Corporations just bought your vote

The Guardsman Staff

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Jan. 21 to allow corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money to develop their own political campaign materials. The decision in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, does not influence laws that prohibit direct contributions to federal election campaigns.

But if a rich and powerful organization willingly becomes the public relations arm of a candidacy, that distinction may very well disappear, as Supreme Court Judge John Stevens claimed in his dissenting opinion.

The court’s conservative wing hailed the decision as a victory defending First Amendment rights for corporations. Celebrated American author and journalist Ambrose Bierce defined the corporation as “an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”

Since the ruling, there has been an outpouring of heated debate on the case. President Barack Obama voiced his disapproval of the ruling during his State of the Union address on Jan. 27.

“Last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the flood gates for special interests,” he said. Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito could be seen shaking his head in disagreement.

At a time when national elections are more often decided by clever advertising than substantive debate, allowing organizations with near-limitless funds to peddle influence shifts what little power remained in the voter’s hands to corporate boards and labor unions.

Freedom of speech has never been absolute in the United States. Light-handed restrictions are necessary to protect all of the other rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. People must constantly weigh their love of liberty against the rights of others and the good of the whole. As an informed public, U.S. citizens are very capable of balancing these individual responsibilities, but corporations and unions are not.

Both types of organizations have goals very different from that of the people, and neither, as Bierce so eloquently stated over 100 years ago, burdens itself with loyalty to this country or its citizens.

So far, the sky is not falling, but the ruling brings an issue to the forefront that should always be on the minds of U.S. citizens: Are we a republic that holds the principles of democracy above the cold whims of our economic system, or are we absolute capitalists with little regard for individual freedom?

If we are the former, then special cynicism must be applied to advertisements during upcoming elections, because a campaign ad is only as powerful as the number of voters who choose to blindly believe it.