On January 21st, a decision rendered by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission overturned centuries of corporate spending restrictions, institutionalizing the return of judicial activism and setting a precedent that will forever change the political landscape as we know it. Whatever vestiges of democracy Americans had prided themselves in have now been surrendered to the exigencies of corporatism.

The Supreme Court ruling concerned itself with the constitutionality of a narrow clause in the McCain-Feingold Act which precluded the broadcast of a slanderous film, "Hillary: The Movie," on pay-per-view just prior to the 2008 Democratic primaries. The clause in question explicitly denounced the promulgation of electioneering communication "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate”, 30 days before a primary, or 60 days before a general election. The Act also included specific exemptions for non-broadcast media like newspaper commentary, books, internet posts, and the like. The crux of the decision concerned itself with the question of why broadcast media was demonized in McCain-Feingold, but all other forms of communication were permitted—why was it that television and movie broadcasts were so anathematic to the political process, while all other forms of communication were innocuous?

To the majority of the court, the distinction between media and “non-media” was artificial and pernicious, because, after all, the Constitution is unequivocal in its stance that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech”, regardless of its medium. Justice Alito contended that the prohibition of broadcast media in McCain-Feingold initiated a slippery-slope that threatens the sanctity of freedom of speech as a whole — books with a single reference to a political candidate could be banned, campaign DVDs with a one minute prefatory advertisement could be prohibited, banners on websites could be subject to finance laws, etc. Unfortunately, slippery slope arguments slip both ways, and the majority is on thin ice.

This decision, which represents one of the most startling examples of judicial activism in recent history, overturned centuries of court precedent, dating back from 1907 with the Tillman Act which codified the distinction between corporate and individual spending. Furthermore, the decision unfairly expanded the jurisdiction of court power far beyond the narrow scope consigned to it by the decision of the lower courts. In reality, the only thing the Supreme Court should have focused on was the constitutionality of enforcing a prohibition on the Hillary movie via the McCain-Feingold act; instead, the 5/4 majority decided to discuss the constitutionality of tangentially related topics so they could further emancipate corporations from their institutional form.

According to Justice Stevens’ dissent, the five justices “were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before [them], so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

Apparently, judicial activism is only an affront to democracy when liberals do it.

Nevertheless, the debate expanded to address an entire spectrum of questions—namely, that of corporate personhood. The argument: if individuals are allowed to contribute money to political campaigns, why can’t an association of individuals pool their resources and do the same?

The question, however, belies fallacious reasoning – an “association of individuals” is markedly different both legally and conceptually from the idea of a corporation. By definition, a corporation is more than just an association of individuals—it’s a completely separate institution with a distinct set of beliefs, operating principles, and motives. Yet, the Supreme Court insists on equating the two, so I ask: when corporate money constitutes free speech, who exactly is doing the talking?

The Supreme Court never addresses this question, but we can assume the answer. We can be certain the opinions and perspectives of the lower-to-middle class workers are certainly not acknowledged when corporations are making their political decisions, despite the fact that without their labor there would be no money in the first place.

Why is it CEOs, shareholders and other investors get to decide on behalf of the remaining 80% of the working force which political campaigns are going to be subsidized with the fruits of collective labor? If money is free speech, and that money is produced through joint activity, why don’t all people in a corporation get a legal stake in coordinating political involvement? When the interests of the minority override that of the majority, we have disenfranchisement and despotism. But it’s all okay, so long as the Supreme Court mentions the first amendment in its circular, legal decision.

In reality, the goal was never really the preservation of the first amendment; free speech was little more than a smokescreen to obviate the true intent of solidifying corporate power. In the political realm, corporations constitute nothing more than a medium by which individuals can shield themselves from criticism while hiding behind the cloak of “corporate policy.” The differences between individuals and corporations with regard to intellectual endorsements are obvious: If Michael Moore produces a political commentary, his work can be judged by the basis of his name and reputation, and he will suffer whatever are the political and social ramifications of his work.

