Keithicus Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 I hope I've posted this in the right place. I recently heard about the 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC, which dealt with regulations on how much organizations could spend on political campaign spending. I really don't know much about the case, other than it was decided in favor of corporations having no limitations on campaign spending, but it wasn't long after looking it up that I stumbled across this Youtube video: http://youtu.be/k5kHACjrdEY, which is the subject of my post. I understand that corporations aren't angels of the free market by any stretch of the imagination, but this video was extremely biased and its animation was a pretty poor representation of reality. My problems with the video are the glorification of democracy, the use of completely one-sided animation (pretty propagandistic, if you ask me), and the use of polls as if they're fact ("85% of Americans believe X"). Oh, and when you're finished with the video, look at the description: "And, for all you fact checker out there," (I guess there's only one fact checker) accompanied by a link that literally is just a description of the video and credits. So... no sources. Beautiful. I was wondering what you all think of this video. Happy to hear what you think.
shirgall Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 The fact that the Story of Stuff's premise is "We make too much stuff and too little of what we really want" should be a hint as to their bias.
AynRand Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 I found it very ironic that the premise of this video is that government is ruining the lives of the people, and their solution is more government. I also found it very ironic that goal of these people is to see democracy in action, and again their way to do that is to pass a constitutional amendment which ordinary citizens can't even vote on. At 3:55 the narrator criticizes profit which I found to be absolutely ridiculous because profit occurs when people voluntarily give resources in exchange for other resources, and therefore is a positive thing.
shirgall Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 At 3:55 the narrator criticizes profit... Especially since in a free transaction all participants end up better than when they started, so everyone profits. This is a stumbling block for socialists as they require there to be a victim for the ideology to progress (pun intended).
J. D. Stembal Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 How can leftists say with a straight face that money shouldn't be a top concern for businesses? What does the customer usually consider first when shopping? Price. I try to buy my groceries on manager's special because a lot of times the butcher puts too much meat and fish out in the coolers. I'm actually doing my part to help keep the business afloat (continuing profits) by pursuing a lower price. I don't care if the meat is going to be past date in a couple days. I'll eat it today if it's at a savings. This cute presentation is operating on the premise that democracy in America was all about what the people want. We don't even have a true democracy. It's a republic. While some of the observations are correct, the argument falls flat at the very beginning. The corporation does not need to be removed from the government. The government needs to be removed from the corporation.
iHuman Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 The fact that the Story of Stuff's premise is "We make too much stuff and too little of what we really want" should be a hint as to their bias. yes it does, quite clearly to. How can leftists say with a straight face that money shouldn't be a top concern for businesses? What does the customer usually consider first when shopping? Price. as a customer I usual tend to consider Quality fist & Price second.
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