Hello and welcome to the Think Tank.
A recent subject of hot political debate has been the January 21, 2010 Supreme court rejection of the corporate spending limit. This means that Corporations have all the first amendment rights that we enjoy.
In one corner you have Libertarians who believe in a "free monetary" democracy. They believe that the dollar is just as vital to the voting process as the actual voting is. The candidate who gets more financing should have an advantage because he is favored by the business sector and the engines of our modern society.
In the other corner you have Reformers who believe in "one person, one vote" democracy. The reformers have been pushing for publicly funded elections in order to level the playing field, without smear campaigns fogging the voter's head. They argue that Labor unions and Corporations can now dominate the media with fast, deadly attack ads that candidates couldn't respond to.
The third corner are conservatives that believe that the limitation of money a corporation or special interest group can spend to make their political point is censorship and violates their right to free speech. "Corporate power and influence aren't inherently corrupting... as long as they're part of a vibrant debate within an open marketplace of ideas." (Christian science monitor)
Recent court rulings have been favoring the more reformist point of view however when Citizens United, a corporation, wanted to air a controversial political documentary on Hillary Clinton and was shot down by the Federal Election Commission they appealed to the supreme court which now leans conservatively 5-4. The ruling was a 5-4 decision in favor of Citizens United which overturned a hundred year old ruling against a corporation's right to free speech.
But while partisan lines are drawn and the attention of the media goes toward the health care decision a few unexpected consequences of the ruling are brewing in Maryland. A Corporation is actually running for office. Murray Hill Inc. is running in the 8th district of Maryland for congress. While it is a satirical election campaign and mixes an add campaign with its candidacy the corporation has made a big splash because, frankly, it is now legal.
Their website is even more hilarious but people are realizing that they can legally run for office. This Supreme Court ruling has potential to completely change what we hear about our candidates and who we hear it from. Needless to say our republic is walking a fine line.
So I ask you, The Corporation: a Place or a Person? Post thoughts below.
4 comments:
well then, does that mean that one day our president, may be a coalition of thousands of men and women? that cant be right. you would need a separate governing system between all those people just to run the executive branch. don't even think about having the CEO run it all. we cant have a president of presidents. all presidents should be equal. "all right, we have to take a vote folks. oh shoot, Johnson isn't back from his appendicitis. he'll be drugged up until next month. looks like we'll have to postpone the vote again!"
A corporation is definitely a collectively-owned slave, and we need to insert in our constitution more clear definition of what a corporation is, because on one hand if corporations are entirely denied the rights of individuals you will create a needless and destructive inefficiency and slanting towards proprietorships and partnerships but on the other if treated as people we cannot legally restrict some of their more corrupt behaviors. An amendment is necessary, the judicial branch was not made for this kind of activism nor should be used for it and anything done through normally statutory channels will be a temporary fix.
I think a good solution to the whole issue with corporations is to let them have their right to offer what ever they want to candidates, and then put restrictions on the amount of money candidates can except from any one donor. It's both constitutional, and keeps down corruption. Everyone wins!
And by the way, welcome to the think tank Jeremy! Your posts have been fantastic so far. You really seem to know what you're talking about.
This ruling is dangerous. The power of money over politics should be as limited as possible. To remove limits because a corporation is a "person" seems to me the height of idiocy. Corporations aren't people. They don't have rights. They have privileges. We let them exist because they are useful to us, we let them have privileges because they work better with them. But the right to buy elections is not a right anyone should have, and certainly not a right a corporation should have.
Post a Comment