The Problems with Religion and God

Today I'd like to talk about God, the problems that I have with the idea of God and some possible alternatives to faith. Also I’d like to give some explanations for why people believe in God- what propensities humans may have evolutionarily for believing in God.

Freedom of Speech

       From the start, I’d like to say that I support anybody's right to believe in God, just like how I think that anyone has the right or privilege to be stupid or act crazy but I don't think it's right or morally justifiable. There’s a cost to freedom and with freedom comes responsibility. Everyone has the freedom to believe (or not believe) what they want. All Americans have the freedom of religion but I also think people deserve the freedom from religion. One can think anything they want to think but one does not have the right to impose their beliefs on others or do harm to others. This is one of the main reasons that I think that religion does more harm than good. The following are a few more reasons why I think that religion is a dangerous problem for society.

A Personal God vs. the Spinoza God

       My criticism of religion generally applies to a personal god, who listens to one’s prayers and punishes sinners.  Personally if I were to hypothesize a definition for God I would think that God is unknowable and beyond our understanding- certainly not meddling with petty human concerns. By this criteria, I am agnostic, as defined by Thomas Henry Huxley who coined the term in 1869, saying,

It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.

There is also the idea of a ‘Universal' God which people often refer to simply as a synonym for Nature or the Universe. It is the pantheistic ‘God or Nature [Deus sive Natura]’ of the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. It is the ‘God' or 'Nature’ of Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawkings’ famous last lines in ‘A Brief History of Time’…

However if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason- for then we would know the mind of God.

People often falsely claim that Albert Einstein believed in God but he spoke of the pantheistic Spinoza God. Christian apologetics love to misattribute Einstein’s beliefs by misinterpreting such infamous expressions like “God does not play with dice” (which Einstein wrote in a letter to Max Born in 1926).

       I think that there may exist a higher truth or meaning in this world, but to anthropomorphize or personalize it by calling it ‘God’ is to devalue its existence because “it” is not a graspable or tenable “thing” or “person." Although typically throughout history, the Godhead has always been a personified deity; a mythical human, a representation of the super-(wo)man. In the Greek mythology, for example, the gods have human characteristics and their personalities invoke our human triumphs and flaws. Religion was created as a symbolic tool to help explain and give meaning to human society and our place in the cosmos. Ritualized human burial began at least 100,000 years ago in Paleolithic times which is cited as the beginning of religious practices with the belief in an after-life, the belief that consciousness survives death. At around 30,000 years ago, stone carvings like the Venus of Willendorf and cave paintings are often cited as the first evidence of religiosity and abstract thinking in early humans.

       Perhaps there exists some type of “movement,” “oneness,” (a term from Krishnamurti) or “undivided wholeness” (a term from David Bohm) that can be discovered & experienced, but why call it ‘God’ when we have a language with better descriptors and better tools of measurement than pure intuition? I think it’s very possible to have numerous "deep" “earth-shattering,” “mind-blowing,” “awareness-raising,” “consciousness-expanding,” “life-changing,” “mystical,” “spiritual,” “transcendent,” or “religious” experiences (either through yoga, meditation, psychoactive drugs, sensory or sleep deprivation, free fall, contemplating nature & science, etc.) without attributing that very human experience to God. I find it unfortunate that for historical & political reasons religion has co-opted and monopolized the noetic and the gnostic: the nous (spirit) and gnosis (inner knowledge, revealed truth). The above is by no account my entire vision of truth. I think that reality has truth & truth has beauty & our lives have a deeper meaning which we rarely get a glimpse of. In my opinion, one way to find such meaning is through reason & science, observing oneself & nature, increasing knowledge and keeping a healthy skepticism about it all. Of course this is not the only way. To quote Shakyamuni Buddha:

There are many paths to enlightenment.

Morality & Ethics

       One of the most unjustified claims that religious people make is that Godless people are immoral because they lack the guidance of a divine supreme being or higher power. This claim implies that morals are independent of a rational mind and human conscience. I personally do not think that one needs a belief in God to understand how to have empathy or how to act kind and compassionate to others. I certainly do not think that one needs a holy book to tell one how to behave well towards other people. This is simply the fundamental rule of human reciprocity. Jesus Christ's Golden Rule: 

Do to others what you want them to do to you.

I think that it only requires a good human conscience, a good upbringing, good parents and a good education in order to learn and understand ethical standards of living. 
[What we consider “good” in all these categories is a topic to discuss further in the comments or in a later blog]

       Religion does not give people their morals but rather people attach their morals to religion. An ethical person who is religious may attribute their good deeds to a belief in God and a reading of their holy text. An unethical or disturbed person who is religious may justify their hate and violence by the same belief in God and same religious text. What happened in this instance? Could we argue that the unethical person interpreted the text incorrectly? Or is it more likely that the religious texts act as an excuse or rationalization for fanatical behavior?

       The ability for people to interpret a text in a multitude of different ways is dangerous. The openness of interpretation makes it possible for corruption of meaning and allows individuals and groups to rationalize violent behavior with religious reasons. One does not have to look far into history or present-day events to see how the Bible can be interpreted to defend anyone’s moral position. During the Civil War, the abolitionists and the slave owners often used the same exact passages in the Bible to advance their disparate views on the changing society.

       I do not think that we ought to ban Holy books, like a  dystopian scene from Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451.' I think they have historical significance and I hope that one day soon the majority of Americans will view the Bible in the same way that they view The Epic of Gilgamesh, Hesiod's Theogony or Ovid’s Metamorphosis- an ancient tale, a dramatization of human affairs told in allegory (or as Lloyd Graham calls the Bible, an “allegorical cosmogony”).

[For more on the topic of morality, read Sam Harris' 'Moral Landscape.' For more on Christianity, read Lloyd Graham's 'Deceptions & Myths of the Bible']

Experience of God

       What irks me most about religious and/or superstitious people is their often condescending tone to others who do not believe. For example I think it's insulting to tell someone that since they do not believe in God that they must not have experienced God themselves. To me, this phrase implies that someone who does not believe in God must not have experienced moments of profundity, love, ecstasy, connectedness with the universe and awe-inspiring feelings of self-realization and self-transcendence in life. I think it is misguided for someone to claim that one's experience of God is greater than someone else's experience of the world and thus the idea of God must supplant all others' ideas about being and reality. I think that people can have these kinds of experiences and/or states of mind without attributing it to God.

