[Axxflcaj]

You did steal a car boot ...

[Licacivelip]

Not sure if serious.

[Rithlilky]

Well it is 'poly.

[duawLauff]

What he said.

[DuePew]

Your attempt to segregate "speech" and "economic activity" is ridiculous. Literally millions of people are employed solely to produce speech. If we took your position seriously we would conclude that writing and selling books should be illegal.

[Garry Richardson]

No, I'm not.

Lori: X ought not to be true

Me: X being false implies a radical overhaul of our society that is absurd on its face. ergo X should continue to be true.

[vintsqyuid]

Bribery is illegal. Politicians can't be forced to make decisions with money. You have to actually convince voters to vote for what you want.

Mindbogglingly, you think this is the sort of thing that isn't protected under the constitution.

[UnmariKam]

You can't stop markets from existing. It's like trying to contain the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I'm going to choose the people who provide a better product - the people who provide me with more interesting material. In return, I give them some small degree of political influence - the ability to influence my thought. There is no way to stop some people's speech from being more valuable than others'. Turning a market into an awkward barter of in-kind services doesn't stop it from existing.

[SkeniaInhilla]

Regardless, appeal to tradition is a fallacy. It's not a formal fallacy, but it is an informal fallacy. Bzzt. Stop talking about logic if you don't understand it. Appeals to tradition are formal fallacies (as any heuristic argument is). They aren't informal fallacies.

[Tapupah]

I didn't say anything about the Constitution. I'm speaking of a theoretical ideal for a country, not what does or could necessarily exist in America. I'm not a constitutional scholar. The difficulty here is that, ideally, voters should be convinced rationally. Psychology tells us that more or less the exact opposite is true.

Why is rationality a pre-requisite to vote? Seriously, the vote action is akin to any other purchasing decision. Essentially all purchasing decisions come down to fulfilling an emotional response. Why would voting be different or expected to be?

[LesLattis]

I don't want to prevent people from having political influence. I just don't think said political influence should necessarily be based on material wealth.

Buckingham Palace is material wealth; plenty of people would pay a lot of money to live there.

Bill O'Reilly's airtime is material wealth; plenty of people would pay a lot of money to get to express their opinions nightly to a half-million viewers.

Wealth is still real, whether or not it comes from a financial transaction. All you're trying to do, at best, is to arbitrarily stop people from using a particular medium of exchange - the dollar - in trades with each other for a particular sort of wealth. It doesn't matter. People still want it, and some have more of it than others.

[DextExexy]

You guys love squawking about the constitution and understanding America and all that ****, but how about you try it yourself sometimes? America was supposed to be about freedom and not having to live under the yolk of a ruling class, and yet you dumb mutts bend over backwards to give power and influence to a whole new ruling class of super rich plutocrats.

You have billionaires basically buying your candidates and you think that's a positive thing? Seriously? Are you really that ****ing dumb?

[DianaDrk]

Billionaires can only "buy" a candidate by persuading voters to elect him.

Amazing how $100m of TV spend will get large numbers of voters to vote for you. See Romney vs Gingrich for more details.

[diutuartina]

Amazing how $100m of TV spend will get large numbers of voters to vote for you. See Romney vs Gingrich for more details.

you think Gingrich lost because he was outspent?