Americans seem bewildered by the conservative activist
Supreme Court’s decision on Citizen’s United. Few people believe the founding
fathers tried to give corporations the same rights as people.
Just as
outrageous is the idea that corporations would then have free speech rights in
the form of money.
Constitutional Amendment: Wisconsinites overwhelmingly approved county wide
referendums supporting an amendment to the constitution...
“declaring that only human beings, not corporations, unions, nonprofits or similar associations are endowed with constitutional rights.”
And that…
“Money is not free speech, and therefore regulating political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech.”
Edgerton, Waunakee, DeForest, Belleville and Windsor all
supported the above constitutional amendment.
But if today is any indication, the Robert’s court and the
conservative majority have a different view of the founding fathers intentions,
and the dystopian future they’re helping to create.
Voting 5-4 along ideological lines, the Supreme Court struck down decades-old limits on the total money donors can give to federal candidates and parties, issuing its biggest campaign-finance ruling since the 2010 Citizens United decision … the caps violated the speech rights of Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama Republican official seeking to give candidates, parties and political committees more than the $123,200 maximum.
The court stopped short of undercutting a 1976 ruling that allows caps on contributions to individual candidates. Justice Thomas (said) in a separate opinion that he would have gone further and overturned the 1976 ruling.
The overall limits “intrude without justification on a citizen’s ability to exercise the most fundamental First Amendment activities,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s lead opinion … it will give more freedom to wealthy donors looking to use their money to make a political impact. Taken together with Citizens United, the decision “eviscerates our nation’s campaign-finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in dissent.
These arguments are irrational; the ministers expounding them have maneuvered themselves into an arena where discussion is impossible. What is the counterpoint of “ money is speech, people are corporations, and greenhouse gases make your lawn greener”? Any rational factors have been taken out of the equation.
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