Solomon’s account of this matter, essentially an apple of discord thrown into an already fraught polis, is the kind of fast-and-loose nonsense that would stick out like a sore thumb—and likely draw a torrent of controversy and comment—were it to be published at most mainstream outlets. The Hill, however, was a happy home for this balderdash, thanks to the famously lax editorial standards that suffuse the paper’s operations.
This week, for example, The Hill published an op-ed from a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) explaining that actually, drug companies’ high revenues allows them to Do Innovation, and that drug prices should “continue to reflect the social value that they create.” ITIF has previously received hundreds of thousands of dollars from PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s massively well-funded advocacy group; in 2017, the most recent year for which records are available, PhRMA gave ITIF $60,000. Well worth the price of an op-ed arguing with a straight face that high drug prices that often result in ordinary people dying are socially valuable. Another poorly-written op-ed from the same day criticizes Democrats for trying to stop the Trump administration from allowing states to sell junk health insurance plans, courtesy of the vice president of policy of the Buckeye Institute, a right-wing, Koch-funded think tank.*
Again, these op-ed efforts are targeted at less than 500 people roaming the Beltway fiefdom. Outside of this minute population, literally nobody cares about, let alone reads, the ruminations of the senior fellows who staff Washington’s ersatz think tanks, churned out to satisfy the whims of dotty donors. No one. Not even their mums care. This content doesn’t excite Google’s algorithms. Your friends are never going to excitedly pollute your Facebook feeds with these great works.
It is both speech and manufacturing. You are taking an object and changing its entropic contents directly. The activity itself is a form of expression, hence it is speech, whereas the material products of that activity are not speech unless you alter them to imbue them with additional content.
Pointing a rifle at someone is speech
Correct. It is also violence and we have agreed as a society that it is not a form of protected free speech.
when I “give” to a political campaign it is not a gift, I expect something in return
You expect others to speak for you, but you are not speaking yourself. They are creating the content, you are not. Therefore your contribution is not speech.
The strength of this communication is directly proportional to the amount of money.
While the part about proportionality is true, this is not a form of communication. If you spend that money directly to buy a billboard, it is speech. But when that money is given to others to speak their message, you are not speaking. This is simple.
Why are you so invested in money as speech? Do you fear you’ll never be heard otherwise?
The design of a rifle can easily be interpreted as speech but the manufacture seems a stretch. If I were a rifle manufacturer and I bought a billboard to express what actions I would like a legislator to take on my behalf I would accomplish little. If I donate to his campaign he is in debt to me and he knows precisely what I want simply by the fact that I have him money. I am not doing this because I want him to express my thoughts. I am buying favorable legislation. I own a larger portion of representation than someone who has not given him money. I don’t give a damn what he says or does to get what I want and I’m sure as hell not going to do anything to directly implicate myself in said actions. The point I am making is painfully obvious. Those of us with the most cash get their way simply by putting the money on the table. Nothing need be said because money talks. Protests, debates, and facts amount to nothing in the face of cold, hard cash. There is no politician, no matter how altruistic, who’s political survival does not rely on cash for the next election and you don’t have to tell them what you want in exchange. It’s obvious because of who you are. Politicians spend most of their time raising funds for their own and their party’s campaign coffers. They are quite aware what is expected of them from the top donors without the need for actual exchange of words. Money is speech with (barely) plausible deniability.
Why are you so invested in money as speech? Do you fear you’ll never be heard otherwise?
Do you seriously think any politician cares what the poors have to say? The only speech that gets results is cash. It no longer matters who gets the most votes. The puppet with the most billionaires pulling their strings is the winner.
Political influence is directly proportional to wealth. Money is, most assuredly, speech and it has the loudest voice.
Yeah, it’s the worst SCotUS decision of our lifetime, equating corporations with citizens who have rights. They exist only because of an act of Congress signed by the president. Without that law, there are no corporations and all the extra niceties they get.
Time to revamp corporate law. Time to rescind all their extra rights. If they want to be like a citizen, if the Supreme Court is going to SAY they are like citizens, then treat them accordingly. They’ll pay the same taxes as citizens, their owners will be directly charged for crimes like any citizen, etc.
Then why can we put a sales tax on cardboard and markers to make signs?
