you dont have to keep it local but recirculating money in your own location is better than shipping it to other areas.

You bet. EFF and the Chicago Food Depository are two at the top of my list, but we've also made a sizable donation to http://www.law-arts.org/ because they helped me out a lot on several occasions when I was just starting out. Also, the Chicago Justice Project, http://chicagojustice.org/ gets some dough because they're actually trying to do some good here. They're data wonks who are fighting to get more transparency in Chicago policing and the data that Chicago policing generates. Tracy Siska is a good dude that has been a constant source of aggravation for the past few Chicago mayors and police chiefs, and I like that.

Though the old girl and I donate close to 10% of our annual income, the biggest donations I make are of my own time. Last Saturday, I spent the day busting sod over at the Englewood Community Garden, where students from Lindblom Academy (a public school in Chicago's inner city) have designed and built a terrific big organic community garden to address the food desert issue in that neighborhood. http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago... . I'm unskilled labor when it comes to vegetable gardens though. The wife does a lot better.

The problem is not the reading, but the recording.

That's the truth. The ALR automates the process of a cop having to read a license plate, call it in and wait for a response. That's fine.

Of course it can also automate the process of collecting movement data on every driver, but it doesn't seem like having ALRs on police cruisers would be a very good way to do that. Stationary ALRs seem like a much bigger threat to privacy.

Hey, it is not racism if it is said in jest or if the parties are white...

I agree.

The sociological definition of racism requires "culturally sanctioned beliefs, which, regardless of intentions involved, defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated position of racial minorities".

Sorry, I know of no (in)appropriate Polish jokes to tell. Something something submarines. Something something seagulls over Poland something... Pretty funny, eh?

Could be better, but don't stop trying.

Damn big government making people safer.

...does that help you out any, or are you just being deliberately obtuse?

You still have not demonstrated why buying a vote should not be protected speech, if money=speech and voting=speech, assuming the Citizens United rationale.

* spending gobs of money to provide a platform from which a candidate gets his/her message across is not the act of buying a vote, so it is legal.

* spending gobs of money in an attempt to literally purchase individual votes for a candidate is illegal.

You just restated the current law, not the legal rationale. Citizens United is now being used to strike down individual state anti-corruption laws. Why couldn't it be used to strike down anti-vote buying laws?

Remember, money=speech, thus laws abridging the freedom of using laws to buy speech are now considered unconstitutional. If voting=speech (I don't see how you can say it is not), then why shouldn't I be able to buy your speech?

Why are you so opposed to liberty?

And then you still need to demonstrate, that our society is particularly rewarding of such attitudes

http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files...

http://scalar.usc.edu/works/gr...

I don't have to demonstrate it. Many peer reviewed papers have already demonstrated it. If wealth decreases compassion, and wealth has grown exponentially for the already wealthy, then as a society we are rewarding people for decreased compassion.

In fact, we reward the most sociopathic with the greatest rewards. Just look at the fallout from the 2008 financial collapse. The only people that made out were the ones that caused the collapse.

But bribery and vote buying are illegal

Corporate donations above a certain amount were also illegal until Citizens United. But if money=speech, then I don't see how vote buying can stay illegal under the same legal rationale.

That's why we'll eventually look back at Citizens United the same way we look back at Plessy v Ferguson, Breedlove v Suttles or Bush v Gore (a Supreme Court decision so awful that the Supreme Court has made it uncitable).

A reasonably well-governed society rewards people for doing something other people want — not for being sociopaths

We're not talking about a "reasonably well-governed society". We're talking about the post-Capitalist United States.

You haven't convinced me, rich people are disproportionally sociopathic. You did imply it, but offered no evidence.

Here's your evidence:

http://www.scientificamerican....

http://opinionator.blogs.nytim...

Truly horrible analogy I'm afraid. It's a very weak attempt at extortion. *Buy this magazine, or we shoot the dog*. That kind of guilt trip doesn't compute in my simple mind.

Alright, so what about just using "speech = money" to tell people I will pay them $50 to vote a certain way?

Why isn't that protected speech? If money = speech, then by god, voting most definitely equals speech. How is my selling my vote NOT protected by the First Amendment? As long as the voter isn't a public official, how can it be bribery?

C'mon, man. You know better. The evil is in the taking, not the offering.

In many SuperPACs, there is no "taking". It's people using their own money to influence elections in ways that were illegal since before the Civil War.

Disallow tax deductions for political 'donations'.

How about we just require losing candidates to reimburse all of their donors?

Presto! Problem solved.

Yes, this means, that people with more money will have an advantage. No, I don't see, how this is automatically a bad thing.

It's not "automatically" a bad thing. It has just worked out that way.

And, our society rewards people with lots of money for being sociopaths. I bet you can see how that might lead to problems if they gain political power.

Only the vote is a vote. People who let money influence their vote is the thing to address. You are attacking an inanimate object.

How would you feel about this:

There is a swing state on which the entire presidential election hangs. I announce that I've set up a fund that will randomly choose a county in that state and gift each person in that county $100, but only if a particular candidate wins the presidency. You get paid no matter who you voted for, but you must prove that you voted.

Would that be legal under your expansive view of the First Amendment?

If so, how about if I go into a city and offer every voter $50 to vote for my hand-picked mayoral candidate? Why would that NOT be protected speech, if you believe money=speech?

And it's the right decision, in compliance with the 1st Amendment.

What did you do with the real Fustakrakich?