Heartsease

Americans have seen corporate influence surge, in both elections and the crafting of policy, since the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, which granted corporations the right to influence the outcome of elections.  While corporations still cannot contribute directly to candidates the Supreme Court’s ruling opened the floodgates by allowing unlimited funds to be channeled into efforts to elect or defeat candidates by corporations; indirectly giving them and the lobbies they power political influence individuals are simply incapable of mustering.

Corporate personhood uniquely distorts political process in that a corporation is dedicated to one purpose and as such is not bound by moral and ethical constraints.  The constitutional rights of a corporation should be extremely limited. Concerning corporations, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, “Few of us are only our economic interests. We have beliefs. We have convictions. Corporations engage the political process in an entirely different way, and this is what makes them so much more damaging.”  Should corporations ever be granted all of the rights of an individual the consequences would change America’s social and political landscapes completely  as unlike individuals, corporations tend to have bottomless pockets, their influence is far reaching both in distance and time,  and they never die meaning they have undue political clout not available to the average American.

The Supreme Court’s decision essentially gave corporate “persons” the same first amendment free-speech rights as biological humans, this is an unfair gift as the gulf between a corporate “person’s” resources and those of an individual, or a grassroots group, are unequal. The purpose of a corporation is to provide a profit to its members whether that profit is financial or influential. When corporations dictate the policy of Congress and the judicial system the best interests of American citizens are not served; the rights of the individual are in fact subjugated for the profit of the corporate “person”.

Corporations are not people, they are tools and a tool does not dictate to the artisan how it will be used. Crony politics has elevated corporations above their tool status and given them creative license which diminishes the rights of living, breathing, feeling, human beings. A corporate “person” has no soul, no conscience, no concept of right and wrong, and if they have been endowed with enough money and the members have enough influence, there is no higher power they recognize or answer to.  Individuals who come together for a common purpose and incorporate are not a bad thing. As individuals, they maintain the rights which have been constitutionally granted to them however when we grant a corporation those same constitutional rights the balance is unjustly weighted on the side of the corporation. By virtue of the vast resources a corporation has access to granting full constitutional rights to a corporate “person” makes the American dream of a level playing field impossible to attain.

We the People, that’s us, that’s you and me regardless of our political affiliation, must come together  and demand  an amendment to the Constitution which makes it clear the rights protected by the Constitution of the United States of America are the rights of natural human beings and not corporate “persons” because money and influence do not equal free speech.  Move to Amend (https://movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment)  is spot on when they say, “Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidates own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure. Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed. The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.”

It’s time we take our government back and say no to the corporations which have usurped the political process; a corporation is not a person, you and I are  –we are “We the People”.