We are a nation of diverse minds trying to unite minds under agreed upon rules. But in the beginning we were handicapped by the then common practice of selling and buying our fellow men into slavery. The glorious promises of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, which were surely written in good faith, along with Abraham Lincoln’s earnest prayer at Gettysburg, are not yet a reality.
The ballot box is a reality — and painfully close to shipwreck with the arrival of the Supreme Court decision now commonly referred to as Citizens United. I don’t think I’m alone in not having read the entire decision, but what I see on TV, in the media in general, and in (sometimes heated) conversations is this: a corporation is now a legal entity and thus can spend its coffers with the same ease as a private individual in promoting his corporate political views.
Every day my email inbox is filled with urgent requests to write or call this or that person (or representative or senator) who needs my help (i.e. cash) to promote their immediate urgent needs, even in a faraway district or state .
The only place I can legally cast my vote in person is at the ballot box at Waterville High School. My money, however, well mixed with other offers, can travel anywhere, anonymously, thus encouraging voting far from home.
I seriously doubt that Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, or any of our Founding Fathers had a mental picture of today’s blizzard of paper and pixels across the country that calls on you and me in Maine to cover the cost of promoting an idea or a person in the nether . Montana or extreme Idaho. Most political advertising, especially online, begs us to do just that.
My greatest political wish since Citizens United is that my fellow citizens remember that a corporation is not a thinking person: it is a device designed primarily to legally increase the wealth of its owners, few of whom are present when it makes its decisions. done.
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