Citizens United: Partisan Injustice

Mitt Romney is the “stick man," the proxy and product of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court’s ruling that no ban should be put on corporation’s political contributions, for they are people too.

Hum, what if one works in or is a part of a corporation, and doesn’t agree with the corporation’s political ideology or party affiliation, is that corporation really a person and doesn’t it then become handicapped or afflicted?

For instance, if a person has no control of his mind and is in fact deemed afflicted, then he or she often can’t make decisions on their own, and as a result has others (a proxy) make the decisions for them … decisions that may or may not be the afflicted person’s or employees ultimate choice or decision. Then if that afflicted person or employee is “persuaded” or “coerced” to vote or spend their money, either company worth, shares, or savings (really the employees money), by an entity such as a corporation, and doesn’t realize what the proxy is doing behind the scenes, then (the proxy) can vote or spend money accrued by the person the employee / afflicted person in the corporation’s own partisan favor. Is that practice morally just? Furthermore, at that point the proxy has assumed the mind of the employee / afflicted person, which is not just by any stretch of one’s imagination.

This then is an example of the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling regarding a corporation’s First Amendment right.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times states in a 2010 article titled Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending.

“WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.”

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America:

“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or press, or the rights of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I don’t see anywhere in the amendment the word corporation – hum? But, I see the word people, meaning the people of the United States of America, and they aren’t corporations they’re citizens. And free to speak on their own behalf, to cast a vote for who they wish, and to voice an opinion when and where they wish. Therefore, if one’s part of a corporation, they should not be treated as an afflicted person having no control, by any individual in corporate leadership assuming their mind by voting and spending on their behalf. Especially when they don’t know or realize where the money is going, what it’s for, and might well reject it entirely.

So, the result and product of someone speaking and spending on behalf of another is Mitt Romney – the “stick man” – fitting.

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