Archives April 2021

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.

Guilt

Somewhere, I ran across the following story:

Fred was the most hated person in the Foreign Legion. Everyone wanted him dead. One day, Fred was assigned to go on a mission alone in the middle of the desert. At midnight the night before, Alex put poison in Fred’s canteen. An hour later, unaware of this, Bert poured out the contents of Fred’s canteen and filled it with sand. An hour later, also unaware of what the others were doing, Charlie poked a hole in the bottom of the canteen, so that the contents would pour out. Thus, poor despised Fred died in the desert the next day.

So the question is: who, if anyone, is guilty of killing Fred? It’s tempting to say Charlie, simply because he came last, but really, all three of Alex, Bert, and Charlie tried to kill Fred, and took steps to kill him. The only reason to let Alex off the hook is that Bert’s approach undid what Alex did, and Charlie’s preferred method undid Bert’s. But remove any one, or any two of them, and Fred still winds up dead. At best, Alex and Bert would be guilty only of attempted murder.

What if they had all poisoned the canteen? It would be a lot easier to argue that all of them are to blame. If only Alex were put on trial, it would be fairly easy to secure a conviction. And even if Bert’s and Charlie’s actions came to light later, few people would feel that Alex was wrongly convicted. Same for the other two.

The reason I bring this up is that the defense in Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd has claimed that drugs in Floyd’s system are to blame for his death, not the fact that Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes.

I trust you see the point: even if Floyd was incapacitated or in diminished health because of drugs, or had a heart attack, or something like that, what Chauvin did could have killed pretty much anyone. If his knee wasn’t the cause of death, that’s only on a technicality. If the situation were repeated, there is no reason to think that a similar technicality would let him off the hook, and every reason to believe that his actions would be similar.