Tag debate

Debate: Citizens United: Good or Bad?

The Citizens United decision has proven quite controversial, with advocates both for and against it. So why not have a debate?

For those who don’t remember, Citizens United was an organization that made a movie critical of then-candidate Hillary Clinton. The Federal Elections Commission deemed this to be a form of illegal campaign contribution, and fined them. The group appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that money is speech, and companies are people, and since you can’t restrict people’s free speech, companies can give as much money as they want to political campaigns.

Resolution

Citizens United is a Good Thing.

Pro

First up, we have Senator Ted Cruz, who thinks Citizens United is a good idea:

Following Sen. Whitehouse’s 30-minute denunciation of dark money, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, used part of his time to defend the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United that allowed for corporations and unions to spend unlimited money on political ads and other forms of influence campaigns.

“Citizens United concerned whether or not it was legal to make a movie criticizing a politician

On his Senate web page, he adds (emphasis in the original):

“The Obama Justice Department took the position that it could fine — it could punish Citizens United for daring to make a movie critical of a politician. The case went all of the way to the U.S. Supreme Court at the oral argument, there was a moment that was truly chilling. Justice Sam Alito asked the Obama Justice Department, ‘Is it your position under your theory of the case that the Federal Government can ban books?’ And the Obama Justice Department responded yes. […] As far as I am concerned, that is a terrifying view of the First Amendment. […] By a narrow five-four majority, the Supreme Court concluded the First Amendment did not allow the Federal Government to punish you for making a movie critical of a politician. And likewise that the Federal Government couldn’t ban books. Four justices dissented, four justices were willing to say the federal government can ban books.”

Con

And now, opposing the motion, please welcome Senator Ted Cruz:

Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley raised concerns about getting meaningful legislation aimed at Silicon Valley passed because the Biden administration and prominent Democrats, who control Congress, could be beholden to financial ties to technology giants.

“Big Tech are the largest financial supporters of Democrats in the country,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “And so, to date, we have seen occasional rhetoric from Democrats directed at Big Tech, but when they’re your single-biggest donors, it shouldn’t be surprising that Democrats have been far less willing to engage in concrete action to rein in Big Tech.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed this debate, and will thank our debaters by contributing to their challengers when they come up for reelection. It’s your free speech, after all.

The Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye Debate

I watched the debate between Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and Ken Ham, director of Answers in Genesis, the outfit that runs the creation museum in Kentucky.

When I heard that Nye had agreed to the debate, I thought it was a bad idea, for all the usual reasons, and in particular that it would give creationism too much credibility: if you put Neil DeGrasse Tyson on stage with someone who thinks we can travel to mars by growing pixie wings, the latter has a lot more to gain than the former. Pixie-wing-guy gets to brag that he discussed issues with a prominent scientist, whereas Tyson has to admit that he wasn’t allowed to laugh pixiw-wing man out of the room.

And so it was last night. A man who basically believes that, as Robin Ince put it, “Magic Man done it!” got to share a stage with a man who has mountains of real-world evidence behind his assertions.

Having said that, it didn’t turn out as badly as I feared. Not so much because Nye did well, though for the most part he did. Rather, because Ken Ham did a pretty good job of explaining what young-earth creationism is: it has nothing to do with evidence (he said in the Q&A that there was nothing that could change his mind) and everything to do with believing a particular interpretation of the Bible.

It’s traditional to say that no one’s mind is ever changed by such debates, but that’s not always the case. I don’t know how many people were on the fence last night. But if any of them didn’t know what creationism was before, they do now. As stealth-creationist Casey Luskin puts it:

People will walk away from this debate thinking, “Ken Ham has the Bible, Bill Nye has scientific evidence.”

I haven’t done an extensive search, but the consensus seems to be that Nye won the evening. Yes, that’s what you’d expect from sites like Pharyngula or Friendly Atheist or Daily Kos, but Uncommon Descent, Evolution News & Views seem to agree as well. Charisma News doesn’t have any comments, gloating or otherwise. The Blaze’s comments seem about evenly split between “Ham won” and “Nye won”; given its readership, I would’ve expected it to tilt much farther toward Ham’s side.

I’m also surprised at how big a deal this was. I’ve seen plenty of these sorts of debates over the years, but typically they don’t interest anyone except the sorts of wonks who actually follow this stuff. But this one was streamed live on CNN, and covered in the Washington Post and on NPR. So it’s possible that a lot of people who haven’t thought much about creationism have now been introduced to it, and hopefully shown that it’s not science, not even close.

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