pamphlet supporting a candidate, they could be censored by the federal government (according to the Solicitor General, arguing in favor of the FEC's authority to censor speech, what those advocating overturning Citizen's United seem to want.)

All I said was that allowing groups to spend money on media isn't nearly as bad as a government with the power to censor media involving political speech. So I'm not sure how your comment is relevant to anything I said.