Mar
5
Blog Post #5
March 5, 2015 | Leave a Comment
I can see the reason for limiting what can be said about politicians, since the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law makes voters’ opinions more unbiased. As the time for elections draws nearer, many people who aren’t sure of who they wish to vote for might be easily influenced by what they see in commercials. A solution to this would to educate voters on the politicians. That way, they would already be aware of who would be the best fit for them and not be in between fences, ready to turn to any one side because of commercials.
I think the McCain-Feingold law had good potential and was meant to benefit everyone. However, it does limit peoples’ rights and if there are some exceptions to it, such as the Fahrenheit 9/11 being so harshly judged upon like the Citizens United case, it isn’t really effective. Unfortunately, it appears as if the power of money will help decide peoples’ minds for them. The rich could always spend extremely large amounts of money in order to benefit themselves, and after a certain amount of time, peoples’ minds could change because of how much they’ve been exposed to certain ideas.
I partially agree with the solution in the shorter article, about how there should be a more level playing field so that all parties have equal chance. However, I am really doubtful that will work. Billionaires probably spend copious amounts of money researching how people will best respond to their advertisements and prey on that weakness, while at the same time not even representing the peoples’ interests. Instead, they’re just trying to rally as many people onto their side as possible. Now they’re able to spend their money freely however they wish, even while disregarding the peoples’ opinions.
As the Supreme Court uses past decisions in order to affect5 how they decide on future cases, that makes me wonder if this decision would lead to any other decisions for future cases. For example, if this would somehow later allow the rich to become so powerful with their wealth and political power. The poor already have such little say in politics since they can’t make their voices be heard, so what will happen if the rich only have more power and say in political elections?
There are some people who might wish to overturn the decision of Citizens United, including President Obama, which I find interesting. The Citizens United case involved a non profit organization that wanted to air a documentary that held a negative perspective of a politician, but was told by the government that it was illegal. If the decision is overturned, does that mean the government can then have the legal right to censor political speech?
-Margaret Wang
