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Look at the most capitalistic, laissez-fair presidential candidate we have -- Ron Paul. Holy shit, look at all those corporate sponsors who want freer markets. $50,000! Isn't that corrupt!?

http://oi55.tinypic.com/rrrw2a.jpg

It's not like the remaining millions of funds he has came from regular people like you and me! I bet it came from secret companies! Those bastards!

Interesting. But those companies prefer to game the market rather than compete. A free market would eat their lunch. In fact if they did not receive my tax money they would be gone already.  >:(

I guess we'll just ignore the fact that the Ron Paul list is a who's who of defense contractors.  ::)

Two sides, same coin.

He wants all of our troops home. He's actually skeptical of 9/11.

Maybe the people who work for these companies actually would like to see the wars over to innovate in other markets? ...let's not forget the amount is negligible. Far less than 5% of his contributions.

Which is obviously why every defense contractor in the country is backing him... because they want to destroy themselves.

Maybe his actions will lead to more of a focus on defense at home and more sales due to said change? He has never lied or left his principles. He will not advocate war.

LOL  Yea yea, that's gotta be it!  They're going to make SO MUCH MORE money when he cuts the defense budget to 1/10 of what it is and ends the three wars we're involved in. hahahhaha  You're such a funny guy!

Maybe you don't understand their motives? Maybe they are conscious businesses?

Those public fund raising campaigns everytime when there's an upcoming election in U.S. are just insane. Why not say every party gets a max of 5million (or whatever) from tax money that they can use on their election campaign. Not a single cent more. Those huge donations from companies only lead to lobbyism...

YES!  That's what it must be!  They're just really good guys that would have us all living in libertarian utopia, even if it means the destruction of their multi-billion dollar businesses!  You're so smart!

This only creates a monopoly on people who can get away with secretly funneling more money. It would be a disaster if they set a limit.

Not really. In France, just for example, parties are not allowed to accept donations from companies at all. Donations from single persons are limited to 7,500€/year max. Bank accounts of the parties are public, the salaries for the members of parliament are public too. Election campaigns must be financed from the money within the public accounts. Parties can "claim back" the campaign money from the tax money, if their party gets at least 0.5% of the votes. And since the accounts are public, they only get back what they really paid for the campaign. So this way an election campaign is a bit more about getting votes from people and not just about collecting big big money from companies to do them "a favor" afterwards.

Are these contributions from the companies themselves or from individuals working for the companies?

Based on your assumptions about corporations who support republicans or democrats this statement may seem a bit inconsistent. To clarify, this is of course only the case when they support the guy you like?

Obviously, bro.  Anyone that agrees with my inherently a great person and highly ethical.  Anyone that disagrees with me is unethical by default.

War is obviously not profitable for defense contractors.  That must be why defense contractors love war.  They obviously want to destroy themselves.

Uh....Halliburton?  Bechtel?  Are people really arguing that Defense Contractors aren't profiting from these wars?!?  They are making billions in government contracts.  For example:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/20/iraq-contractors-idINN2060036120071120

Ah.  I see.  Perhaps I should read the thread a little more carefully next time.

How is it that the US Army, Navy and Air Force are making political contributions? Unless I'm misunderstanding something, wouldn't that be tax money they're spending to do that? If the list represents contributions made by individuals who happen to work for XYZ then that's another matter of course.

I noticed later that "US Government" is on the list for McCain as well. I guess it's more likely that it's talking about employees of the organizations, but if so how would that information be collected exactly?

And why would it even be considered relevant?

Thank you for making this clear. Now it all makes sense. It's only the employees who are anti-war. Not the actual companies.

They will go underground .... that is all that will happen ... This war can't be won through Law , only through education , as long as people care if they saw a man on TV and don't pay attention to the politicians words and actions and never analyze them then it doesn't matter what laws you pass , you might make it a little harder for them to get funded but they will , and the payback would need to be much bigger.

Curiously enough there was a proposed law in France to tax gold and the the NO won. Wonder why the politicians voted no on that one...  ;D Corruption always find ways around the law.

Also, by giving government money by numbers of votes you are punishing small parties and benefiting big parties. They get more votes so they get more money, because they have more money they get more votes, because they get more votes they get more money, ... Its a vicious circle that stops any kind of political diversity.

Perhaps it would be a better rebuttal to mentioning that it's soldiers, not defense contractors, doing the donating.