Today I received an email asking me to write my Senators about supporting a new constitutional amendment to do away with the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions by the US Supreme Court. I am not a lawyer or legal scholar, so I am merely expressing my opinion. I leave it to everyone who reads this to consider its merits and if it makes sense, feel free to use it or enhance it in your OWN letter to your Senators. We cannot expect change if we do not define what that change should be. Thanks for taking the time to read this through to the end.
Please vote YES on Senate Joint Resolution 19. Contrary to the old saw, "Money talks", money is nothing more than a medium of exchange of value. The fact that we spend our money on something or someone does not represent speech as set forth in our Constitution (US Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding). Consider this. Suppose that I have more money than anyone else in the world. Does this in itself allow me to dictate policy, procedure, process and legality to everyone else in the country, or perhaps even in the world? That is patently absurd. May I express my opinions openly and without fear of retribution in accordance with the First Amendment? Yes. Is the mere fact that I have so much money in any way significant to my opinion? No.
Now consider this. Can a corporation be subject to call-up for military duty? No. Can it give birth to a viable human being from scratch? No. Can a corporation be jailed for partaking in grossly illegal activities? No. Can the corporation vote? No. So what, exactly, gives a corporation the expectation of being treated legally as a "person"? If a corporation is truly a "person" when will it be given the vote, a right guaranteed under the constitution? Rights without responsibilities are the purview of tyrants and oligarchs. They have no place in these United States.
If we cannot answer these questions in a meaningful, logical and truthful way, how can we as citizens of these United States of America allow these two conditions to persist? After all, we are all equal under the law. There are no "super-citizens", corporate or financial in nature, according to our constitution.
The technicalities of law which produced the 5-4 decisions of the Supreme Court for Citizens' Rights and McCutcheon overstep the bounds of rationality and need to be overturned. Please join me in seeing that this is done, and soon.