While I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. Lix’s CVN letter that American businessmen should be able to participate in the electoral process, I believe we should exercise that right in the same way as any other citizen, however not as a corporation.
U.S. Supreme Court justices Roberts and Alito deserve reproach because their decision in the Citizens United case is particularly egregious. Their ruling invalidates many of the campaign finance laws enacted by Congress since the 1907 Tillman Act – laws passed to contain the enormous power corporations had come to wield in federal elections. Their decision also violates one of the most accepted principles of judicial process, that of “stare decisis” or settled law, by summarily rejecting 104 years of collective wisdom of previous Supreme Court jurists.
Thomas Jefferson predicted that corporations would subvert the Republic and warned: “I hope we shall …crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” The logical solution to this growing danger is to simply revoke the personhood of corporations.
I fear the real legacy of Bush/Cheney era will not be their $10 trillion deficit, nor their $6 trillion oil wars, nor their 10 years of tax breaks favoring the very wealthy, nor their $1 trillion bank bailout. Their lasting legacy will be the appointment of two Supreme Court justices who handed our democracy over to corporations – lock, stock and barrel.
Tim June