Hello:

SHOULD your congressman represent you, or the corporate interests in your district?

I ask, because our right winged friends think that ALL a business has to do to make money, is provide a good product at a good price... If that's so, then why would a businessman need representation as an individual, AND as a corporation??? Doesn't that give him TWO voices? Besides that, since all a business needs is a marketplace to compete in, what favors could a business person possibly get from his congressman???

Towards that end, does a corporation have the same rights as YOU, an individual??? Does the corporation have free speech rights? If that's so, why do the owners have free speech rights as individuals, AND free speech rights as a corporation??? Doesn't that give them TWO voices, one much more powerful than the other?

If corporations can give political donations, and you own, lets say, 25 of 'em, doesn't that give you 25 times the political clout as everybody else???

Does any of the stuff above bother you?

excon

NeedKarma

That's a VERY good point. If the business' product or service is what the market wants then the business should not need the help of the government.

paraclete

Ex what you have is a system of government which was put together in the days when there were few corporations and economic power was exercised by individuals. The abuse of the systems today wasn't envisaged two hundred years ago and the political systems of two hundred years ago are in need of serious revision today. In my opinion corporations (artificial persons with a protected status) should be banned from making political contributions and the size of political contributions made by individuals should be limited. Some societies who formulated their political systems later than your own instituted more checks and balances into the system because they had the benefit of some hindsight.

Government's place is to provide services which cannot be provided otherwise because of the scale of the undertaking; ie Military, Law, Education, Public Inferstructure, and to regulate the activities of individuals and corporations

excon

Hello clete:

Very cogent answer. Tomorrow morning is gonna be fun. Well, for you, it'll be tomorrow night.

excon

paraclete

or even Wednesday. Excuse my ignorance, Ex, but what Earth shattering event happens tomorrow?

excon

Hello again, clete:

The wingers wake up, and I can get to arguing. It's no fun when you guys agree with me.

excon

inthebox

The congressperson should not be accepting any money that wil influence how they vote on or make laws. If this were true then lobby money would be a wasted efffort. The contrary is true. Corporations, unions, trial layers, NRA et al all know that most congress people are out primarily for themselves, and not really for their constituents. So they accept the money for their campaigns to stay in power. They use taxpayor money for their own personal earmarks so their district benefits,they look good to their constituents and they stay in power.

They [ lobby money and the politicians ] are in the same bed. The only way to break that cycle is for the citizenry to know how their government is acting; use that knowledge and on a regular basis vote out those who are not producing results. This is regardless of where on the political spectrum you lie.


G&P

excon

Hello in:

That was a very interesting answer to a question I did NOT ask.. Can you answer the one I did?

excon

speechlesstx

Hmm, let's ask George Soros.

tomder55

I hold my Congressional Representative to account ;not the corporation. More often than not the reason the corporation trys to influence Congress is because Congress over regulates . If Congress weren't over regulating ;often well beyond their Constitutional mandate ,then the problem of corporate money would not be an issue.

Let's move this logic beyond corporations . I have freedom of speech and a right to petition Congress on my behalf. Do I have more influence if I pool my resources with other like minded citizens in an association ? Of course ! Would you deny ;oh let's say NORML the right to petition ;lobby , give campaign donations ? I doubt it.
Or as Ron Paul's followers say :

Why shouldn't a corporation have the right of Free Speech and Press? | Ron Paul 2012 | Campaign for Liberty at the Daily Paul