One-stop political shopping: now open!

I suspect it's difficult as mere "voters" not to feel like the rug has been completely pulled out from underneath us on the heels of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn precedents that upheld federal and state limits on independent expenditures by corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates. Difficult not to feel like special interest dollars have just been given free reign over the electoral process, difficult not to feel like the spirit of the first amendment has been horribly, violently molested. Yes, molested.

BUT, maybe we're looking at this with our glass-half-empty glasses on. Really: what about the greater deluge of Big Box consumer options this opens up for us mere voters now that our political decisions will be made for us by pharmaceutical and insurance companies, big oil, Wall Street and labor unions?

Imagine this: since insurance companies may, theoretically, now Buy Votes, doesn't it stand to reason that a trip to the doctor's office (no longer a physician's domain, anyway; thanks, American Health Care!) might now also involve a trip to the ballot box? Stop in, cast your vote, get your blood drawn. One dollar, one agenda.

Or, that you could cast your vote while on the job site? Being employed by a contractor working with a union that funnels its money into the pockets of the campaigns of the candidates it supports should, really, mean that you could vote for that union-sanctioned candidate while on the clock, right? Since it's all free speech anyway.

Trip to the bank: turn in your absentee ballot.

Ordering at the Wal-Mart McDonald's counter (on my list of the most hellish places on the planet, but for the sake of example, quite the hallmark of Big Box excess): I'd like 10-piece nuggets, and to cast my vote for Candidate X. And I'd also like to refill my blood pressure prescription and take out a loan, please (that would be cute if it weren't so close to true....).

As if election season television ads weren't miserable enough already, now we have bigger, better, more expensive corporate advertising to look forward to. What a delight. So nice to know that Pfizer will be telling me for whom I should vote...because it takes all of the guess-work out of the electoral process....it makes it easier, really. If Big Oil decides Joe Bob Smith should own that particular seat in the House, then I don't have to worry about reading those voter guides. Good, I can get that hour of my life back from here on out. What a great way to make sure my freedom of speech isn't trampled...

Ok, levity aside, I don't usually land on this side of the political fence. I tend to be (honestly) very pro-corporation. Very pro-free marketplace. A good little capitalist. But today I think it's BECAUSE I respect corporations' rights, as artificial entities created by the government, to accumulate large sums of cash in order to operate efficiently in the economic marketplace that I find a bitter taste in my mouth over any notion these these "artificial entities" are entitled to the same rights and protections under the first amendment as individual - living, breathing - citizens.

Here, let's go a little quote-crazy with the examples: Geoffry R Stone summarizes the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission dissenters' argument this way on The Huffington Post:

"Indeed, in other ways we don't treat corporations or labor unions as 'people' -
they have no constitutional right to hold political office or to vote, for
example, so why should they have the same First Amendment speech rights as
'real' people?"Precisely. Though it seems we've come desperately close to saying
they now DO have a constitutional right to hold political office and vote. "

And here's a great excerpt from dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens (aka: the Guy in the Bow Tie):

"At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the
American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from
undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the
distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of
Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While
American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would
have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

Jim Wallis put it this way (also in a commentary for the Huffington Post):

"The logical outcome of this decision is that there will be
a new torrent of money into the electoral process. Corporations are now free to
directly support candidates who support their interests, and oppose those who do
not. Big banks can now target seats on the banking committees, insurance
companies those on committees dealing with health care issues, and defense
contractors the armed services committees."

A commenter on this Reuters article put it like this (emphasis mine):

"An activist Supreme Court delivered a stunning blow to the core of Democracy
today.
Corporations are not persons, and money is not
speech.
Every one of us, Democrat and Republican, rich and poor, Liberal
and Conservative, has been dealt a blow today by powerful corporate interests
who have taken over our representative Democracy and turned it into a way to
transparently funnel every available bit of wealth and powerful to the already
wealthy and powerful.
This is the stuff that all of should be marching on
Washington D. C. to protest.
Instead, the disaffected on all sides of the
political and economic fight point fingers at each other while the corporate
takeover of our government destroys our society.
Stand up! Socialists,
Teabaggers, moderates, and party faithfuls. You, unless you are already part of
the wealthiest 1%, have had your representation stolen!"

Anyway: I - wearily - suppose now, rather than ads brought to us by obscure PACs, we can look forward to Merck-funded mud-slinging. Get ready for it. It feels like floodgates have just opened. Floodgates holding back a filthy torrent of free-speech abuse.

How's that for a change of pace after Heidi Montag's brow lift?