Reply #7: I hope you're indulging in a bit of hyperbole - [View All]

The issue with corporate person-hood and money being free speech, is that if money is free speech, you get more rights by having more money.
Corporations by and large have more money than individuals, thus the Supreme Court ruling potentially gave them more rights in the political sphere than actual citizens - or other corporations that might be small or depend on donations. Small, local businesses, Unions and non-profit corporations do not have access to the same amount of money that a multi-national or investment group corporation might. So even they do not have the same rights that an Exxon, Monsanto, or Halliburton (HQ now in Dubai!) has. This is the true damage done by the ruling. Which means that corporations now have to be regulated through legislative action on charters rather than through Federal Elections regulations if people will still be able to have the same legal and political rights as corporations.

By placing limits or regulations that corporations have on the amount that they can use to push candidate or initiative, the playing field is leveled amongst corporations, so the AFL/CIO, MoveOn, AARP, SEIU, the Red Cross, and Planned Parenthood have the same political speech rights as Archer Daniel Midlands, Koch, or whatever RJR Reynolds calls itself nowdays has. Which would still be a bit more than the average citizen, but at least the citizen can donate to smaller non-profit incorporations to stand against the multi-billion industries that monopolize Wall Street against living beings.

Haele