Lets Talk About Citizens United

[DeistPaladin]

I keep hearing people whine about how terrible a decision Citizens United was so I have been looking into it to find out why.

I'm at work and so I can't watch the videos but good for you that you're now trying to educate yourself. Maybe it's just the reading part you have problems with.

Anyway, the problem with Citizens United is a fundamental misunderstanding of corporate personhood.

What Incorporation Is and Isn't
Incorporation is a process that a business undergoes to establish it as a "person" for purposes of asset ownership, responsibility for liabilities and taxation. The corporation is a legal entity separate from the person/people who founded it or who owns/own it.

Incorporation was only intended to be an accounting tool, not as a means to create a literal person in the constitutional rights sense.

It's an important technique accountants use to distinguish who owns what assets (building, land, production equipment, supplies, etc.), who is responsible for certain liabilities (the business may take out a bank loan, issue bonds, get a mortgage on its property, etc.), who the owners are (stockholders), and what taxes the entity owes (the government doesn't bill the owners but the business itself).

The Supreme Court heard the word "person" and decided that the corporation should be treated like a person in terms of the Bill of Rights. Corporations, by the majority of the court's thinking, should also enjoy rights to free speech which should include spending as much money as they like trying to campaign and express the corporate opinions.

This ruling opened the door for the Hobby Lobby case where corporations also have religious beliefs and rights to exercise their religion, including the right to dictate religious beliefs and practices to employees.

What's next? Voting rights for corporations?

Other Consequences
Before the ruling, there were already problems with American democracy and questions whether money speaks louder than votes. Politicians were arguably already more concerned about special interest lobbyists and gaining sufficient funding then they are about what the people think about an issue.



After the ruling, the flood gates were wide open and money has come to dominate elections. What's worse, is much of this money is untraceable. Who bought these commercials and for what interest? China could enter our elections and start influencing them for all we know.

Between this ruling and their gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the Supremes have taken our nation one long step from shifting from democracy to oligarchy.