Why do Democrats want to take away Freedom of Speech, claiming it to be Campaign Finance Reform?

Why are circles round? Wherever and whenever they could, Democrats have ALWAYS banned dissent.

They don't. McCain-Feingold the issue was using general treasury funds to participate in a political campaign.

I agree with that. I don't believe fixing citizens united will break the constitution. The issue here is that the citizens united decision granted corporations the rights of a person. A corporation has never been a person, and they never will be.

Funny how conservatives like the ACLU when they agree with them, but they hate them when they protect the civil rights of liberals or minorities.

I'm a Conservative, but I'm with the Dems on this one. Money is speech only so long as we allow it to be.

Why should corps be allowed to spend millions influencing elections? Or unions? Or any special interest for that matter?

If I had my way, my amendment would read something like this:

"Only individual people may spend or donate money to influence elections or elect candidates. All organizations are specifically prohibited from doing so with the following exception. Organizations that are solely funded by voluntary donations from individual people, for the purposes of representing their views, may spend or donate to influence elections."

This way, only organizations that receive donations from people for the purposes of politicking may do so. And of course, individual people can contribute or donate to who or whatever they want.

I'm amused when Libs always allow "campaign contributions" from Unions and criminal organizations like Soros' Tides Foundations....as long as they fund Libs.

According to conservatives allowing election money to come from anonymous overseas donors is "freedom of speech."

All you're doing is trying to sell the election to Billionaires who hide their money over seas, the oil industry and the Chinese.

Maybe Democrats don't agree with that Citizens United court decision?

Democrats don't have to wait for anyone to fix the campaign finance and lobbyist systems, nor do the rest of us have to wait. We can consider candidates without special interests backing them. And we can refuse to vote for any candidate who accepts that kind of backing. That takes the power from the source of the money, bypassing the need for reform (and the lobbyists who would stop that reform because their jobs would be threatened).

For me, the most frustrating aspect of this is how easily voters could defeat the legalized corruption of campaign finance, if voters acted collectively across party lines. Voters can look at less publicized candidates. Voters can reject immediately any candidate who takes any form of influence buying. Voters can support candidates who publicly warn that they will give no beneficial treatment to donors of PACs that independently advertise on their behalf. By doing those things, voters could render that influence money powerless.

Most voters would not vote for a candidate who had been convicted of bribery while in public office. It wouldn't matter how "electable" he/she is or what his/her policy positions are. So why vote for any candidate who accepts legal bribes in the form of special interest money?

I hate it when people dismiss a candidate early in the election cycle by saying "he can't win". We're supposed to vote according to our beliefs. We are not supposed to look at who other people support, and on that basis join in to support one of those candidates. This isn't a high school popularity contest where we're scared of not being in the "in group".

Some of us are not content to accept only candidates whom the influential people (whoever they are) say have a chance, nor to abandon those who allegedly have no chance. Some of us will not accept the usual bought-by-corporate-interests candidates who are presumed (so early in the campaign) by the corporate media to have the best chance of winning. ANY candidate has a chance of winning the Presidency if enough of we voters choose that person. The people we see on TV say who can win, but really WE decide.

Because no special-interest-influence-free candidate wins at the conventions of either major party, my voting strategy requires choosing neither Democrats nor Republicans. Other parties' candidates still appear on ballots. It does not matter which candidate, because that candidate will not win the election this time around. It's OK to vote for a goofball or crackpot. I would rather vote for a random minor party candidate I don't believe in than give consent to my abuse by voting for a bought candidate.

If more people start protest-voting for those minor party weirdos you see on ballots, then sensible independent candidates will notice that and try running in various elections. We can vote for those people. As a nice bonus, this will pressure the two main political parties to adapt to voter preferences more than big campaign donors would like.

That third party strategy has a risk of splitting the liberal vote between two candidates (as happened with Ralph Nader in 2000) or the conservative vote between two candidates (as happened with Ross Perot in 1992). The best outsider candidate would be a non-weird centrist who can steal votes equally from both parties; if that centrist belonged to a party, the party would have to refuse all special interest money.

That is Ted Cruz BS.