The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs FEC completely missed the point, while making the wrong point. by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Friday, January 22, 2010
I wonder what the freedom movement will make of the latest Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission? The decision issued yesterday by the conservative court opened the door to corporate soft money, claiming that corporations have the right to participate in the political process, but effectively keeping the door firmly shut on individuals who want to donate more than a couple thousand dollars to their favorite candidate.
The ruling specifically rejected the idea that the Court should, "carve out an exception to §441b’s expenditure ban for nonprofit corporate political speech funded overwhelmingly by individuals." Was this a rejection of protecting individual funding via PACs, or was it a rejection of the idea of carving out exceptions? I suspect it was the former, because the Court (and lower courts) routinely carve out exceptions to laws they don't like.
Perhaps the most chilling portions of the majority opinion involved their persistent references to corporate "free speech". A corporation is a legal fiction, a government-created entity that otherwise cannot exist in reality. It can't walk, talk, think, or act. Only its representatives can do that, in the forms of boards of directors, management, etc. In other words, when a corporation "speaks" (freely or not), it doesn't actually utter a sound. Instead, one of its leaders does the speaking...an individual.
In short, the Court extends the absurd myth that corporations are persons by granting them speech rights that cannot truly exist in collectives, because collectives are not living, sentient beings.
As most readers know, the freedom movement has a heavily conservative component. The Court's decision makes crystal clear the foolishness of leaning so heavily to the right. It basically puts the mythical "rights" of corporations ahead of the real-world rights of individuals, a completely wrongheaded viewpoint. Rightfully, corporations should have no rights beyond the individual rights of its members, while individual rights should be sacrosanct. The conservative court essentially reversed this priority, by parading group rights as sacrosanct and stomping on individual rights.
It remains to be seen whether the court will free American citizens from unconstitutional bonds preventing them from giving any amount they wish in support of their favorite political candidates, but for the moment the Court stay mute on this crucial point.
The conservative court had many, many case options to choose from, all of which challenged McCain-Feingold. Why did they focus on a pro-corporate case rather than a pro-individual case? From where I sit, the reason is obvious. Conservatism is not about protecting individual rights. Rather, conservatism is about protecting corporate rights...which in reality really shouldn't exist, because groups should not have rights that individuals do not have on their own.
Let me be clear. I am not unhappy that parts of McCain-Feingold were destroyed by the Court. Maybe this is a signal that they are preparing to obliterate the rest of it, which would be a very good thing indeed. But when the Court goes only so far as to protect mythical corporate "rights" while continuing to allow Congress to tread on individual rights, I see it is a glaring warning sign that, once again, conservatives cannot be trusted to protect liberty for all.
Freedom advocates should pause and take note. Those who call themselves conservative should be very wary of this decision. Those who think the freedom movement should ally itself with conservatism should realize that this Court decision is actually a defeat of freedom, because the individual lost while the corporation gained. So long as the prohibitions of McCain-Feingold remain in place again individuals, this decision will more and more firmly ensconse itself as a thumb-of-the-nose toward individual rights.
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Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2010-01-22 09:49:17
Hi Walt,
The decision yesterday was awful. I'd like to see how you contrive this to be a conservative decision or a conservative court. I havn't seen any indication of that myself.
Justice Stevens put the descent in a far more conservative vein than the majority decision. :
"The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court's disposition of this case."
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2010-01-22 11:43:58
Jahfre,
Well...
(1) The concept of corporations was created, historically, by conservatives during the Mercantilist era of history.
(2) Liberals (to the best of my knowledge) have always been against the concept of corporations.
(3) Rush Limbaugh wrote an article about the Court's decision entitled, "Freedom Awakes From a Coma". He's generally recognized as the modern leader of conservatism.
(4) The Wall Street Journal, routinely and widely recognized as a conservative publication, praised the decision to the hilt.
(5) Citizens United, the group which brought the suit, was a conservative PAC.
(6) Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, both conservatives, led the charge that pushed the state legislatures to recognize private ventures as corporations. Up until then, in the U.S. only public (government-driven) ventures had gained corporate charters.
Those are just the first, quick pieces of evidence that come to my head. I realize that you think of yourself as a conservative rather than as a libertarian or as some other freedom-based label (as does Ron Paul), but I think this is one issue where it's pretty clear that you guys veer off from the mainstream conservatives.
First, we must revoke the myth of corporate "personhood". It is an absurd premise.
Second, we must somehow force the world to see that America cannot single handedly cure all the ills in every single country on earth. America is a generous nation as evidenced by our contributions to various relief efforts; however we are NOT a bottomless pit of wealth to be spread far and wide at the whims of a very few people in government.
