The CU decision was over a bunch of people who made a movie that was critical of a political candidate, and paid a TV station to air that movie not long before the election. Congress had restricted spending on political advertising and it was this restriction that CU overturned. You're arguing that the cornerstone of democracy is the ability of the wealthiest to spend unlimited amounts on propaganda to convince citizens that they should vote for the candidates that benefit the wealthy the most.

I'm arguing that the incumbents have a built-in, guaranteed communications channel. Any obstacle to speech by the people (whether they're rich or poor) leaves no response to those in power. In effect, then, the rules enforce an oligarchy.

In fact, your argument that the CU decision only benefits the wealthy is precisely the opposite of the reality. In fact, the wealthy don't need to cooperate in corporate bodies to finance public speech: folks like Donald Trump can get up on a pulpit with their own personal wealth. It's only us regular people who have the need to cooperate (i.e., to incorporate into a body to handle the demands of our effort).

Thus, CU is a benefit to the regular guy, without having much effect on the opportunities available to the rich who can go it alone.

> The minute such activity is illegal, the people have lost and we've become an oligarchy, unable to provide information to our fellow citizens necessary to cast informed votes.

'The people' aren't the ones 'providing information', campaigns full of biased individuals trying to beat a competitor are. The system and its 'elections' has nothing to do with the people, it has to do with a few powerful wealthy entities struggling for power.

Yes, we should definitely prevent a very small minority of political Übermenschen with more money than God from being able to control the system for their own aims.

Campaigns are actually explicitly prohibited from coordinating in any way with the so-called SuperPAC's that have unlimited fundraising ability.

As the parent said, how would you propose to limit political speech in a meaningful way without infringing on the free speech rights of the public at large?

I admit I haven't read the CU decision, but whatever else it is, it has apparently opened the door to no-limit campaign financing. Which is bad for democracy.

There are already laws protecting freedom of expression, so I think it's disingenuous to suggest that CU is all about freedom of expression, and therefore good for democracy.

If you're interested and opinionated, you should read the decision. It's mostly in plain English and the reasoning can be understood by someone who is not a lawyer. It's not long and can be found with Google, probably as a PDF from the Supreme Court site.

It doesn't really open the door to no-limit campaign financing. It says that the government can't put a limit on how much money a person or group of people (like the "Citizens United" nonprofit--hence the name) can spend to promote their OWN opinions.

There is a difference between 1) giving a political candidate $1 million, and 2) spending $1 million to shoot, print, and promote a documentary movie about a political candidate.

#1 is still illegal. And it's hard to imagine a way to limit #2 without giving someone the power to determine which movie (or website, or podcast) is "legal" and which is "illegal" speech about a candidate.

If we can't speak freely each other about candidates, how can we hope to have a valid political process at all?