Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n
The U.S. Supreme court ruled to remove the ban on corporations and unions to use their own money to fund political media campaigns sighting constitutional rights afforded groups of people under the First Amendment.
While I fully support the First Amendment and would defend it in ALL cases it's quite obvious how this is not a good thing for America. Many people seem to see this as a black or white issue but it really is somewhere in the middle. As far as I see it there can be no argument with that. First Amendment rights are absolute and belong to every person no matter what.
The other side of the coin though is a tough question. Is a corporation the same as "one person" and if so do they deserve the same rights? It's a group of individuals right so it should deserve the right to say something as a group right? I want to argue against this idea but every time I work up a lather I see why the First Amendment protects groups as well as individuals. You can't bar all groups from speaking their views and a corp is a group of shareholders just trying to make money like most of the rest of us. So what do you do?
Campaign reform is the real issue here. Somehow we need to fix that system so it's fair for everyone who wants to run. I don't know what the answer is but there is no way for-profit corporations should be allowed to sway elections with unlimited funds. The president of the United States earns a $400,000 annual salary, along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 non-taxable travel account and $19,000 for entertainment. Even if he could pocket it all it's $569,000 a year. Corporate America was spending millions on campaigns under the old laws and this gives ALL corporations (unions too I suppose...) from around the globe the green-light to buy any seat or office they want.
I just thought about foreign unions possibly buying politicians. I'm sure it could be done. Can you imagine what would happen to jobs then? Scary...Just like I don't want my country to be the world police I don't want unfettered access to buying govt. offices and jobs by foreign interests. I don't care if U.S. Citizens are shareholders or not. Property ownership is not the same thing as citizenship. Votes can be cast by anyone without the responsibility of citizenship in the form of money now. Something clearly needs to be done.
Once upon a time it was taxation without representation. Now I think it's representation without citizenship.
We like to think of ourselves as an open society but the truth is we can't afford to be a totally open society. We can not take in everyone in the world. It's just not possible so to think we're an open society and try to act that way when it's not in the best interest of our security is a futile effort. Not to mention disingenuous and just gives the rest of the world something to point at and say "see, the U.S. says one thing but they do another".
By TwistMasterDeluxe
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