However, the film produced by Citizens United had no immediately traceable origin, no “name-brand” recognition, no cognizable image available to humanize the corporation and no way of tracking down the original, human author who had long since receded into the depths of corporate-sponsored anonymity.

Furthermore, the fact that corporations can change their names in order to avoid public backlash, and do so with relative ease compared to real humans, only solidifies the invincibility of corporate power. The private military company, Blackwater, for example, changed its name to “Xe Services” last year after political fallout related to Iraq and Afghanistan. The media barely mentioned it.

What’s to stop corporations from sponsoring morally bankrupt, sensationalistic ads, and then changing names to avoid accountability? How can democracy coexist with an economic construct that takes no responsibility for its actions, yet demands all the privileges afforded to someone who does?

In fact, the entire idea of corporate free speech as enshrined in this decision is lampooned by the various potential scenarios that could arise, all of which the Supreme Court refuses to take a stance on: can a subsidiary sue its parent company for slavery? Should stakeholders in trans-national corporations be considered foreign nationals? Can corporations pay for political ads with bailout money? Can foreign companies produce ads in the United States? The scenarios are endless and in all their absurdity they demonstrate only how incoherent the Supreme Court’s decision was.

Indeed, the very idea of corporate personhood is absurd and presents a far more potent threat to democracy than any clause in McCain-Feingold: now the bigger microphone gets the final word, public opinion is corporate opinion and the virtues of wealth are privileged above the morality of the constitution. The sole motive of a corporation is to maximize profit while reducing cost — corporations are legally obligated to follow a sociopathic economic doctrine that privileges the financial well-being of shareholders above all else. Humans clearly don’t operate via this mechanistic decision calculus — they have other concerns in life with completely distinct motives. And despite corporations sharing none of the social responsibility that humans bear, they get to receive all of the benefits. Do you think the Founding Fathers had corporations in mind when they wrote about the sanctity of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” none of which corporations can physically express?

But the most important argument proposed by the majority, that there was no reasonable justification for delineating between “media” and “non-media,” is intellectually disingenuous, and is substantiated almost exclusively by the arbitrary assertion of Justice Alito. Given that this is the crux of the majority’s argument, I will belabor my point. First, a slippery-slope argument of my own: if we are to allow corporations active involvement in the production of campaign media, what rational distinction precludes an eventual Court from permitting unlimited, direct corporate donations to a political candidate? Or better yet, under the Supreme Court’s logic, which presupposes that money is free speech and that corporations are people, what is to stop corporations from eventually claiming the legal right to vote in a general election?

The entire illogic behind the decision is indefensible — the majority bemoans the “artificial” distinction between media and non-media, yet is able to entertain the contradictory pretenses that money constitutes free speech and, for some reason, that logic doesn’t allow corporations to directly donate to political coffers, but it does allow them to make ads. What’s worse is even if corporations don’t get a legal right to directly donate, the decision allows them to do it by proxy: future campaigns can just redirect money from their media budget to other areas and have corporations sponsor all the advertisement.

Most importantly, however, is that there does exist a real, scientifically-substantiated difference between textual and broadcast mediums. The crucial element is that of “viewer-choice”, and cases such as Miami Herald Pub Co. v. Tornillo and Federal Communications Commission v. League of Women Voters, had established long ago the legal basis for making distinctions between print and broadcast media.

Whereas reading is an active process that is analytical and deliberate, allowing time for pause and reflection, broadcast media saturates a passive audience unwittingly with excess visual and auditory stimulation, which, unsurprisingly, has scientifically-confirmed ramifications for voting behavior. One need look no further than the enormous historical efficacy of popular campaign ads like "Eisenhower Answers America" or "Daisy Girl" when judging the influence of broadcast media on political decision-making.

But there is no need for speculation—political theory and cognitive psychology offer a venerable hive of data to lend scientific credence to the meaningful distinction between print and non-print media:

1) Negative advertisements broadcasted on television are vastly more persuasive, perhaps owing to their concision and vividness, than print media. This is especially true given that the average human is more persuaded by emotion than by logic, a fact that gives preference to cinematic forms of media.

