modern life vs. human nature

In the most absurd ruling I have ever heard of in the US, 5 Republican appointed chief justices ruled that corporations could spend without limit to sway voters in federal elections. The court essentially said that corporations have the same rights as individuals to free speech.

As someone who owns a corporation I know that corporations are like individuals without bodies or morals; sort of like zombies that anyone can control. If a corporation slanders someone you cannot put the corporation in jail. You can sue the corporation but bankruptcy is an easy out if that corporation doesn’t happen to have the funds to bankroll a lawsuit. Chances are that a corporation backing a particular candidate would have a lot of money. Plus, corporations were originally created to avoid personal responsibility(lawsuits) and personal taxation.  In the simplest of comparisons if a human came over to your house and pissed on your lawn you could

1)kick his ass

2)call the police and have him arrested

3)charge him with somekind of trespass and destruction of property and

4) tell everyone you know and have them ostracized in the community.

What if a Coca Cola truck dumped 100 gallons of Coke on your lawn..killing all of your grass what are you going to do? Call the police? Sure, but they wouldn’t know what to do and would most likely say call Coke. You would have to call Coke and talk to their customer service department. Then you would have to call a lawyer and pay a heap of money to sue Coke if your grass died. After dropping $5000 on a retainer for a lawyer, that lawyer would then tell you that it wasn’t worth your time…”go buy new grass”. How about them apples? Satisfying isn’t it. Now extrapolate that to every political view you have ever held and throw them all out the window onto your dead grass, shut your mouth and go to Walmart and buy new grass.

But seriously, I don’t even think I need to make an argument why this is such a terrible idea for a democracy. But here’s an example. If I owned an oil company and I wanted to make huge profits and destroy the environment without having to deal with things like laws, and pollution I would just find a candidate that agrees or is too stupid to understand anything..let’s say Sarah Palin. Not that she is stupid or doesn’t understand much but she just makes a good example here. So me, as a big oil guy wants less environmental restrictions, less education on the pollution caused by oil and less competition from alternative sources of energy. I can now have a discreet conversation with Sarah and let her know that my corporation will put together a multi-million dollar ad campaign that will promote her if “wink-wink nudge-nudge” she does what I want, therefore saving her campaign money to spend on other things. As a bonus, I would even throw in ads to say the other candidate is a “bad man, that hasn’t done anything for the country” but not in so many words that I could get sued…because I would pay for a good ad agency that could put depressing music and poor, starving, helpless americans in the advertising. Or..even better… let’s say I was an owner of health insurance company. Think about it. Getting a healthcare bill in America is already seemingly impossible but add a few billion dollars in corporate advertising blaring at people everyday and consider the healthcare debate over. No politician will ever be able to take on a big evil corporation again without fear of never ever being elected again.

So ultimately this means that elections will be won and lost by powerful corporations whose primary reason for being is profit. Does that sound like a good place to live? Does that sound like individual freedom? Hopefully this decision is overturned somewhere and somehow but it seems like just another step toward a sort of capitalist takeover of the largest democracy in the world.

Good bye America. It’s been nice knowing you.