Just another word for nothing left to lose

This is how I see it: corporations can have the same freedom of speech that I enjoy when they can get tear-gassed for expressing it.

Enough already with the whole idea of corporate personhood. Corporations should be subject to greater regulations than actual citizens because they aren't subject to nearly as many risks as actual citizens. A corporation cannot be arrested. A corporation cannot do hard time. They can be fined, but that usually goes away on appeal. A corporation cannot get cancer from the cheap, lead-infused plastic crap it sells. They just can't. And if you think the way I just described the risks inherent in exercising your right to free expression is heavy-handed, then you weren't in New York City in 2004.

Isn't it all supposed to be about risk and reward in this country? Because, as recent events such as the bank bailout have demonstrated, these organizations take almost no risk. They are, in effect, more "free" than the rest of us. 

This is especially true now that there are no regulations on the amount of money they can pour into campaigns. Yes, progressive organizations can also air all the campaign ads they like (except when, you know, they can't) but really, do you see any grass roots organization winning a media buying war against GE or BlueCross? The regulations against unlimited corporate spending weren't there to inflict undue censorship on corporations, they were there to prevent the de facto censorship of everyone else.

As Kind Ed Ra put it: "So, if you're keeping score at home, according to modern conservatives: People= Corporations, zygotes, the brain dead. Not People= Gays, immigrants, anybody else they don't like or who disagrees with them."

That about sums it up, I think.

UPDATE: Justice Stevens, dissenting (via, via):

The Court’s blinkered and aphoristic approach to the First Amendment may well promote corporate power at the cost of the individual and collective self-expression the Amendment was meant to serve. It will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the States to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process. Americans may be forgiven if they do not feel the Court has advanced the cause of self-government today ... 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.

Now that about sums it up.

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