Supreme court ruling on corporations and politics

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The NY Times editorial lays it out. This is a total final death blow to democracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/opini ... ef=opinion

Corporations were always involved in government policy.
The birth of a corporation is government policy to begin with.

cor·po·ra·tion
n.
1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
2. Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body corporate.



And "5-4" decided it?... Wow, that is democracy, you gotta love it. People choose politicians and politicians appoint people to the supreme court.




I wonder why they chose this time to issue this "ruling"(sounds monarchic huh?)
Would they be trying to make people believe that from now on anyone gaining recognition in politics is being funded by corporations?
Of course, when an independent/libertarian or republican would be doing good they will come out saying corporations are helping them... Politics as usual...

Yes, very true.
Political democracy is dangerous. It can lead to dictatorships.
The more centralized the worse.
If Hitler or any of the other tyrants were elected as presidents of small fragmented states, they couldn't have gathered the funds and the orgasmic support of the residents to carry out wars of that magnitude.

I find this interesting.

There are a few issues that come to mind:
1) I doubt this will be as bad as the author believes, it might lead to business interests having more control, but then again, democracy isn't the good, but rather good governance is a better good. This isn't to say that corporate interests are *great*, but they probably are no worse than anyone else's and corporations at least will have a strong interest in growth.(maybe their revenues at the expense of everyone else's, but hopefully the entire pie as well)
2) Corporate personhood is a.... topic. I mean, there is nothing saying that the Supreme Court cannot consider corporations to be persons protected by the 14th Amendment, and I think it is believed that some Supreme Court justices have believed this in the past. At the same time, it really is an artificial construct.
3) For all of the outcry about "judicial activism", lots of courts make decisions that are called "activist", so we have a right-wing activist judge. So what?

Although it chafes my libertarian side, this is what the rule should be.

Nobody but LIVING AMERICAN RESIDENTS (real people) can donate. All donations must be documented by who and how much was given. No cap on how much can be given. All records must be produced to WHOEVER asks for them.

This would make the process transparent and kill corporations or other "groups" from donating. As it doesn't establish caps, anyone can give as much as they want so long as they are willing to be open about their doing so.

Corporations were never intended to exist in America by the Founding Fathers. They are fictitious entities that get much latitude under the law because there is no "corpus" that can be imprisoned for crimes. The problems with corporations having political sway is that they have more wealth than most any individual person, so their clout goes a lot farther than the people can manage generate.

Submission withdrawn

There is another thread wondering if or when aliens will land. This may seem far out but the aliens really are here and they have been with us for quite a while.
An alien life form does not have to look like giant insects or strange things with tentacles. All it has to be is alive and combative and care not a bit for the needs of humanity but only for itself and its needs. It competes with others of its kind for territory and nourishment and it grows and reproduces just like any other life form. Sometimes it may even show intelligence. It was created by humans and is called the corporation. It pays taxes and sees to it that its components are cared for as long as they function to fulfill its needs but it has no compunction about banishing any of its parts that do not fulfill its requirements and will replace any of its human components that it feels is unqualified in any way. It does not care at all for even its highest human members if they do not function properly and it readily undercuts any human regulations it finds it can successfully get away with. Although it is legally granted some human rights it has the possibility to live forever and this makes it superior to any of its human components. And if it finds profit in doing so it will destroy anything that obstructs its desires and needs. It uses humanity but it is not human and has only the morality forced upon it by humanity. It is very dangerous and can be frightfully vicious and stupid.

To be more precise you should have called it a virus. Alien means foreign more than it means problematic.

What gives birth to this virus is another virus(at least me personally see the State as a virus in the human collective, and after all, it is the State who makes these corporations), and what allows these viruses to exist is the ignorance and the greed viruses.
Greed is caused by ignorance, so you might want to see ignorance as the cause of all the other viruses(or vices).

Bad decision, IMO. corporations have no place in politics whatsoever.

i would be more concerned about the EU having a perminent president. do they have one yet?

Biased article, much?

This was already going on. The motor industry and oil companies have been doing this for ages, and that's just one of very many examples...

I don't really understand campaign finance that well but has McCain-Feingold really made a difference? Last election Obama declined public finance and spent an astronomical amount of money. Rich guys could still self-finance and outspend everyone like John Corzine and Mitt Romney. So it did nothing and just restricted speech?