this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I stopped supporting the ACLU when they wrote an op-ed supporting Citizens United.

They have their heads firmly up their asses on a handful of fairly crucial issues.

[–] hedgehog@ttrpg.network 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Precisely. I stopped supporting them when I found those articles.

There’s a flaw in the core premise of their argument, and it goes to the intent of equality that should (and I consider to) be an intrinsic intent of the Bill of Rights and its amendments:

  • Speech is not subject to the law of scarcity, thus it is free (as in beer); any person with a steady supply of air, food, and water can speak indefinitely if they so wish. Thus, any citizen can engage in speech indefinitely, in theory.
  • Money-as-speech is subject to the law of scarcity, and thus normal citizens can run out of it. Only the ultra wealthy can truly just spend money without real concern for how much they have left. Thus, the wealthy have a disproportionately larger (by several orders of magnitude) amount of money-as-speech available to them, by simple virtue of the fact that they’re crazy rich. Rich people can “speak” in this context essentially indefinitely, while normal people cannot; this is obvious, fundamental, and definitely not equal or egalitarian.

The fact that the ACLU straight up refuses to acknowledge any of this is absolutely asinine, in my opinion. CU is the foundation of a LOT of issues in our modern politics. It basically made it legal to buy elections.