Yesterday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision giving corporations-Exxon, Toyota, Microsoft, BankAmerica, McDonald’s, and all others large and small-the First Amendment rights of individuals in the matter of supporting or opposing candidates and causes with good ol’-and unlimited-George Washingtons is going to take down the levies and flood the political landscape in a way that would make Noah proud.
Think Woody Guthrie’s Do Re Mi unimaginable.
I will leave to the lawyers to explain how a state-created entity like a corporation-which can’t be issued a driver’s license, or fitted with a pair of shoes, or jailed for public drunkenness-can have the free speech rights of individuals.
I’ll concern myself with larger questions.
Will Wall Street soon offer an index fund on buying and selling senators?
How long before I can get a congressman at the drive-thru?
“Can I take your order?”
“Yes, ma’am. Give me a Tennessean. Hold the cheese.”
“Would you like fries with that?”
Hmmm.
Decisions. Decisions.
my concern is foreign corporations & their influence over our elections (though they have been doing this surreptiously for years, I don’t like making it a RIGHT).
but the Supremes probably figured if terrorists can have Miranda rights, then certainly corporations can have 1st Amendment rights.
I was stunned by the decision. I leave the legalities to the lawyers but the public policy implications are freightening.
Corporations are not people. They are not assigned any rights in the Constitution.
A savvy politician would start talking about amending the US Constitution today. The amendment would clarify the rights of individuals vs the rights of corporations. Whoever made the suggestion that the Constitution be amended would seem like a bit of a quack in the near term. However, that politician would seem more and more astute as the 2010 elections draw closer and closer and the endless, often negative, ads hit the airwaves.
Ya’ll are just bothered because the Supremes ( bring back Dianna Ross) have shaken your illusions.
Just face it. As the Supremes have decided, we live in a plutocracy.
The rich have more rights than you. Quit fighting it.
We should just start teaching it this way in schools so our kids can know their roles and shut their mouths while their betters get on with running the country.
Obviously the captains of industry only have our best interests at heart.
It’s the pretense of democracy that gets everyone so overwrought and frustrated.
Stop pretending. Embrace you second-class status.
Agree w/Kelley about foreign corporations. Also, in states that elect judges (stupid idea), this decision has even more dire ramifications.