There has been much criticism over the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Unfortunately, critics have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Court accomplished with this decision. It germinates not from the Constitution (which Scalia holds sacrosanct when convenient) but the Good Book Itself, the Bible (which many people hold sacrosanct when convenient).
Even the laziest Bible reader probably made it to Genesis 3:19, which describes our new earthly role upon our expulsion from the Garden of Eden. We have to toil on the land and get food from the sweat of our brow. Thus began humanity’s own Trail of Tears, out into the desert, where we had to grow corn in the desert and learn which body parts not to leave hanging loose. It was a sin just to earn interest on your assets – you were supposed to work for what you had.
We have been fighting against this hard-knock life ever since, looking for something to take the place of toil in hopes of finding our way back to the good life, and with its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court (or at least the “right-thinking” members of the Court) took another significant step guiding us back into Paradise. It’s not so much that they conferred personhood on corporations. There are actually several drawbacks on that status – corporations can get hemorrhoids, their knees can go bad, they can fall in love.
The real revolution in this decision – or could one call it a transubstantiation? – was to determine money was in fact speech. We no longer are burdened with the need to speak, form words, think, breath … we have money to do that for us – $1 is an inhalation, $10 is a phoneme, $20 is a morpheme, and so on, up to $2,400 for a complete sentence.
Of course the Court was merely following the lead of the market (and if Jesus liked one thing, it was the marketplace, right?). For example, a fairly high-profile bank has innovated the term “sleeping money alerts,” which lets you know when your money could be working harder for you. My 401k manager loves to point out, again and again and again, how dollar bills are your best workers – they don’t need breaks or benefits and they don’t have to do anything to create more money. We have all been desperately looking for ways to make money do the work for us.
All this would be offensive and sinful to our Christian nation if the righteous members of the Supreme Court had not affirmed the connection between money and speech. By definition, decisions by righteous people are indeed righteous. We know this because righteous people have told us so. Therefore, we need not worry about the status of our immortal souls when granting such divine properties to money. And once money has this special status, it is only a natural matter of course to confer personhood on corporations. Why? Prick them, do they not bleed – if by blood, you mean $100 bills. Corporations are made of money, and the 2008 financial crisis showed us how quickly they can bleed out.
So do not worry about all the transfusions we have injected into these big people. We can all take heart that the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, has moved us one step closer to the Garden of Eden Inc.
