Sorry if I am making this blog all-citizens-united-all-the-time, but Volokh’s blog is decidedly libertarian (which is defined by some wags as “a Republican who smokes pot”) so of course they are thrilled with the decision. But hey, if all they are doing is say, “Yay for us!” I wouldn’t bother to pass it on to you. But this kind of illuminates the issue.
For one thing, did you know that many states already allowed corporations to speak freely about elections before Citizens United? One is Maryland, or as we call it across the river in Virginia, “The People’s Republic of Maryland.” It’s not exactly a red state is all I am saying. So even the Democrats' unconstitutional argument that we should suppress that speech because they will lose elections fails, because clearly it doesn’t hurt them that much.
Bring that up next time a liberal claims that this is a coup d’état. Ah, never mind. I mean no one would be that stupid, right?
Hey, speaking of celebrities, remember how it was against the law for foreigners to help out federal candidates. Righ?. So then why was Elton John able to give a concert benefitting Hillary Clinton?
And that my friends is exactly what is wrong with McCain-Feingold and all “campaign finance reform” and why we have to kill it. Because the behavior of the FEC can at best be described as arbitrary.
Yeah, you heard me say it. Let everyone contribute. And make everyone disclose, disclose, disclose.
And to those complaining about foreign influence over our elections, I would ask you, where the fuck were you when Hugo Chavez was getting control of our voting machines? Don’t you think that is a tad more serious?
And hey, look, I think it could be downright useful to know who is getting the foreign endorsements. If President Amadanutjob... er, I mean Ahmadinejad, wants to give an endorsement, I think I would like to hear it. So I can vote for the other person.
Update: Nick Gillespie covers similar ground giving us 3 reasons not to freak out about Citizens United. Nicely done.