I think the effort should be spent getting the world to understand this because our government cannot or will not. Most foreign aid is misspent and winds up making tyranny possible in other countries.
Third, push for public financing of campaigns to do away with the corporate sway.
Fourth, until the revocation of corporate personhood and/or public financing are accomplished, all eligible voters in America should immediately incorporate themselves into Voters, Inc. so that we can put ourselves on an even footing with the banks, big pharma, big oil and big everything else.We might even be able to stand up to big government at some point.
This would immediately remove the individual caps on our campaign contributions and ideas. Voters, Inc. could be seen as an intellectual property corporation. Undoubtedly, Voters, Inc. would produce more tangible goods than Enron ever did.
I don't see how we, the people, stand a chance of standing against the corporate behemoth that will now take over all government as time passes.
I don't get this at all, Walt. The First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging free speech. It doesn't say "free speech, except by corporations," or "free speech, except by profit-making corporations."
The court's ruling affirmed that principle. Congress made a law that abridged free speech, which it is not allowed to do, so the court did the right thing and threw it out.
"The First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging free speech."
Right-o....so where is the mouth of the corporation that it may speak? Where is the brain of the corporation that it may think? Where is the arm of the corporation that it may pull the voting lever?
All the people within the corporation can speak and spend and vote as they choose. There is no guarantee that the sentient beings that make up the corporation will all be in agreement on all issues.
The corporation itself is no more a person than the building that the corporate workers use to conduct the corporate business. A corporation is a shell, not a person.
This might not chafe as much if the Supremos had seen fit to lift the restrictions on real people and let them also spend as much as they liked to influence politics. That does not appear to have happened.
Once again, as in Kelo V. New London, people fall subordinate to the corporations. Now it appears that the very government has fallen subordinate to the corporations.
Corporations as people did not exist at the time of the Constitution. The framers could have never conceived of a profiteering company ever being designated as a person.
I am almost absolutely certain that the framers could never have conceived of a Supreme Court so politicized that it could not work in the best interests of REAL people.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2010-01-26 17:46:11
George: The reason you're confused is that you treat corporations as if they have natural rights, including the right of free speech. They do not. Only sentient beings have rights.
Rightfully speaking (absurd legal rulings aside), the first amendment does not apply to corporations, just as it does not apply to governments, bureaucracies, or groups of any kind. It only applies to individuals. Corporations do not "speak". Nor do they think. They are merely government-created fictional constructs run by people. So when the corporation "speaks", what's really happening is that the people in charge of that corporation do the speaking, hidden behind the masks of their corporate charters. They speak in the same sense that the Wizard of Oz spoke; he was actually no more than a man behind the curtain, not a "great and powerful wizard" after all.
If the ruling had been that individual speech could not be obstructed by campaign finance laws, that would be one thing. But that's not what the Court held.
Nolan Chart- just another political blog where some opinions "count" more than others.
I find it amusing that Walt finds it necessary to respond to George using the same arguments I used, even using some of the same words. Why? Because only Walt's opinion will matter, of course. The argument is only valid if endorsed by the old guard "leadership". Now perhaps George will respond to Walt's more worthy opinion.
I used to post here a long time ago and stopped because of this behavior, but I continued reading. I decided to dip back in and see if the true libertarian spirit had finally taken hold and Nolan Chart was making room for everyone in its discussions.
If anything, it is more insulated here than it was a year ago. Have fun arguing among yourselves, which will guarantee that you maintain the same POV forever.
Nolan Chart will continue to degrade into a Congress-like institution where the same old "important" voices shout the same old things and every new viewpoint and voice is shut out. I am very disappointed because when this blog was new I thought it showed real promise as a discussion forum, but the ranks began closing very early on.
I suppose what does matter is that the discussion keeps taking place even if is only among a rather closed group. Thank you, Walt, for validating my argument. Maybe it will get heard now and, in the end, that is what matters.
I do apologize for the formatting of my prior post. It was not written as one long run on paragraph, but it posted that way for some reason.
Heavy hearted, I am unbookmarking Nolan Chart.
I know, "Good bye and good riddance. You are not one of us and never will be." Don't bother, I won't see it.
With all due respect, you have things a bit backwards. The argument that corporations have no rights misses the point. The issue here is what powers should the govt have. After all, the Constitution applies to the govt, not the people. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_US_Constitution_apply_only_to_citizens )With the 1st & 10th Amendments the govt is not granted the power to silence anyone. That's why the ruling was correct.
BTW, I agree that corporate personhood is a crock, but that's another issue.
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