The Mind of God

       I think it is egoistic, megalomaniacal and delusional to think that one knows the mind of God. I do not know how people have the audacity to claim that they know God, or better yet, to tell people how to live based on that delusion. There is no humility in this aspect of religion. I think that people replace their subjective morals (ideas of right and wrong, good and bad) with the idea of God in order to rationalize their haughty moral superiority. It seems obvious to me that people take the position that "God is on our side" because it is an easy way of taking the moral high ground, when in actuality there is no evidence to substantiate that a belief in God necessitates ethical behavior. 
       In fact, a belief in God or Satan is too often a way of justifying hatred, violence and killing in the name of God. Sadly people often use their religion to rationalize hatred against other groups of people and to rationalize unconscionable behavior such as the mistreatment of women and discrimination against homosexuals. I think that if you consider yourself a progressive, a liberal or a feminist, the most dangerous ideologies that one has to defeat in the 21st-century is that of organized religion. Man-made "patriarchal" religion is by far the most oppressive force against women worldwide.

God as a Description versus Explanation

       I'd like to make a distinction between God as a description and God as an explanation. In the Old Testament, god is often depicted as cruel, vengeful and spiteful. This is no mistake because man made God in the image of man (not the reverse). Like the Abrahamic God, humans too can be capricious and evil. In addition to God as a description, God is often used as an explanation for events in the world. Every time that there is a natural disaster in America I hear people say that, for example, "it must be God's will for the hurricane to kill all those innocent people and destroy their families homes. They must have deserved it. God does all things for a reason. God works in mysterious ways.” It is sickening to hear this repeated narrative of a punitive psychopathic supernatural deity. To me, it is reprehensible to blame the victims of natural disasters because of the belief that all good and bad things happen in accordance to God’s plan.
       Similarly banal are the views of the Westborough Baptist Church who protested military funerals because, according to the WBC belief, the dead soldiers must have deserved punishment from God for being homosexual. One could try to dismiss this behavior as lunacy but their belief is absolutely "rational" according to their strict literal interpretation of the Biblical scriptures. Thankfully, the Snyder v. Phelps (2011) supreme court case ruled that the First Amendment does not protect public speech which is intended to inflict emotional distress a.k.a. tort liability.

       In America alone, there are hundreds of different sects of Christianity who claim to have the ultimate interpretation of Biblical truth. The question: is it possible that any one of these sects has the truth? Or is it more probable that none of them do? The fact that none of them can agree on single interpretation of the truth is proof enough to me that none of them have a monopoly on the truth. In fact anyone who claims to have a monopoly on the truth ought to be viewed suspiciously. It’s better to understand the limits of one’s own ignorance. It’s good to admit what you don’t know.

Questioning Dogma & Hell

       In my experience I've seen that the idea of God only shuns and divides people and that the indoctrination of the youth only keeps successive generations from questioning and thinking for themselves. I think that the term ‘God’ becomes divisive when its definition is ambiguous and this leads to tribalism among religions and their factions. For example: 

I believe in my god, but not your god.

       It is enshrined in any belief system to not question the dogma. What makes religion awful is that it gives proscriptions for how one will be punished for not believing. I argue that any religion that threatens to harm or kill nonbelievers (even in an afterlife) is by definition not a peaceful religion. Of course threatening death to apostates is an awfully convenient way to get rid of people who disagree with your belief system but it is not a peaceful way of life. I also think that the idea that a personal God will punish someone who does not believe in ‘Him, Her or It’ is one of the most unintellectual and hateful ideas which exists. To make things worse the idea of hell and eternal damnation is taught to children who internalize the fear based doctrine of original sin into psychological guilt which they can carry around throughout the rest of their lives unless they are able to unshackle themselves with intensive therapy or psychoanalysis. 
       The binary of good vs evil which pervades Abrahamic religions originates from Zoroastrianism in the early second millennium BCE. In my opinion, it is a false dichotomy for moral thinking. In my estimation, the ‘good vs evil’ lens is an oversimplification of the complexities of reality. I think that most people are good-natured/good-hearted and that most of the hate in the world stems from ignorance, not a pure innate evil in people’s hearts. This is the idea summed up in the Hannah Arendt term: the banality of evil. The reasoning is aptly summed up by Sam Harris...

The thing is, most people think there is a lot of bad people running around in the world. There aren’t a lot of bad people. There are a lot of bad ideas, and bad ideas are worse than bad people because bad ideas are contagious. Bad ideas get good people to do horrible things

Heaven

       Many hold onto the comfort of believing that they will be reunited with their loved ones in the afterlife. You may ask: how could this be dangerous? I think that the belief in the afterlife may seem benign but it actually impairs the psychological process of grief in dealing with the death of a loved one. 
       People often say that they believe in God because God answers their prayers. One might wonder about confirmation bias: how many prayers go unanswered? One might ask about efficacy: Do prayers really work? Studies have shown that people in the hospital who know that people are praying for them to get better tend to have higher stress levels and longer recovery times. So prayers have the opposite effect in many cases. 
       I think that we can be thankful and grateful as humans for food, shelter, friends and family without any supernatural belief. We can take agency for our lives and not simply attribute agency of the world to an external pushing force. This makes life more precious- not less- knowing that life is transitory and short. Life is beautiful knowing that Heaven is on Earth.

       May I remind the reader that a belief in the afterlife is the driving force for suicide bombers who willingly kill themselves and others with the belief that they will become martyrs in order to reach paradise.
[For more on this topic, read Michael Shermer's book 'Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia']

Evidence of Absence is Absence of Evidence

       One rebuttal to expect in a debate about religion is that 'one cannot prove that God does not exist.' Technically this is true but, to me, this is akin to saying that you can't prove that fire-breathing dragons, fairies or unicorns do not exist in objective reality. One could say that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but in this context I think it would undermine the importance for evidence in scientific methods of epistemology- the way we know things about the world, knowing as opposed to belief. In the case of God, the absence of evidence is exactly that. No one has (yet) proven to me that God does exist. The lack of evidence for a supernatural being that controls everything makes it an implausible claim to me. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

       Likewise I understand that the general argument for the existence of God does not obey the rules of logic. God is “felt." One must have faith in God, they say. But I think that believing in something does not necessarily make it true.  Even if God is just a mass hallucination, does that make God real?
[For more on this topic, read Carl Sagan's 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark']

Religion and Morality

       Religion and morality are so deeply intertwined in people’s minds that the word ‘a-theist’ is equated to ‘a-moralist.’ In Pew Studies, Americans consistently have a more favorable view of Satanists than they do of atheists (perhaps because Satanists, at least by name only, appear to have some commonality with the beliefs of Christianity). In Britain they did a study of religiosity where most Christians admitted upon further questioning to not believing in any of the doctrine of their religion (transubstantiation, virgin birth, heaven and hell, etc.). When asked why they still identify as Christian albeit not believing in any of the doctrine, they said that they identify as Christian because they equate being a "Christian" with being a “good person.”
[For more on this topic, read Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion']

Religion and Government

       One of the most common rebuttals to atheists in religion debates is “Atheists are bad too. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Mao…” but this is patently confused thinking and an altogether misleading argument. Hitler was a Catholic and the Nazi SS had “Gott mit Uns” written on their belts (by the way, this is not dissimilar from the motto of the United States “In God We Trust,” which replaced the motto “E Pluribus Unum [out of many, one]" in 1956). In addition, the Communism and leader worship of Mao Zedong's China and Stalin's Soviet Union was a state religion. This brings to light the fact that it is not just the world's major organized religions that are dangerous. Any dogma (especially institutionalized belief systems) which forces conformity and closes the mind to outside thinking is harmful to its adherents and not beneficial to society as a whole (see North Korea & China today). 

