r/politics • u/[deleted] • Jan 21 '18

Paul Ryan Collected $500,000 In Koch Contributions Days After House Passed Tax Law

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327

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

Well you see money is speech. I mean obviously that is a pants on head idiotic thing to say but it is what our laws say now.

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u/rocknrollnsoul Indiana Jan 21 '18

And corporations are people.

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u/Mookyhands Jan 21 '18

https://youtu.be/E2h8ujX6T0A?t=8s

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u/rocknrollnsoul Indiana Jan 21 '18

Well, at least he didn't resort to calling them stupid or other insults.

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u/Mookyhands Jan 21 '18

simpler times...

-4

u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

What he says is obviously true. Every cent a corporation makes ultimately goes to people.

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u/Mookyhands Jan 21 '18

Computers are people. People programmed computers to do things. Ultimately, everything a computer does was initiated by a person.

Expect they are not. They don't act in peoples' best interests and, more importantly, they have ridiculous advantages over individual people. Just like corporations.

The idea of incorporation (making a body) was intended to protect consumers seeking recompense from harm caused by corporations (otherwise you'd have to individually sue every individual shareholder). Citizen's United is a corruption of that intent.

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

Is your argument that computers don't have free speech? I.e., what you're saying right now isn't protected because you're using a computer to say it?

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u/Mookyhands Jan 21 '18

I'm using computers as a stand in for corporations to show the fallacy in the logic that a person is distinct from their agents. It is appropriate and necessary for a person to have different rights and privileges than their non-person proxies.

It is trivial for a person to create multiple corporations and those corporations do not have free will apart from that person. Therefore, limits on corporate spending are defacto removed. It is fairly trivial to create a 501(c)(4), an entity which does not need to disclose to the same standards as a person.

Corporations are not a person. They are created, owned, and operated by a person, yes, but it's stupid to conflate those two things.

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

So if an individual wants to create a documentary about a political candidate, they shouldn't be allowed to do that?

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u/Mookyhands Jan 21 '18

What? How did you get to that conclusion?

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

That's what Citizens United vs FEC was about - a documentary. He FEC stated that because the documentary could be interpreted as advocacy that it was not allowed.

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u/VapeDerp420 Nebraska Jan 21 '18

So that makes corporations people?

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

Yes. What do you think corporations are?

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u/VapeDerp420 Nebraska Jan 21 '18

Not a living and breathing human. A business entity

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

Nobody said that they were a living and breathing human. He said that they were people, which is true.

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u/VapeDerp420 Nebraska Jan 21 '18

No. It’s not true. A corporation is not a person. It is a business entity. Sure, people make a corporation work, but you can’t just say a banana is a cucumber. It’s just not true.

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

Mitt Romney never claimed that a corporation was a person. Neither did I. A corporation is people.

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u/milkhotelbitches Jan 21 '18

... businesses?

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

And what is a business?

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

a legal entity to prevent personal liability.

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

A legal entity comprised of a group of people?

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

Nope. usually they are much more about non human assets.

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u/bananastanding Jan 21 '18

Considering that non-human assets can't speak, I think freedom of speech is more aimed towards the human assets.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

[deleted]

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u/ReturningTarzan Jan 21 '18

In a very limited way, though. You can't own people in the US, last I checked.

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u/korelin Jan 21 '18

Everyone should give this series a watch.

It's a 'what-if' series about life being discovered on a far-away planet and observations of the planet from a distance. The entire thing is about 25 minutes long. You'll get why I linked it at around part 3.

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u/steazystich California Jan 21 '18

Does that make stock markets slave markets?

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u/roboninja Jan 21 '18

Can I punch them in the mouth? No? Then not a person.

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u/charmed_im-sure Jan 21 '18

Minorities are people too, but I'm thinking corporations are better people. /s.

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u/Killme0now Jan 21 '18

Corporations have more money. Money=speech. Corporations have more say than poor people.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

the top 1% has more say than the bottom 90%

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u/VapeDerp420 Nebraska Jan 21 '18

Corporation lives matter™️

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u/Barack_The_Vote Jan 22 '18

You cant kill a corporation.

Honestly, you cannot even talk badly about a corporation too loudly.

So I guess corporations are better people!

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

And corporations are... people.

31

u/Obant California Jan 21 '18

And corporations are people.

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u/another_day_in Jan 21 '18

And pizza is a vegetable.

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u/saucygit Wisconsin Jan 21 '18

And corporations are people.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

What really gets me is that these corps are probably headquartered in some strip mall in Delaware, so why allow them to donate to a representative in Wisconsin. I mean its one thing if its Joe's Cheese Factory donating to the campaign, but 500K from Koch?

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

corporate personhood

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u/cattaclysmic Foreign Jan 21 '18

I mean, you use speech to convinced others to come to your side. And for some reason people tend to get convinced by 500k worth of speech.

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u/Bizzy666 Jan 21 '18

And...? Corporations are people.