Taxing a thing is not preventing the thing from happening. Making a corporation pay more to hire citizens to petition the government is in no way limiting the rights of those citizens to petition the government. The citizens who are doing the petitioning can do it anyway if they chose, the people doing the hiring could do it themselves if they don’t like the cost of doing so through surrogates.
Amen! You don’t get human rights without human responsibilities (which, for one thing, would mean putting corporations in prison for negligent deaths after figuring out exactly what that would mean).
If you spend your money on a billboard, of course it is speech. You’re turning money into content. If you merely give that money to others for their speech, you’re not speaking.
Auto mechanic making $75,000/year and works one day a week: why is this guy on Twitter making up weird dichotomies like this with made up people?
Dental hygienist with scoliosis, working at six different offices in three cities: I don’t know, it’s a weird scorched earth technique that supporters of some candidates think is useful or effective in the primary process, I guess?
More to the point, if you spend your money on a billboard you may pay some kind of sales tax to the company you hired to do it. And payroll taxes are payed for the workers who put the billboard up. And taxes were paid on the paint and the equipment used. And all those taxes happened without anyone raising the first amendment because we can tax the means of speech without involving the first amendment.
This is Warren’s CV. Probably somewhat abbreviated.
Professors in fields like law and business get higher pay, as they could be working outside of academia, so they pay them more. It sucks that Adjuncts get paid so little, it sucks that football coaches get paid so much more. You’d think that someone in academia would realize professors get paid on the basis of their publications and research. As Bernie says, Washington politicians can get 200k for a single hour of speaking, so 150k to have her teach a course and be affiliated with the school is not as crazy.
A tax designed to restrict speech or the ability to petition would be unconstitutional. This seems to be Senator Warren’s aim, if we believe her when she says “We can end excessive lobbying…”
“The strength of this communication is directly proportional to the amount of money.”
Only if you have bought into the false notion that money is a direct form of speech, which I have already shown the absurdity of and which you have not yet refuted. A better example would be the volume of the speech and the loudness of your voice. It doesn’t matter how loud or quiet you are, you’re transmitting content and speaking.
“Manufacturing rifles is not speech, it is manufacturing.”
It is content-rich action on a substrate that changes its entropic content. It is both manufacturing and speech. You can label it performance art.
“Pointing a rifle at someone is speech, I have transmitted information.”
This is classified as a violent threat. It is a form of speech that we have agreed is harmful and unlawful.
“when I “give” to a political campaign it is not a gift, I expect something in return”
You expect to be represented in others speech. This intention does not constitute speech on your part. You proxying that act to a third party you do not control and whose content you do not inform. It is not speech.
Why are you so invested in the idea of money as speech?
No. Her aim is to stop bribery, which is unconstitutional and illegal.
It is when the adjuncts could have permanent positions with benefits that pays a living wage. It’s straight up exploitation of a desperate underclass.
As stated, it sucks that adjuncts get paid so little. I do think she entered politics to remedy pay disparities like that, and I believe supports policies that would help the typical adjuncts and increase the tax burden of people from her own bracket.
The crazy part is the exploitation of the adjuncts, though, not the pay of the tenured professor. The reason schools pay adjuncts so little is not because they’re paying other professors so much–they’re doing it because they can.
That can be all over the map, depending on where a prof is… a tenured prof as a community college isn’t making nearly what a tenured prof at harvard is, and that is different depending on department too.
I’m aware.
Again, I’m aware. I’m an adjunct right now… I’m here in the trenches, so…
It’s up to society to determine what “excessive” is. You can’t pass a law that says a person can’t tell you what they think of government, but you can pass a law saying they can’t do it in rotating shifts 24-hours a day through megaphones. If the law actually stopped people from having their say, it would be unconstitutional. But I can have my say with a sheet of paper, a pen, an envelope and stamp, which costs a lot less than $500,000.
The first amendment does not guarantee that people with more money can use that money to make the petition louder and more effective. I think you could make a pretty good argument that allowing money to translate to a better ability to petition is antithetical to the first amendment.
Allowing the people being petitioned to decide what is ‘excessive’ would unconstitutionally restrict the right, eventually, perhaps, to no right at all.
Your slippery slope fallacy is on shaky ground.