       What scares me about the direction that America is going in is that we have already institutionalized Christianity into our society, culture and law. As children in public school, we were made to recite The Pledge of Allegiance every morning which (since the 1950’s) contains the phrase “one nation under God.” This is antithetical to the idea of the First Amendment which was written in order to prevent there being a state-sponsored religion. This is why Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were in favor of “the wall of separation between church and state.” 

       With this said, why do religionists control our government? Why is it practically impossible to get elected to Congress if one is an avowed atheist (i.e. skeptic)? Why are there so few scientists in Congress? Especially when science is so crucial in making policy decisions concerning the infrastructure, the environment, women's reproductive rights, space exploration, etc.
[For more on this topic, read Christopher Hitchens' 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything]

Religion & Education

       Religion does not belong in the education system. We should not allow the religious indoctrination of impressionable minds. Schools ought to teach the youth how to think, not what to think. [For more on this topic, read Steven Repka's blog: Religion Does Not Belong in the Science Classroom]

Religion in Society
       In debates on religion, atheists are often asked the question: what will replace religion? i.e. what will replace the community, social networks and safety net that churches often provide for people across the country? First of all, nothing needs to replace the church. In many communities, the church is more than a place of worship. It’s a culture; a place of picnics and social events that have little to do with the tenets of Christianity. That will not go away. Family and community will always have significant importance for a sense of belongingness and closeness in the tribe. Also, I think that people will create alternate groups for like-minded individuals that do not center around an overtly religious institution, or people will simply do other things, like go to the gym, plant a garden, become more creative, or join a social club.

       As a whole, people in America are becoming less religious every decade. I think that education is a determining factor. As people become more educated, they tend to become less religious. This trend will hopefully continue. In sociological studies, there is a correlation between a nation’s income inequality and religiosity. Countries with higher income inequality generally tend to be more religious. This is particularly true with countries in the old Soviet block and Latin America. Studies have shown that religiosity in America has correlated with the decline of income inequality.

       I'm optimistic that America may very well be able to solve two problems at once- kill two birds with one stone, so to speak- by simultaneously reducing income inequality and religion. The caveat is that this must not happen forcibly. We cannot go the route of communism by forcing redistribution of wealth, banning religion or by mandating a set of beliefs for people to follow. This must happen organically, through education, love and understanding.

The God of the Gaps

       In my opinion, there are much deeper questions in life than contemplating an invisible undetectable God, for example... 

"What is the meaning of life?” “How did we evolve?” “What is consciousness?” “What is our purpose in the universe?” “What happened before the Big Bang?…"

There are things in life that are truly unexplainable (or possibly unknowable) but this does not require a ‘god of the gaps’ which is a placeholder for our ignorance. The ‘god of the gaps’ argument is invoked when there’s something we can’t explain, so the logic goes “it must be God’s work.” No. Why can we not admit that there are things which we do not know? What’s wrong with revealing our ignorance? With doubt we can strive towards finding the answers. When convinced and reassured of a god that superficially explains everything then we might sit complacent in our ignorance. 

       We’re all human. We can all agree that there is a natural beauty in a sunset, a mountain-top view, the freshness of the air in a lush forest, the feeling of falling in love, or listening to our favorite song. These are all qualities of life which flow from our human experience. They are integral parts of being human. We do not need God to understand the intricacies of human-ness. In fact, the methods of science are much more useful in answering the questions of how and why the universe works the way it does than the hollow and meaningless answer of “because God made it so.”

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If the general picture of an expanding universe and a Big Bang is correct, we must then confront still more difficult questions. What were conditions like at the time of the Big Bang? What happened before that? Was there a tiny universe, devoid of all matter, and then the matter suddenly created from nothing? How does that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question. Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed? 

-Carl Sagan, 'Cosmos'

We are Everything and Nothing

We are a mysterious wave like a specter of light. Like a shadow in the Darkness. A ghost in the machine. A Timeless energy stuck in between quantum states. 

We are unmoving movement, an eternal moment, the flicker of a star, the tail of a comet... We are what we are. 

We are what we give. We give what we know. And we know what we have. 

We are meaning in a meaningless universe. 

We are a flow in the ocean of consciousness. 

We are a pebble on the beach of existence. 

We are Wonder, passion, wavelengths of sound, layers of dirt and dust... We are everything and nothing. 

We are water and fire. 

We are the full moon peeking through the clouds, reflecting off the rippling snow. 

We are all individual yet the same. 

We are all identical yet different. 

We are two but also one. 

We are a duality but united. 

We have substance but no matter... 

We live just to die, we fall and we falter, failing to follow the patterns set by our forefathers. 

We feign a fiction to fulfill our fantasies and furnish our memories with falsehoods and confabulations. 

We finish it off with fun and fairy tales. 

We are Gods disguised as Mortals. 

We are in a prison disguised as freedom. 

We are Wanderlust in a cage. 

We are at peace in war and our minds are at War in peace. We feel happiness when we cry and we feel sadness when we smile. 

We are like spring and fall- ever-changing... 

We are like summer and winter- forever still and calm... 

We think we know but we only see. 

We hear the sounds, but what could it be? 

We plan our will, but is it destiny? 

We know our strengths but still question our ability. 

We are stubbornness and fragility, clumsiness and humility... We are sincerely searching for serenity in a sunset, finding fecundity in the foliage... folding in for a night's sleep. 

We are a stream of melted ice on a mountain trail. 

We are somebody but nobody. 

It's better to have a lot of enemies than a bunch of fairweather friends. Creating controversy means that you've probably said something profound that's worth arguing about. There's no use in debating over the popular fashion that everyone agrees on. 

We have no other purpose than to find our purpose. 

There is no wisdom that is new or not already known. 

The wise go into the Hills like Hermits because no one listens to them anyway. No one pays attention to their heed... Until the prophecy comes true. 

