Corporate Citizenship

In January, the Supreme Court decided to allow unlimited campaign spending by corporations.  This was viewed as a radical shift:  previously, corporate citizenship referred to a company's responsibility to contribute to society; it now refers to their right to contribute to society's downfall.

There used to be the belief that the government was created for the good of its people, not for its corporations; if the people who owned those corporations wanted to advance their companies interests, perhaps by making political donations, they were free to do so as private citizens, on their own dollar.  That freedom more than satisfied the requirements of the First Amendment - but it fell far short of satisfying the need for power of these greedy corporations.  That's because, despite what conservatives might like to admit, sometimes the only way for a group to advance its goals is by forcing each individual to cooperate... 

Before the new law, in theory, a corporation could have just paid out a dividend to its shareholders, then requested that each individual donate those funds to Palin 2012, or some other candidate that would improve their bottom line.  In practice, that would never work, because most of the individual shareholders would refuse to volunteer their money, either because they don't like Palin, or more likely, because they'd rather spend those dollars on themselves than invest in the collective good.

Under the new law, corporations can withhold potential dividends and channel them instead to candidates, essentially forcing their shareholders to contribute money to a cause they might not support.  This is the same thing that government does:  the government withholds part of your income and uses it to build a road, whether or not you support that specific road. 

These conservatives love to rail against big-government and high taxes, about the insidious evil of the "common good", and how it oppresses the individual freedoms of the common man.  Yet they're perfectly trusting of corporations exercising a big-government-like control over the funds and political speech of their shareholders. 

If conservatives really believe that the private sector has their interests at heart (while the government seeks only to exploit them), I can't really force them to change their minds - every individual should have a right to decide who they put their trust in.  But I've never heard of a corporation with a mission statement like this, to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

There's no way I'm selling out, unless they offer me more money.