The Supreme Court Gives Corporations the Rights, but not Responsibilities, of Individuals

The Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, ruled on Thursday that corporations, profit and non profit, could not be proscribed from spending freely on what can accurately be described as both “speech’ or “propaganda” (depending upon one’s perspective) in the waning days of federal elections.

This decision turns an already overly money influenced system, into a veritable free for all of corporate and vested interests propaganda. It confuses Corporations with individuals. If confuses the notion of the Bill of Rights, written as an absolute check upon the power of government over the basic, inalienable rights of individuals in a free society, as an instrument of government restriction upon corporate power and control. And it confuses the notion of free speech expression, with the notion of corporate money expenditure — where the speech is no longer limited by the abilities or points of both speakers and their number, but by the amount of money that has been accumulated itself.

It may be one of the worst, and poorly reasoned, decisions of the Modern Era. [i]

Endnote:
[i]The only recent decision that comes close is Bush v. Gore, wherein at least it could be said, persuasively or not, that the election was a complete tossup anyway, the “hanging chad” determinations upon which it rested were potentially subjective, and America needed a president, not an ongoing protracted legal battle. That one may have changed the course of history —  but that is also mainly  the voters’ doing, when a mere few hundreds of votes separated the candidates from each other in the pivotal swing state of Florida, and the Democratic election worker created butterfly ballot travesty in Palm Beach County.  In addition, a recount was subsequently done of the “hanging chads themselves — the least relevant of three separate Florida voting issues, but the one that garnered he most attention and created the Supreme Court’s interest — and the same outcome, with Bush prevailing, was still reached.