In 2009, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit organization, filed a law suit against the Federal Election Commission; the case went to the Supreme Court, who ruled in Citizens United’s favor. This case reignited a long debate between republicanism and free speech. The rise of the Industrial Revolution led to several concerns over the corporal influences and the quid pro quo corruption in politic. Since President Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, Congress has imposed regulations on the finance of federal election campaign to prevent such corruption, such as the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, the Federal Elections Campaign Act, and the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA), which banned “electioneering communication” within 30 days
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FEC case reasons that if money is to flow freely in the government, the appearance of corruption will destroy democracy. If people lose faith, then they won’t think their votes matter and they stop voting; democracy turns into to oligarchy. Although that is true, the censorship of individual rights makes people distrust the government even faster. This is a limited government; it only has certain powers the people grant them, which never include telling people (assumingly adults) what to say or what to hear. Once the government start extending their power to control thoughts, people will question the integrity of the American system, which lead to whole lots of other troubles. More importantly, when citizens must ask permission to speak from their government, they just lost their basic individual rights and consequently, their self-government. Rather, if we educate the population that by becoming active participants in the running of the government, they can overpower any faction, with no matter how big is the flow of money. In addition, all opinions are important, and people need to be able to hear from all sides in order to make good judgement on what is true and what is false; “The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves’ (Doc
FEC case reasons that if money is to flow freely in the government, the appearance of corruption will destroy democracy. If people lose faith, then they won’t think their votes matter and they stop voting; democracy turns into to oligarchy. Although that is true, the censorship of individual rights makes people distrust the government even faster. This is a limited government; it only has certain powers the people grant them, which never include telling people (assumingly adults) what to say or what to hear. Once the government start extending their power to control thoughts, people will question the integrity of the American system, which lead to whole lots of other troubles. More importantly, when citizens must ask permission to speak from their government, they just lost their basic individual rights and consequently, their self-government. Rather, if we educate the population that by becoming active participants in the running of the government, they can overpower any faction, with no matter how big is the flow of money. In addition, all opinions are important, and people need to be able to hear from all sides in order to make good judgement on what is true and what is false; “The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves’ (Doc