The Supreme Court decision

[gwillen]

For those on my flist, if any, who support the Court's decision in /Citizens United v. FEC/, I would be interested to know your answers to the following questions:

Is a toaster a person?

Is a corporation a person?

Can you explain the difference?

What would it mean for a toaster to have a right to free speech?

What does it mean, precisely, for a corporation to have a right to free speech? This is not the same as the free speech rights enjoyed by any of the people involved as individuals -- this, as ruled by the court, is a separate right, belonging to the corporation as an entity in and of itself, completely independent of the rights of any of the individuals involved.

Can you explain the difference?

ETA: Justice Rehnquist's dissent in /First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti/
makes for excellent reading on the subject.

Comments

[platypuslord.livejournal.com]

This ruling means that the "conservative nonprofits" will continue to create smear ads against Democrat politicians, which is sort of a problem. But I'm not convinced that the law was terribly effective at preventing this behavior. They were forbidden from "expressly advocating the support or defeat of a candidate", but there's quite a lot you can say without crossing that line.

This ruling also, if I understand it correctly, means that my own corporation will be free to sponsor political ads directly. This is sort of nice, to the extent that any political activity can be described as "nice". More specifically, if you believe that this rule was mostly constraining the speech of "good guys" while having little effect on the "bad guys", then overturning it would lead to a more level playing field.

I suppose that, given Rush Limbaugh's express support for the ruling, we can conclude that he believes it will favor the Republicans. I'm not sure how he thinks that will work, but probably he knows better than I?

I'm sort of nervous about any argument that goes, the "conservatives" like this and the "conservatives" are always evil, therefor I dislike it.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

I am not interested in parties or level playing fields as pertains to this ruling. I certainly don't care who is for or against it.

I just think that the idea that corporations have free speech rights is a really stupid idea with dangerous consequences.