Corporations Are People Says Supreme Court
Sunday, July 11th, 2010Following an unprecedented ruling from the Supreme Court a few weeks ago that reversed decades of campaign finance law, the Supreme Court has decided to recognize that corporations should have the full suite of rights granted to any individual, including the right to political speech that could influence the results of elections. “After recognizing that we shouldn’t limit the speech of corporations in political matters, it dawned on me that we shouldn’t limit corporations at all,” said Justice Roberts. “Corporations, after all, are people, too.”
In the majority opinion, Justice Alito opined, “If I can vote, run for office, own a gun, and get married, then corporations should be able to do the same.” Under the new ruling, corporations were defined as people and granted several rights previously only afforded to individuals and actual, you know, people—the kind with legs and beating hearts and such.
The dissenting Justices, however, issued a harsh minority opinion. “We feel that this new rule only further opens the floodgates to the corporate control of the political process. The power of the people has been wrenched from them and given explicitly to the corporations. Not that we have anything against corporations on a personal level. Some of my best friends are corporations!”
“Oh pish posh,” said Justice General Electric, the newest appointee to the Supreme Court.
Given the new rights extended to corporations, corporate entities can now get married, vote, run for public office, and even own guns. Upon hearing the news, corporations took to the streets in celebration, some even exercising their newly gained right to bear arms by firing their guns into the sky.
“It’s amazing!” said Pfizer, a large pharmaceutical company, as it ran through the streets throwing confetti. “For years, our kind had been oppressed, given only limited freedom. It’s a truly joyous occasion!” Blackwater suddenly interrupted us. “We’ve been completely powerless until this day,” the mercenary company said as it shot several Iraqis and counted several million dollars. “It’s about time we received the same rights as every other American, rather than having to rely on billions of dollars, countless lobbyists, and socialized coporate welfare to have our interests protected.” A tear began to form in Blackwater’s eye. “Now we can do things the way any normal person would: by directly throwing our nearly unlimited resources at politicians to further our political interests. God bless America!”
One corporation, Microsoft, seemed particularly pleased by the news, much more so than any other company. “We’d grown so tired of people always telling us that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, you know?” Microsoft tearfully revealed. “But now I can finally marry Apple. For once our corporate love will be recognized by society. We won’t have to go on TV anymore, pretending to hate each other, lying to ourselves and saying ‘I’m a PC’ and ‘I’m a Mac’ when deep down inside we both just wanted so desperately to be holding each other and writhing together in our anthropomorphized arms.”
However, the new rights will not extend as far as gay corporate marriage. The majority opinion seemed to guard against this slippery slope in a section entitled, “The Gay Corporation.” Some text from that section reads as follows: “Some corporations will not be allowed to get married. Marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman or one man corporation and one woman corporation. If the Bravo Channel wanted to marry Spike TV or if the NFL wanted to marry Autozone, that would be totally unacceptable. But Spike TV is more than welcome to marry the Lifetime Channel or the Home Shopping Network or CosmoGirl.”
Some have already tried to test the ruling by putting together test cases for legal battles. In Ferguson v WalMart, for example, an individual is challenging the newfound rights of Walmart. However, given that Walmart is being given a jury of its peers, like K-Mart, Target, and Costco, it is unclear that the case will bring about any change.
