Politicians, not corporations, sell out America

"Democracy for sale," an article by Forum Editor Ron Crumpton in the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Kaleidoscope student newspaper, is a reaction to a pair of US Supreme Court rulings "that have essentially made it legal to bribe politicians."

The rulings struck down limits on corporate campaign spending and extended the chimera of "corporate personhood" on the premise that government-created artificial corporations are entitled to the same constitutionally protected free speech rights as actual humans.

New York City, a skyline that symbolizes, if not realizes, the libertarian
ideal of laissez-faire free market capitalism where free people freely
trade in a free society. (Creative Commons/Eva Abreu)

The article then predicts a corporate apocalypse for America. The rulings "made it legal to bribe politicians." In the future we'll be voting for "the Exxon Mobile, Wal-Mart, Microsoft or Goldman Sachs candidates," not Republicans or Democrats.

"Within 10 years," says Crumpton, America will be a "corporacy" (a government of, by, and for the corporations), which will almost immediately remove regulations against the banks, insurance companies and retailers.

It goes on like this for over 800 words, lambasting corporations while simultaneously naming and entirely missing the real villain - government.

About the only thing he got right was this: "The fact that the court could rule that an entity created by a contract and legal document could hold the same weight as a living breathing human being is baffling."

Libertarians agree, and point out that it also clearly shows the collusion between government and the government-created corporations.

Washington, DC, a government enclave created almost
entirely with money coerced, extorted and defrauded
from the very citizens the government promised to
protect from coercion, extortion, and fraud. (Creative
Commons/Daniel Steger)

Everything else is wrong. The article ignores that democracy is a form of mob rule that our Founders specifically rejected. They created a Constitutional Republic in which government's only legitimate function is the protection of individual human (not corporate) rights.

It was the politicians, not corporations, that transformed the republic into the mob rule of democracy. So why blame corporations?

And it was this democracy's politicians, elected by majorities (mob rule) that vetted and appointed the judges to the Supreme Court that made the rulings. Again, why blame the corporations?

Corporations are creatures of government. They buy politicians for their power. For their vast illegal, immoral, unconstitutional power.

Strip politicians of the unconstitutional powers they wield today and they'll have nothing to sell to the corporations. Then, without government's power behind them, corporations cease to be a threat.

The Kaleidoscope editor got Frankenstein's monster confused with the doctor. Government is the Dr. Frankenstein that must be captured and chained to the Constitution's wall.

Only then will we have our free society.