No one takes their advice until it's too late to turn back. 

No one cares for the truth until they're sick and dying from the lies. 

No one prays for heaven until they have seen hell and stared death in his eyes. 

No one saves for old age until their youthfulness disappears. No one longs for love like the one whose seen it go. 

No one stays to say good night and turn off the lights when everyone leaves (no one really cares about you or for me). People only care about their dreams, even though reality is never quite as it seems. 

Everyday is an experience of the ridiculous to the sublime, the sacred to the profane, the enlightening to the mundane. We try to sustain with food for the brain and maintain our composure, obtain control of this thought-plane, and pretend that we're not going insane. 

We seek fortune and fame (how could you blame us?) and yet we're really all the same plain Jane, all playing the game but each calling it by a different name... 

You'll know who won by what friends remain at the end of the day, who is by your side and who left you standing in the rain. When you know the truth there's nothing about which to complain. 

There's no loss or gain. 

There's no joy or pain. 

There's only heart and mind and body... And the soul is along for the ride. 

To know yourself is a luxury- to know the self as illusory... 

To know that we live forever in imagination...

To know that those sleepless nights, the agitation, and the artists' frustration does not go unrecognized... 

To know that the pursuit of happiness is always at our fingertips within Reach and that the journey means much more than the destination... 

To know that we awake only to make more mistakes... 

To know the real from the fakes, the angels from the snakes, the diseased from the healed... 

To know that the stars are a million Rising Suns with a unique religion under every one... 

To know the Ultimate Beauty, Oh Tranquil one!- Awareness 

(the sweetest thing: music to the ears of the devas, they clasp their hands in amusement for they adore to partake in the magic of the fruit of life: its knowing)

Pornography & the Reasonable Limits on Freedom of Speech

Sex is not inherently bad, but pornography and American culture demonizes sex through over-sexualization and objectification. There exists no love in pornography. It lacks compassion and empathy. As Chris Hedges says in “Illusion of Love,” "Porn reflects the endemic cruelty of our society." Everything has changed because of the Internet, constantly reinvigorating our need to have a discourse on the banning of obscene materials. If one wants to see all that has become wrong and vile about humankind, they are just a few Google searches away from finding it. People find stimulation in porn sites and websites like World Star Hip Hop which appeal to their sense of depravity. According to Pew polls, more adults watch porn than ever before, and the number of women who watch porn is increasing (Slate article).

Pornography has always had a central role in the discussion of free speech rights as can be shown by various historical court cases on obscenity law. In the beginning it was a concernment of religious sexual morality. Under religious blasphemy law, obscenity was defined by the Hicklin rule as anything intended “to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences.” Religion (especially Christianity) has often used concepts of immorality, sin and wickedness to justify repression of sexuality. It can be argued that the anti-eroticism of Christianity has led in many regards to deep sexual repression in our society. “Creation of a taboo creates desire” explains historian and professor at Occidental College Thaddeus Russell. This has manifested itself strangely in the Catholic Church as its fixation on same-sex marriage and circumcision. Christopher Ryan writes in Psychology Today that “if expression of sexuality is thwarted, the human psyche tends to grow twisted into grotesque, enraged perversions of desire” (Ryan, Psychology Today). On the other hand, our hedonistic culture constantly bombards us with sexualized images everywhere, making us crave that which is unattainable. Many of us have become aware of this paradox in American culture. Russell calls it our “split-mind” culture between our roots in tradition/”Puritanism” versus hedonism/“Popular culture” (Joe Rogan Experience #553). Even though blasphemy is no longer a crime, our values on right and wrong, decent and indecent, still correlate mainly to religious principles.

U.S. District Judge John Woolsey adapted the Hicklin’s rule definition of obscenity in 1933 by the decision to allow the importation of the book Ulysses by James Joyce (pg. 126). The significance of this ruling is in Woolsey saying that there must be a dominant theme of sex throughout a whole work, in other words, “the work must be judged as a whole (not by isolated passages).” The Roth Test clarified that “the First Amendment must protect ideas, and obscenity has no ideas worth protecting.” By this definition, anything of sexually lewd nature is “worthless.” Miller v. California (1973) established the reading of the Supreme Court ruling that pornography is obscene if it appeals to the “prurient interest” or is advertised as such to appeal to the prurient interest (Freedom of Speech in the United States, pg. 137). Recognition of ‘prurient interest must be according to the thinking of the “average person, applying contemporary local community standards.” Ironically, obscenity is thus categorized based on the definition society gives it in a particular era. The final “test” of characteristics of obscenity involve whether the material has any serious literary, artistic, or political, or scientific value (SLAPS Test), which needs to be determined by a reasonable person (pg 137). That is why photographs or scenes of sexually explicit conduct cannot possibly receive protection under the First Amendment. The only exception of course is for educational purposes, such as medical journals.

Let us examine the intersubjective morality of pornography. The issues with pornography fit into two categories: nudity and the sexual act. According to cultural and social mores, nudity in artwork/sculpture/film has merit. Nudity among strangers in public on the other hand is seen as “indecent.” Indecent exposure is illegal because public nudity (and other forms of exhibitionism) are considered unwanted. Performing a sexual act in public is also public indecency. Although pornography has these same features (nudity and the sexual act) it has different rights because porn is sought out for and one has the right of private viewing. A sexual act like vaginal, oral, or anal penetration is deemed obscene according to the Miller test because it clearly appeals to prurient interest, depicts offensive material, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. An example of a possible solution is the censorship in Japan. In opposition to “indecent” materials, the male or female genital area is censored with a mosaic in Japanese pornography but pornography is not altogether banned.

From a human biological perspective, porn is addictive for a significant percentage of people. Like a drug, one’s tolerance increases the more one uses. People find themselves searching for porn with more intense and more inappropriate acts in order to get stimulation. We humans have neuro-chemicals (like dopamine and serotonin) which flood the brain upon seeing porn images, triggering “reward pathways” (fightthenewdrug.org). These “reward pathways” affect and control our happiness, mood, emotions, and feelings of ‘real love.' Recently there have been multiple studies researching the effect of pornography on the brain. According to biologist Rupert Sheldrake, pornography evokes an emotional response five seconds before one actually sees an image (Joe Rogan Experience #550). In other words, the body’s sympathetic nervous system prepares the mind for what one is about to see. This is evidence that the mind-body’s natural response/reaction is a severely negative one.

