I am sick of hearing people complain about the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and even sicker knowing that an amendment effort is underway to attack it. For the unacquainted, many are irate that the Supreme Court struck down a law limiting the ability of corporations to engage in political speech, especially because the Court treated corporations as "persons" endowed with rights under the First Amendment.
Such anger confirms the abject ignorance enveloping the modern American mind. Let me count the ways.
First, there's a serious issue of reading comprehension. The First Amendment says the following as to speech: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." Nothing in this language identifies or constrains where the speech must come from, whether it's an individual, a corporation, or even a parrot. The origin of the speech is irrelevant; if it qualifies as speech, it is protected, period.
Second, the issue is not one of rights and who possesses them, but rather of powers and who wields them. The federal government wields only those powers listed in the sparse words of the main Constitution; our obsession with the First Amendment and the entire Bill of Rights is misplaced, for these are redundancies that the anti-federalists insisted on adding as a mere "exclamation point" on the federal government's most prominent and natural limitations. In laymen's terms, the federal government has no enumerated power to regulate speech by individuals, corporations, or parrots, and thus it may not do so. Debating over whether a corporation qualifies as a "person" is thus doubly unnecessary: it has no bearing on the plain language of the First Amendment, which in turn has no bearing on the federal government's inability to regulate speech at all. By thinking of rights as parsimonious grants from the first ten amendments we do ourselves a tremendous disservice, and we give the federal government more power than it warrants. (Note that State governments are free to regulate speech according to the plain language of the First Amendment and the structure of the Constitution as well, but I'll save that for a future post.)
Third, why are people so afraid of political speech all of a sudden? They gleefully support corporations' ability to promulgate dreck in the form of novels, music, television, and movies, all of which eat away at the fabric of society far more than campaign ads might. It is safe to say that Eat, Pray, Love has done 100 times more to destroy American life than Hillary: The Movie. It seems free speech is acceptable so long as it comprises insipid and gratifying entertainment; speech about politics, though, crosses the line (which is ironic when recalling the primary goal of the First Amendment was to protect political speech).
Fourth, I can't help but notice that most of the people upset with Citizens United are leftists, the same people who champion the notion of "collective rights" and read the Second Amendment in an ahistorical vacuum to repose the right to bear arms in the very government the framers feared might abuse them. All such cant over collective rights mysteriously evanesces when a corporation enters the picture.
Fifth, if corporations or similar entities are indeed stripped of their legal personhood, then bully for them! No more criminal charges or fines, no more being sued for aggravated hangnails, and no more being blamed for gross negligence or similar mental states that might trigger punitive damages. If only humans have the capacity for speech, then surely only humans have the capacity for malice aforethought.
Such anger confirms the abject ignorance enveloping the modern American mind. Let me count the ways.
First, there's a serious issue of reading comprehension. The First Amendment says the following as to speech: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." Nothing in this language identifies or constrains where the speech must come from, whether it's an individual, a corporation, or even a parrot. The origin of the speech is irrelevant; if it qualifies as speech, it is protected, period.
Second, the issue is not one of rights and who possesses them, but rather of powers and who wields them. The federal government wields only those powers listed in the sparse words of the main Constitution; our obsession with the First Amendment and the entire Bill of Rights is misplaced, for these are redundancies that the anti-federalists insisted on adding as a mere "exclamation point" on the federal government's most prominent and natural limitations. In laymen's terms, the federal government has no enumerated power to regulate speech by individuals, corporations, or parrots, and thus it may not do so. Debating over whether a corporation qualifies as a "person" is thus doubly unnecessary: it has no bearing on the plain language of the First Amendment, which in turn has no bearing on the federal government's inability to regulate speech at all. By thinking of rights as parsimonious grants from the first ten amendments we do ourselves a tremendous disservice, and we give the federal government more power than it warrants. (Note that State governments are free to regulate speech according to the plain language of the First Amendment and the structure of the Constitution as well, but I'll save that for a future post.)
Third, why are people so afraid of political speech all of a sudden? They gleefully support corporations' ability to promulgate dreck in the form of novels, music, television, and movies, all of which eat away at the fabric of society far more than campaign ads might. It is safe to say that Eat, Pray, Love has done 100 times more to destroy American life than Hillary: The Movie. It seems free speech is acceptable so long as it comprises insipid and gratifying entertainment; speech about politics, though, crosses the line (which is ironic when recalling the primary goal of the First Amendment was to protect political speech).
Fourth, I can't help but notice that most of the people upset with Citizens United are leftists, the same people who champion the notion of "collective rights" and read the Second Amendment in an ahistorical vacuum to repose the right to bear arms in the very government the framers feared might abuse them. All such cant over collective rights mysteriously evanesces when a corporation enters the picture.
Fifth, if corporations or similar entities are indeed stripped of their legal personhood, then bully for them! No more criminal charges or fines, no more being sued for aggravated hangnails, and no more being blamed for gross negligence or similar mental states that might trigger punitive damages. If only humans have the capacity for speech, then surely only humans have the capacity for malice aforethought.
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