Jan. PF Topic Analysis

Resolved: On balance, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission harms the election process.

First off, it's been a while since we've seen an "On balance..." topic.   (April 2010 - Resolved: On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United States.)  This is another proposition of fact (A has this impact on B).  I personally dislike these topics.  While we haven't had an "On balance" topic we've had A LOT of propositions of fact.  But before I go over that, let's take a quick trip through CU v FEC.

In June of 2004, controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore released a film titled Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature where freedom burns (clever, huh?)  Moore is no friend of conservatives and this film focused on President Bush's activity before, during and after the attacks even going so far as to assert that 9/11 was an inside job. (These conspiracy theorists are referred to ironically as 'truthers.')  Whatever your opinion on the matter, what was clear was that Moore's goals with the film were to influence the upcoming 2004 election between President Bush and Senator John Kerry.  It apparently didn't work.

Citizens United is a non-profit conservative advocacy group.  They protested that the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 prior to the election violated the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or "BCRA")  This act prohibited corporations and unions from using their general treasury to fund "electioneering communications" (broadcast advertisements mentioning a candidate) within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election.  Citizens United's challenge of the film's release with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was dismissed.  So CU's response was basically "Okay.  If liberals like Michael Moore can do it, we can, too."  So they released a film in early 2008 called Hillary: The Movie to be released on DirecTV.  This film was highly critical of then-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.  The advertisements for the film ran before the Democratic Primary, which caused the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to claim the film violated the boundaries set by BCRA.  Citizens United appealed the decision to the Supreme Court (which by this time had been restocked with Conservative leaning President Bush picks).  The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United.

A constitutional attorney would be helpful at this point as I've basically summed up what Wikipedia has  to offer on the subject (don't worry - I corroborated with other sources).  If you were able to follow the two previous paragraphs then you might look at the Supreme Court decision and conclude that they sort of had to rule in favor of CU and the airing of their conservative film since the FEC had allowed Michael Moore's liberal film.  Denying CU's appeal would lead people to think there was a partisan double standard - liberals can do this but conservatives can't.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has opened the door to all sorts of "propaganda."  Consider the film 2016: Obama's America.  This was released the year of Obama's re-election campaign and argues that President Obama wants to reduce significantly the U.S.'s influence within the world while increasing the influence of nations that he believes have suffered or been held back economically or militarily due to U.S. and Western domination.  Overall, it's a very negative portrayal of the President.  I haven't seen the film so I won't comment on it, but just like Fahrenheit 9/11, I'll assume it runs with some basic facts and then gives you a very biased picture of what the filmmaker believes is the "truth."  Thanks to the Supreme Court's decision regarding CU vs. FEC, Obama supporters had little recourse but to let the film be released.  Much like Fahrenheit 9/11, it apparently had little effect on the election.

This is really just the back-story.  As Shakespeare wrote, "What is past is prologue."  In future posts I'll go over the way to go about analyzing propositions of fact and some basic PRO and CON approaches.  As with all topics, I highly recommend you do some research on your own.  I've only provided the "children's dictionary" set-up.