            Pornography alters normal sexual fantasy and normative human sexual behavior. It promotes perverse or paraphilic forms of sexuality (using “perverse” and “paraphilic” as non-pejoratives here). Of course as Freud said, perversion is normal in humans, but there exist forms of sexual perversion which ignore mutual consent or inflict harm on oneself or other parties (like extreme forms of bondage, domination/submission, sadism/masochism [BDSM] and fetishism). The most common form is scopophilia, or voyeurism, which seems like the best internal explanation for watching pornography. People become aroused by visual stimuli of the naked body (either opposite-sex or same-sex). Exhibitionism rather exploits the on-looker, forcefully exposing one’s body parts or genitalia in public. A few porn actors/actresses probably suffer from martymachlia, a type of exhibitionism where one becomes sexually aroused by others watching the sexual act.

Many men claim that porn (in moderation) helps them with masturbation but for some of them it becomes more than that. Part of the problem is that teenagers have access to these Websites which can warp one’s perception of reality from an early age. In all, pornography can lead to serious problems when it disrupts ordinary activities or impairs mental function. People who become porn addicts typically have issues with autoeroticism, or becoming one’s own preferred sexual object. Regardless of one’s intimate wants/needs, pornography is simply not the way to positive sexual gratification. People have lost their ability to communicate with others and empathize at a basic emotional level. They have disconnected themselves from the need for human interaction, human touch and true expression of human sexuality. Sex replaces love in our society.  

As I mentioned before, there exist cultural aspects of the Western worldview which create the system of perpetuating hate and violence towards women and minorities that we see throughout history. As Thaddeus Russell says, there exists a dichotomy between hedonism (the “pleasure-seeking”) and Puritanism (“the Protestant work ethic”) in America. Many people are conscientiously divided internally by these two complimentary ideas, and it causes conflict in their interpersonal relationships and personal life. Instead of directly attacking religion as a source of these problems, one will discuss the sexualization in our culture which leads to objectification of women.

In line with the “Stupidification of America,” everything in our popular media culture has succumbed to sexualization. Hypersexual images pervade film, television, advertisements in the most absurd ways. The pornography industry profits from people’s number one instinctual drive, libido, turning our “real” desires into a morphed form of unreasonable fantasy. Women become objects of man’s desire. Men objectify the female body, often portraying women without any identity or agency. A porn actress is treated like she does not have a soul. In addition to their clothes, they have all their power stripped away from them. Men are the oppressors in society. The sex object is idolized, but never idealized (Reik, pg. 21). We, as people in society, become desensitized to these images of sex and violence. The classic example is the Sports Illustrated magazine Swimsuit Edition, the haute-couture of girls wearing bikinis. Bombarded by these hyper-sexual images, men and women become ashamed of their bodies and ashamed of their sexuality. It is no wonder that young men and women develop unsubstantiated feelings of guilt, shame, and often self-blame. Pornography and sexualization of girls and boys hinders normal psychosexual development through socialization.

America’s obsession with pornography (and the graphic image in general) can be explained in Freudian/Jungian terms by our sexually repressed society. Our society has moved our attention away from the sexual act and directed it towards the sexual object. Freud theorized that the first love-object of a boy-child is the mother until this sexual energy is then transferred in the latency phase of psychosexual development. The preferred sexual object for culture constantly changes too. Back in the 90’s it was Pamela Anderson, and now it’s Jennifer Lawrence (the sex object often seems cliché and might reveal something about maturity level as previously stated). Porn negatively changes our expectations of beauty. All mass media in a way is responsible for both men and women’s negative or inflated self-image and body image. Many men seem to think that a woman needs to look and act a certain way in order to feel attraction. Women too fall into the trap of feeling like they have to live up to this false standard of beauty. They take pride in looking like a preferred sexual object (for example, showing breast cleavage).

Pornography is an ugly business. Women (and men) sell their bodies for money which for all practical purposes can be defined as prostitution. The Greek word ‘pornographos’ refers to “writing about prostitutes” (Google Etymology). Sadly, female porn stars think of it as a job, as work. They are called “actors” and “actresses” but their “acting” involves fornication for a price. The porn industry is a breeding ground (no pun intended) for cruelty and aggression. These women become victims of the porn viewer turned on by violence in conjunction with sex. Despite this blatant victimization, the extent to which these porn stars either play victim (self-victimization) or get blamed for being a victim (i.e. “slut shaming”) is disturbing. Many develop traits like learned helplessness which make them feel like the porn industry is their only way out.

It should not be a surprise that people act the way that they do given what our culture has taught us on television and in movies. Thaddeus Russell explains comically how people in Iran and Pakistan watch the “worst porn.” Despite banning YouTube, Pakistanis type the most sex-related search terms into search engines like Google, especially gay (male-male), “bizarre” and bestiality porn. In this way, “abnormal” or “deviant” sexual behavior is publicly forbidden yet in private it has prominence. This is evident by the wide variety of genres in pornography & the themes in adult entertainment today that since the 1970’s have gone to extremes. If one can think of a sexual fetish possible by human sexuality, one can guarantee you will be able to find pornography that caters to those desires.

We can analyze/critique pornography from a humanistic level by looking at how paradigmatic views, social mores and opinions on pornography reveal themselves in our everyday language. One hears this argument often enough if you ask men about their opinions on porn. “Women want it. They even say they want it!” It is easy to say that these men and women are just sado-masochistic narcissistic freaks, moving the blame from society to women in general. In fact there are deeper root psychological causes which may lead men and women into the industry. One must point out how that “reality” (of women as victims) is socially constructed. As a question of values, how did we (men and women) create such a sick society? Much of the problem stems from denial from men who are unwilling to see the harm they commit. “Women are not the victims.” This is often the argument about victims of rape. “She deserved it. Look what she was wearing.” Many men (and women) send/receive mixed messages about sex and they ignore the realities of sexual harassment and sexual oppression. Sexual violence is traumatizing. As Illusion of Love suggests, many porn stars come from poor families with past histories of sexual abuse and domestic violence. In their daily lives, porn stars turn to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism. The demands of the industry are not only damaging to their bodies but damaging to their psyche.

            Porn manifests the worst evil aspects of human nature, like misogyny and torture (real or psychological). Pornography changes the way that we view sex, women and even our conception of love. Pornography needs to be limited or at the very least regulated in a way that prevents people from having their essence corrupted by negative outside influence. Of course in this day and age there is no stopping film producers from making “entertainment” at the expense of individuals’ lives. But there is a reason that pornography is legal in this country whereas it is banned elsewhere around the globe. “There are no rights, only human politics.” Pornography producers like Larry Flynt are willing to fight at the highest level for their right to produce and distribute materials exhibiting sexual conduct. Some like author Salman Rushdie also argue that a “free and civilized society should be judged by its willingness to accept pornography,” citing the example of Pakistan.

