Worst SCOTUS Decision of the Decade, Hard to Top

[zachf]

Originally Posted by JPS

Those who are prejudiced against any given group ALWAYS claim that their statements are not prejudice at all, but are rather only "exposing the truth".

I do contend that the sweeping and demonizing tone of the rhetoric directed against ALL insurance companies has been unjustified and has also been extreme enough to warrant the label "prejudice", if not even "bigotry". When such rhetoric becomes the basis for policymaking, it is extremely dangerous in both normative and practical terms.

Your first statement is pretty descriptive of your reaction to anyone that doesn't agree with you. I don't know what you think qualifies as demonizing, dehumanization, prejudice or even bigotry. But my instincts tell me your willful ignorance and lack of experience with such issues means you aren't qualified to make such claims.

More importantly, I am now persuaded by you that corporations have been oppressed by anti-corporate prejudice and bigotry. I really didn't know that you could dehumanize something that isn't human. Fortunately, such rhetoric is not the basis of policy-making. However, demonizing people who oppose such measures or are negatively affected by large corporations has in fact become a pillar of law enforcement post 9/11. I'm so glad I live in a democracy.... In our plutocratic-corpratocracy labels like illegal alien become a defining feature of the health care reform debate. If only they were considered people under our law like corporations are under the 14th amendment.

[JPS]

Perhaps there's some need for reform of how corporations operate (for example, authorizing shareholder suits against political actions by corporations when not properly authorized/wasteful of corporate resources). I'll admit that's not my expertise but there's a mention of it by Prof. Tribe in his post on SOCTUSblog about Citizens United.

I think that empowering shareholders to be a check on use of corporate resources for political advocacy would be a much more fruitful and legally coherent way to restrain excessive corporate political influence than would be trying to designate corporations (and other collective entities) for direct restriction of political speech. The difference lies in using individual empowerment instead of government coercion as the mechanism.