Willravel

I always assumed naturalistic law was a consequence of holding a monotheistic belief—one god, one set of universal rules—but now that I think of it I know plenty of atheistic libertarians that seem to, to one degree or another, share this idea of universal rights. I may have been wrong to necessarily attribute such a belief system to religion. This would make for an interesting discussion in philosophy, but we might be getting a bit off topic right now.



So the Supreme Court overturned a long-standing ban on corporate spending on elections. My admittedly hasty reaction was that this is probably very bad. We're already in dire need of campaign finance reform, something many of our politicians have been fighting back against for a long time, but this is is something more obvious and more direct.

Let's say you're a Chinese corporation that owns factories that create solar panels. Like many large Chinese corporations, you have very strong ties to the Chinese government, meaning that often your interests align. You're concerned about the US government subsidizing their solar industry, so you make an investment by purchasing US airtime to prop up conservative candidates that are either fuzzy on climate change or are down-right anti-science so that those subsidies end. The advertisements on average contribute to wins and the subsidies end, meaning that you are now free to undercut American solar companies and are exporting to the US.

Is this free speech?

---------- Post added at 09:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 PM ----------

So I'm trolling or I'm stupid? That's called a false choice, Cynth, and it's an intellectually dishonest way of debating. Debate the facts and the conclusions, please.

When I refer to defamation as a limit on free speech, I'm essentially citing John Stuart Mill's "harm principle", an idea I've run into debating over on the Mises website. The crux of the principle is power should only be asserted over any member of a society by the government to prevent or punish the harm of others. Being an individualist, I figured this would be something you would appreciate.

If a woman were to accuse you of rape despite the fact you did not rape her, she is attempting to inflect harm on you via her words. It's in this case where, assuming she's found guilty, it is the responsibility of the government to bring punitive measures against her for her speech. She is not free to say anything she wants without fear of prosecution because some of her speech is inherently harmful to others. That's a necessary limitation on free speech.
Can you word this differently, please? I'm not following.