Source Citation
Joe Rogan Experience #553- Thaddeus Russell. Podcast. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjMX4_4faX4

Sarah Baxter and Richard Brooks. Porn is vital to freedom, says Rushdie. The Sunday Times. August 8, 2004. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article233891.ece

Fight the New Drug. http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/get-the-facts#porn-is-addictive

Hess, Amanda. How Many Women Are Not Admitting to Pew That They Watch Porn? Slate magazine. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/10/11/pew_online_viewing_study_percentage_of_women_who_watch_online_porn_is_growing.html

Joe Rogan Experience #550- Rupert Sheldrake. Podcast. Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZklRSn92ek4


Reik, Theodor. Love and Lust: On the Psychoanalysis of Romantic and Sexual Emotions. http://books.google.com/books?id=_plS7LR3t4UC&printsec=frontcover

Ryan, Christopher. Sexual Repression. Psychology Today. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201004/sexual-repression-the-malady-considers-itself-the-remedy


Thomas L. Tedford. Freedom of Speech in the United States. 7th edition.

“Citizens United 2.0” and the First Amendment

Anyone paying attention to the 2012 campaign understands that it was supercharged with high monetary spending to all major parties and candidates. Most Americans do not know why this is, or the reasoning behind the sanctioning of big money in politics. It was a Supreme Court case in 2010, Citizens United v. FEC, which entirely changed the way that money works in U.S. politics. The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to limit the free speech of corporations and organizations in political election fundraising. This allowed corporations and people to contribute practically unlimited amounts of money to “super PAC’s” in the 2012 campaign. Citizens United allowed for the creation of “Super PAC’s,” or political action committees, which can receive unlimited donations from disclosed corporations, organizations and individuals. In addition, they can give unlimited sums of money to advocate for candidates or oppose others, although Super PAC’s are prohibited from giving money directly to candidates (Opensecrets.org). According to The Wall Street Journal’s website, Super PAC’s spent $567,498,628 in total on the 2012 presidential election (disclosed expenditures) (projects.wsj.com).

Many people, like the Free Press movement, argue that the ‘Citizens United’ case is unconstitutional in that it inhibits the citizens’ free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Barnie Frank in particular tried to initiate a proposal with House Democrats that would tax these corporate political expenditures and put laws in place to “ban foreign corporation” from spending on elections (Grim). Republicans in the House of the Representatives have filibustered attempts to have a vote. Many people (like in the Huffington Post article above) react by saying that Citizens United repealed “over one hundred years of law”, but the Supreme Court decision is a little more nuanced than that. It involves the conciliation of many principles that resulted from a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 20th century (namely Buckley v. Valeo (1976), discussed later). Eugene Volokh, in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution writes, “Despite the originalist debate between Justices Thomas and Scalia, today's free speech and free press law is not much influenced by original meaning. It is mostly the creature of the experience and thinking of the twentieth century, as the Court first began to hear a wide range of free speech cases only in the late 1910s” (Volokh). 

The ‘Citizens United v. FEC’ case arose because Citizens United (a Conservative advocacy group that produces commercials and documentaries) released the movie Hillary (2008) a day before the Democratic primaries. As defined by McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, the movie and its related ads were considered “electioneering communications,” and were thusly regulated by the same restrictions to any other political speech leading up to an election ("Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."). When the case reached the Supreme Court, they ruled (in a 5-4 vote) that the campaign spending limits of the McCain-Feingold Act (also known as Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) were unconstitutional, and this led the way to legalizing unlimited donations to special “super” political action committees. What the Citizens United case has made permissible is corporate donations to independent organizations. Organizations must have independence, meaning that they cannot be affiliated with a candidate. The law only allows for “uncoordinated” expenditures, which means that the corporations and candidates cannot be in correspondence with one another (Intelligence Squared Debate). In other words, it is illegal to donate money directly to a candidate, but it is perfectly legal to donate large sums to super PAC’s (which have explicit views and openly support a cause). The only people who are really granted with any extraordinarily new privileges are non-profit advocacy corporations (e.g. the Sierra Club, NRA, Planned Parenthood) that use their right to political speech to express their view on relevant issues.

As expected, the Supreme Court has a rigorous logic for their removing limits to campaign spending. The court’s interpretation of corporations as persons in Citizens United is not new. Since the outset of the establishment of the United States government, the corporation (as an entity), has been seen to need similar protections by the law as a natural person would. And for almost as long as it has been implemented, the Fourteenth Amendment has been used to defend the legal rights of corporations. The Reconstruction Amendments ratified after the Civil War, including the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, intended to protect the rights of freed slaves. The clause at the end of the Fourteenth Amendment reads: “…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It has been interpreted ever since that likewise corporations cannot be denied equal protection of the laws. In the late 19^th century, the corporation was ideal for capitalistic ventures, and the preferred form of budding entrepreneurs. The corporation is what helped millionaires like Vanderbilt and Carnegie to become moguls of their respective industries. The first historical case defining corporate personhood was Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819), which gave corporations the rights to contract. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1885) was the first case to recognize corporations as having some of the same rights as individual people, by virtue of having been created by individuals with rights ("Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company").

In the historical logic of the Supreme Court and Congress, corporations must be treated as persons because corporations are essentially abstracts of the individuals that run the firm. A very clear explanation of the ‘corporate personhood’ logic was discussed by YouTuber 'Liberalviewe (his real name is unknown to me), a lawyer and ACLU activist who talks about current political affairs and media bias. He brings up three fairly strong points in his video entitled “Is It Just Corporate Free Speech?,” in response to people who have seemingly “mischaracterized” the Supreme Court case decision (Liberalviewer). His first point is that corporations need to be legally treated like persons “to be able to sue and charge them of crimes.” The second is that corporations do not have all the rights of people. They cannot marry, be murdered, or have the right to habeas corpus. The principle of corporate personhood is not an absolute one. Lastly, corporations are associations of people, and groups of people must be treated as people. The Supreme Court in the Citizens United case ruled that “the government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity.” 

Although corporations may represent the people who belong to their association, corporate interests are often greater than the interests of the people they represent. We ought to be concerned about whether corporate interests are influencing decisions in Washington D.C and how much influence (or “say”) that they have in Congress. A contemporaneous example is the minimum wage laws which allow fast food companies like McDonald’s to make record profits yearly without paying their employees a reasonable income. The minimum wage has not modified with the rise of inflation, so it no longer constitutes a living wage. Some wonder if the corporate lobbyists have too much of a stranglehold over politics. It appears as if corporations want to keep the minimum wage low so that they can continue to hire cheap labor. These policies are beneficial for the corporations and their CEO’s; it is clearly not beneficial for America as a whole, socially, politically, and economically (59% of Americans work a minimum hourly wage job (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)). A majority of Americans are convinced that lobbyists in Washington have more influence over policymaking than the peoples’ votes (Rasmussen Reports, "Most Voters Say Lobbyists Part of Any White House Campaign."). Most also support banning the lobbying of business firms that make most of their profits from government contracts (like the big defense firms i.e. Northrop Grumman) (Rasmussen Reports, "65% Say Ban Lobbyists for Firms That Live Off Government.”). Many fear that our political-economic system is too entrenched with “crony capitalism.” For some this is enough evidence to suggest the “appearance of corruption.”

