Corporations Rebuttle

A response to Kirstin Cook's: Corporations are taking the power of Citizens 

With the Supreme Court’s decision to grant corporations and big companies individualistic rights relating to donating money to political campaigns, they were finally legally given the Constitutional rights that all other Americans are given.  If big corporations want to support a particular candidate, they should absolutely be allowed.  It is their money.  Why not use it in a way that they see fit?

Corporations, in this specific instance, should be allowed to be viewed as an individual person.  It is a group of people coming together to form one individual being.  Prior to the most recent ruling, corporations were already allowed to contribute campaign money.  The only difference now is that there is no cap to how much they can contribute.  Beyond this cap, not much has changed.

Many people would argue that major corporations giving money to political campaigns thoroughly sways an election.  But it is important to remember instances in which financial support backfired on the corporation.  In July of 2010, store giant Target donated $150,000 to a Political Action Committee that supported Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer.  One thing that Emmer opposed: marriage equality.  The man did not want gay people to get married.  It was not long until Target realized that they had made quite the mistake.  People everywhere boycotted Target for supporting the anti-gay politician.  Not only did they irritate the country with their donation, they proved that they were complete hypocrites.  Target was listed as Number 40 on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity and received a 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. 

What people have to realize is that with individualistic freedom, the corporations have to deal with possible negative consequences.  By supporting a certain politician, it includes supporting the morals they have, which not everybody will agree with.  If the majority of the nation disagrees with the morals the corporation is supporting, boycotts will ensue (like the Target boycott), causing the corporation to actually lose money.  Consequences will have to be dealt with.

If corporations want to contribute money to a campaign, I see nothing wrong with it.  If voters are serious about their votes, they will be looking at the morals and issues that the politician campaigns, not the businesses and corporations that are supporting them.