Golly!

That ought to be really troubling to the "Recycler In Chief".

Why can't we just ban lobbying?

"Why can't we just ban lobbying?"

Why can't we just revoke the First Amendment?

My car doesn't have First Amendment rights, why should my corporation?

Really -- the idea that incorporated fictional persons should have Constitutional rights is absurd and is at the root of most of the ills we cannot seem to surmount.

You can't outlaw lobbying by individuals, real people with real rights. But that doesn't include fictional persons, who only exist because of statute -- they are creatures that exist at the sufferance of the state, not by right.

You can't outlaw lobbying by individuals, real people with real rights. But that doesn't include fictional persons, who only exist because of statute...

Well, George, since I'm terminally dense, please explain how you would "outlaw lobbying" without infringing on "real people(s')" FA rights. I agree that lobbying can seem extraordinarily unfair to those whose views don't align with those of the lobbyists, but Courts have fairly consistently ruled in favor of corporate "rights" since 1819.

When it seems impossible, or impractical, to staunch the injection of toxic money into the political environment, flowing downstream and filling reservoirs, there can be Plan B for enacting check-dams which control the outflow of the contamination.

The point of attack might be at Campaign Finance Reform, (NOT at the 'First Amendment,' NOT at the 'corporate rights').

Campaign Finance is as two-sided as all finance -- income and outgo, credits and debits. We can regulate Campaign income limits, as we already have ... in half-hearted half-measure. And equally rightful, by that precedent we can regulate Campaign expenses.

Ban paid-broadcast political advertising.
Same as we ban paid-broadcast cigarette advertising.

Political (and cigarette sale) Campaigns may be allowed to profiteer in toxic habits -- 'extort as many paying customers as you can' -- and now be prohibited from spending the filthy gelt to intoxicate the public (in broadcast hypnosis). Let them advertise in print -- billboards, bumperstickers, direct mail, magazines, newspapers and NASCARs -- all they like but NOT in radio and TV voice-over-reason.

Dam their spending until their accumulating 'donations' turn into a pile of trouble for them. ... like the way we the peeps finally imprisoned Al Capone for 'Tax Evasion' with his stolen money.

...filthy gelt...

hee, hee, hee... I love it.

Move to Cuba, there's far less of it to soil you, skwat.

Ban paid-broadcast political advertising.
Same as we ban paid-broadcast cigarette advertising.

Last time I looked, political speech was precisely that sort of speech which the FA sought to protect from government infringement. To argue that corporate speech, however tainted with the aforementioned "filthy gelt" does not represent political speech, is a fallacy.

The argument that corporate rights should not exist implies that corporate speech would simply disappear with their extinguishment.

That is clearly fallacious as the speech (formerly known as corporate) has always been that of individuals. Sans humans, I've yet to hear or read any "corporate speech".

Maybe you have - I'm sure you're more sensitive to these sorts of things than I.

@CC: easy -- you forbid incorporated entities from buying lobbying services (paying lobbyists), having people on payroll who would be required to register as lobbyists (a function of how much lobbying), and you disallow any business from deducting any expenses associated with lobbying by corporate executives or personnel, so that they have to lobby on their own nickel like we do.

The fact that courts have upheld rights for corporations for two centuries just highlights that slavery is not the only time that the courts got property and personhood mixed up. We've remedied the problem with considering people as property; now we have to take the next step and forbid property from acquiring the rights of people.

In case some folks have never seen one of these:

Your (TV) doctor says...

More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI

--- The value of medical advice ---
It's fascinating how readily people accept the dictates of doctors. Like stock brokers, the vast majority of doctors are little more than "consensus professionals." They push whatever the consensus says is "good advice" regardless of how obviously deranged it is.

---

Also like congresspersons.

...now we have to take the next step and forbid property from acquiring the rights of people.

Wonderfully put.

The problem, however much you'd like to ignore it, is that there are people running corporations (evil and otherwise) and those peoples' rights cannot be abridged in the name of some bogeyman du jour - ie, the evil corporations.

Funny, I thought your objection was to "lobbyists" - not corporations.

My mistake.