Many agree that public funding of elections would be the answer to the problem of overwhelming political expenditures. Of course, there is a severe lack of public funds because it has not been well supported by the taxpayer checkoff in the last four decades. Public funding was first proposed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, who “recommended public financing of federal elections and a ban on private contributions” (fec.gov). Lawrence Lessig (one of the founders of Creative Commons) is a supporter of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would enact citizen-funded elections for Congressional elections. This would lessen the influence of big donors in order to increase the number of small donors (contributing up to $100). Under the Fair Elections system, donations given to candidates would be matched by the Fair Elections Fund $4 to every $1 spent ("Fair Elections Now- Money in Politics.").

There are a considerable number of common misconceptions about the Citizens United ruling and its effects on the political system. Most of the confusion is understandable because the law is not distinctly clear. The particulars of the case are never really explained that well in the media, and rarely discussed in a non-partisan way. There is a lot of misunderstanding about some of the key components to campaign finance law. The following is a list of the types of donations that are allowed in the presidential election and what restrictions apply to each: 

1) Individuals can give up to $2,600 to any candidate (or all candidates) in the presidential election. In addition, to quote the Federal Election Committee’s website, “You may contribute up to $30,800 a year to a national party committee and up to $10,000 a year to a state or local party committee” (fec.gov).

2) Individuals can donate unlimited money to Super PAC’s. 

3a) Individuals can donate to organizations- also known as “secret funds.” 

3b) Corporations, 527’s, “advocacy groups,” and organizations can donate to Super PAC’s. *In contrast to what some have said, Citizens United did not overturn the 1907 Tillman Act which “prohibits corporations from directly contributing to candidates” (Liberalviewer).

The crux of the campaign finance constitutionality debate lies in the interpretation of the First Amendment (“Congress shall pass no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”) in the context of the Framer’s original intent, and modern electioneering practices. The typical argument from supporters of Super PAC’s (in Robert Rosencranz’s words) is that, “in order for speech to be heard, it needs money behind it” (Intelligence Squared Debate). The Supreme Court and Congress have continually agreed on the fact that money is a physical requirement for running a campaign and broadcasting ads. Since all political speech is protected by the First Amendment, raising money for political ads is defined as free speech. People often cite the idea that due to the outcome of the Citizens United case, money is now equated with speech. Although this may be somewhat true, it does not clarify the actual nature of the ruling. Money does not literally equate with free speech in the wording of the law. Rather, election advertising (which requires money) is a form of free speech expression, of which one’s right cannot be denied. 

The synthesis of this rationale stems from Buckley v. Valeo (1976), which concluded that “some forms of communication made possible by the giving and spending of money involve speech alone, some involve conduct, and some involve a combination of the two.” Also, “this is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the event. The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech” (Petoskey). This is the vital argument that money is crucial for political campaigning. Often cited as supporting evidence of this fact is the amount of money spent on elections, and the amount of time politicians spend fundraising. If corporations are persons with free speech rights, then giving money donations to super PAC’s is automatically protected under the First amendment. One key ethical problem is the issue that corporations may be speaking for their shareholders, and possibly their consumers, because money is considered speech. That is one of the reasons that large corporations tend to give relatively equal sums of money towards both Republican and Democratic parties, attempting not to alienate their base or make any public political affiliations (Rosencranz). 

Without getting too deep into the history of Free Speech rights in America, there are some important aspects that make up the application of First Amendment law as it stands today. Of course there are standard exceptions to Free Speech such as incitement, lying, obscenity, profanity, threats, or misleading commercial advertising. The classic example is how one is not allowed to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. Free Speech also guarantees protection for hate speech and radical ideologies, such as those expressed by Neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc. The First Amendment protects speech for speakers and writers, as well as other forms of expression. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution explains, “It also extends to conduct that is necessary in order to speak effectively, as, for example, using money to buy a public address system or to buy advertising. Restrictions on independent campaign expenditures, for instance, raise First Amendment problems because restricting the use of money for speech purposes is a speech restriction.”

The main argument against the Citizens United case is fairly straightforward. We need less money in politics. As Robert Rosencranz says in the introduction to “Two Cheers for Super PAC’s,” an Intelligence Squared Debate, “Their best argument, it seems to me, is that things have gotten out of hand. There’s just too damn much money involved in politics, and we’re drowning out the voices of people that can’t be heard because they don’t have access to money to get on the airways.” Super PAC’s are given individual contributions, which is then pooled together to support a single cause. These Super PAC’s are acting as agents to allow rich individuals to donate exorbitant amounts of money. One huge criticism of campaign finance spending is the problem of anonymity. Obama is one of the hardest critics of the Citizens United case ruling for this reason. He has repeatedly asserted that undisclosed donations need to stop. 

Some have proposed that a Constitutional amendment is necessary in order to clear up the language of the First Amendment. These proposals, supported by groups like Move To Amend, Free Press and Democracy Matters, intend to specify that “the rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only” (wethepeopleamendment.org). This amendment proposal is similar to the debate over gun control in how some argue that the Second Amendment is antiquated and obsolete. Others say that the proposed amendment is not feasible, and that we ought to not tinker around with the First Amendment.

The one problem with discussing the effect of the Citizens United case is that it is relatively new. The only real conclusive source for studying the impact of unlimited campaign contributions is the 2012 election. One thing we know positively is that more money was spent in that presidential election than ever before. The two biggest receivers of campaign contributions were Republican party nominee Mitt Romney, and Democratic party candidate Barack Obama who was running for re-election. Mitt Romney’s overall spending for the 2012 campaign totaled $1,238,072,571. Barack Obama was close behind with $1,107,080,937 (www.opensecrets.org/pres12). These figures only give one an idea as to the enormity of the donation sums. We find the real scope of Citizens United’s effect in understanding who the big spenders are. A full detailed list of all disclosed expenditures can be found at OpenSecrets.org, the Center for Responsive Politics. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson (Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Adelson Drug Clinic, respectively) each gave $15 million to Restore Our Future super PAC (supporting Mitt Romney) and $11.5 million to American Crossroads (opposing various Democrats) (projects.wsj.com/super-pacs/).  Restore Our Future, Priorities USA Action (Obama-supporting super PAC), and American Crossroads were the top three Super PAC’s in 2012 (wsj.com/). 

