Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Democracy for All Amendment: Proponents Don't Even Believe Their Own "Drown Out" Hype

As I observed in yesterday’s post, backers rationalize that the Democracy for All amendment is needed so the political voice of the average citizen isn’t “drowned out” by big money.


Perhaps the best comeback against this ridiculous notion is that the proponents don’t even believe it.


People for the American Way, a Leftist advocacy group, has launched a “grassroots” campaign to promote the Democracy for All amendment. What’s that again? A grassroots campaign? Doesn’t “grassroots” mean “average” folks?


PAW has a webpage laying out an “activist toolkit”—a whole litany of ways for those “drowned out” average Americans to exercise their “right to be heard.” Here is what PAW says in its introduction:


The effects of [Citizens United, McCutcheon,] and other [SCOTUS] decisions have not been hard to see. The 2012 election was the most expensive election in our country’s history. In that election, almost 60 percent of super PAC donations came from just 159 donors. Over 93 percent came from 3,318 donors, or 0.0011 percent of the US population. And the influx of money into our elections only continues to get worse. A report released in late July shows that in this year’s elections, “dark money” spending is fifteen times what it was at this point in the 2010 midterm elections. As money pours into our political system, the voices of everyday Americans – who don’t have a corporate treasury to spend from or millions in their bank accounts – are becoming increasingly hard to hear.


With the proposed Democracy for All Amendment, we have a chance to take our democracy back from corporations and billionaires. There is tremendous grassroots momentum backing this effort.


PAW isn’t alone. Free Speech for People, another pro-amendment activist group, also has an “online action page.” It certainly doesn’t look like these people feel “increasingly hard to hear.” Otherwise, why make the effort?


This is hysterical! Where are the billionaires, who supposedly have the power to “drown out the average person’s voice?” If a grassroots campaign to enact their amendment is worthwhile, why can’t the same grassroots activism be used to counter the message of the 3,318 wealthy donors? Instead of spending their energy and resources trying to violate these folks free speech rights, why not engage them directly in the political arena?


I fully agree that there are myriad opportunities for average citizens to be heard. Average persons can’t be drowned out by anyone’s private campaign spending, and the statists know it. Their emerging grassroots campaign refutes their own rationalizations.


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1 comment:

Mike Kevitt said...

No statist, collectivist, Marxist, religionist, irrationalist, etc. throughout history has ever believed the stuff they've ever put out. They don't care if nobody else believes it. They just want enough people to seize upon it, as if they do believe it, and use it on the rest of the people, who might or might not believe it.

The only thing important is that those who seize upon it have enough physical power to forcibly rule the rest. So it's not too important how MANY seize upon it. They must simply rule at the pleasure of those who put out that stuff.