An inherent flaw of the campaign contribution system is that it serves the wealthy. The public has the opportunity but no means to have a political message of their own. Only 0.53% of US adult population donated $200 (the min.) or more in the 2012 election cycle, which means that more than 99% of the electorate were shut out of this form of political speech. One could relate this disparity in numbers to another pressing issue in America: economic inequality and the distribution of wealth. As Pew Poll’s 2011 data suggests, the wealthiest 7% of Americans (household net worth above $889,279) owned 63% of the nation’s overall household wealth (Fry). Average Americans no longer feel like they have a role in the political system and this too gives wealthy individuals a significant advantage over the general public to participate in the various forms of political expression in the mass media.

Candidates who win elections are often the ones who receive the most donations, because of their favorability. As much as the argument is voiced, the converse is not true. More spending does not always necessitate more votes. Regardless of the seemingly ridiculous amount of money donated to the Republican party, big money spending did not guarantee success for Romney’s campaign. Even with Romney outspending his opponent, Barack Obama still carried the election with 332 electoral votes.

On October 8^th, 2013, the Supreme Court reviewed McCutcheon v. FEC, a case concerning Alabama resident Shaun McCutcheon who believes that the federal limits on individual contributions are unconstitutional. It has been coined “Citizens United 2.0,” because of the possibility that it could further repeal federal restrictions on candidate and party spending. According to Rose Nimkiins Petoskey and Katherine Hinderlie, “As of September of 2012, [McCutcheon] had contributed over $38,000 in total to sixteen candidates, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (“NRSC”), the National Republican Congressional Committee (“NRCC”), and the Republican National Committee (“RNC"). McCutcheon wanted to contribute to twelve other candidates and to increase his donations to the NRSC, NRCC, and the RNC, but in doing so he would have violated FECA’s aggregate limit” ("McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.") Shaun McCutcheon argues that the donation caps ($2,500 for any candidate in an election) are unconstitutionally too low (nytimes.com). The reasoning behind these individual limits has historically been based in the prevention of corruption or “appearance of corruption.” The Supreme Court has determined that individual contributions can have a corrupting influence, and thus have always ruled in favor of the law which stands, including strict restrictions and donation caps. Money cannot be considered speech if it promotes the influence of “corruption,” or even has the “appearance of corruption.” It regards individual limits on donations to candidates or parties, as opposed to the Supreme Court ruling of ‘Citizens United’ which defined limits on money donations (“free speech") from independent organizations as constitutional.

As always, it is difficult to presume how a case is going to be determined in advance of the actual preceding. Case in point, news anchors that are “inside” politics (and the ones that have law degrees) tend to be more careful about trying to predict the Supreme Court’s decision ahead of time (LiberalViewer). Since the Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of campaign spending constituting free speech, it is possible to imagine how they would deliberate over whether McCutcheon is having his free speech rights violated by the FEC’s rules, but there is a precedent. The Supreme Court and Congress have always seen restrictions on individual contributions that may bring about the “appearance of corruption,” because of the rational expectation of politicians to return governmental favors (or “buying influence” on key issues) in exchange for money. It would be unprecedented for them to decide otherwise that individual limits are unnecessarily regulated. In general, the justices must understand that the law should prevent personal (or corporate) interests from overshadowing the public interest. ‘Citizens United 2.0’ has the potential ability to repeal the ‘Citizens United v. FEC’ case, which has spurred activists to make people more aware of the campaign finance issue, but it is unlikely that corporate expenditures in future elections will be challenged. [2018 note: this paper was written in December 2013...in the McCutcheon v. FEC case, the limit on individual contributions was decided to be unconstitutional]

The government and its people request transparency for the entire democratic process. Some would argue that it is the job of the media, if not to uncover the flawed system where money is mixed with politics, then to at least inform the public about campaign spending. To many, transparency seems of utmost significance when it comes down to political influence in our legislative and executive branch. The Citizens United ruling acknowledges, “The First Amendment protects political speech and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages” ("Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."). This makes clear that the right to anonymity as a donor is not guaranteed by the First Amendment. If the citizens of the United States are to stay informed about money in politics, it stresses the need for adequate journalism (‘free press’ protected by First Amendment). Informing the public should constitute an unbiased reporting of elections, providing equal coverage to every candidate as to elucidate their position on key issues. Good journalism ought to “use the facts to challenge a politician’s bogus claims.” This must also include exposing the money donors and their explicitly stated views. More than ever, we need contemporary “muckrakers” that investigate big donors and expose big money interests and possible corruption.

One legitimate concern is that the excessive amount of airtime dedicated to political ads before elections has created an unbalanced state of affairs on television network news. It has been observed that television networks show increasingly more political ads as more money is funneled into politics. As a consequence, viewers are disproportionately seeing campaign advertising rather than actual news coverage of the election (freepress.net). It begs the question of whether voters can really judge the candidates based on their merits when advertisers control the basic mediums of mass communication. Although one can buy airtime, one cannot buy elections.

What does Citizens United v. FEC mean for a democratic society? The Supreme Court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to prevent corporations (who have some basic rights as persons) from expressing political speech (which is considered impossible without money in our modern technological age). On the other hand, it is a compellingly strong argument that unlimited campaign spending is limiting participation from the general populace. After having given one million dollars to Priorities USA Action Super PAC, comedian and talk show host Bill Maher urged fellow millionaires to “come out of the closet” in support of the Democratic party. His intention of giving one million dollars to “Obama’s Super PAC” was not to serve as a model for other liberals but more to support the democratic side simply to oppose Romney. Maher’s solution is to outspend conservatives, not necessarily by the virtue of supporting Democratic policy but by the virtue of challenging “radical” right-wing views. This is a similar tactic of comedian Stephen Colbert, who started his own Super PAC, ‘Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow’, for parody purposes, but also to expose loopholes and shed light on the absurdity of money in politics. It is possible that unlimited spending has actually allowed for more free political speech, despite that only the wealthiest speak the loudest. 

Simply having money does not guarantee a win in an election, that point cannot be underscored enough. With more and more corporate money being spent each year in politics, it emphasizes the importance of voting, in electing officials as representatives of the state. If there is any hope in America’s ideal of a democracy, it is in our ability to get involved in the local community and to choose competent leaders. The American people demand a government that they can trust, which means putting regulations on corporate campaign spending. It requires an informed public, an informing free press, and ultimately a society where all ideas can be shared freely.

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