2) The over-simplification of a politicians’ stance via whimsical slogans, castigatory accusations (regardless of their veracity), and potent imagery are easy to remember and are thus regurgitated at the voting booth. However, print media cannot induce the addictive, inextricable “earworms” and vivid scenes deployed by advertisements.

3) The regularity and quantity of televised ads, regardless of one's ideological predisposition, induce non-volitional familiarity and psychological attachment to a candidate. Such a characteristic has been demonstrated to be a key factor in voter behavior, not present in textual media (see Mere Exposure Effect).

4) A recent Dartmouth study found no evidence to support the claim that television ads were informative in the long-term or they induced proactive political activity, but found strong evidence suggesting that such ads pre-programmed behavior and were subconsciously inducing opinions, damning the justificatory value of such ads to the perpetuation of democracy.

5) Recent studies concerning agenda-setting theory, argue that broadcast media is able to elevate the saliency of particular issues through frequent ads, transferring corporate issues onto the public agenda, more prominently than paper media.

6) Gresham's Law of Information suggests a relatively small amount of personally-relevant information presented in an ad can dominate and overwhelm huge quantities of stored, impersonal information. The known mechanism behind this theory, the self-reference effect, means the more ads a corporation broadcasts, the greater the probability they will make a statement that is personally relevant, in effect, literally drowning out all other information.

7) According to the Limited Capacity Model of Message Processing, there is a finite amount of cognitive resources humans can allocate to processing information — as a result, humans tend to disengage from cognitively strenuous behaviors like verbatim informational processing and instead rely on the uni-dimensional processing of symbols, images and sound clips to form opinions. As a result, voting booth decisions are made by relying on heuristics and superficialities rather than substantive issue-specific concerns.

8) According to a study done this year, which perhaps presents the most incisive support for my argument, found that "reading the newspaper or attention to campaign material in newspapers has no effect on subsequent political opinion, ideology, or turnout. Increased attention to television news campaign coverage yields a greater likelihood of voting as well as negative feelings about political leaders.”

10) Television is the primary means by which the average voter obtains political information, and, at over 30 hours a week, such pervasive activity has been inversely correlated with intellectual independence and IQ. The louder, prettier, and more frequent the advertisements are, the greater the public will associate with its messages. Just as shouting fire in a crowded theatre constitutes a “clear and present threat,” so too does any vehicle that can homogenize public opinion at the expense of democracy.

Undoubtedly, the introduction of television into the realm of politics has been catastrophic; in one-fell-swoop the original complexities of information have been reduced into banal, meaningless fragments that are driven into the heads of audience members at breakneck speed — there is no opportunity for critique and reflection, no context with which to judge the validity of the information and no objective arbiter to expunge bias. The sophistication and intellect of political pundits as presented on T.V. contribute to societal disarmament whereby people lose the ability and confidence to think for themselves. Instead we’re conditioned to seek immediate validation of our ideas and thoughts with some popular talk-show host before having the courage to believe it ourselves.

The abandonment of personal autonomy in the interest of convenience has paved the way for corporations to fill indecision and public apathy with propaganda and self-interest. Buy [sic] the people, for the people, truly.

It is inconceivable to me that libertarians are championing this decision as a win for democracy while failing to recognize that corporations now have more rights than real citizens with none of the liability. A corporation doesn’t have to sign up for jury duty, it doesn’t have to enroll in the selective service, it never has to pay a “death” tax, it is functionally immune to criminal liability, receiving fines instead of jail time; and despite all these glaring inadequacies, corporations are still treated as human.

If this isn’t what Mussolini was talking about when he said that fascism was the merger of state and corporate power, I don’t know what is. We have officially replaced the moral wisdom of our Founding Fathers with the virtues of Adam Smith, and the future looks bleak.

The argument should be very clear: The vast majority of the voting population lacks the intellectual will to form independent opinions, and are more than willing to delegate the burden of decision-making and thus the future of our country to a thirty-second television ad with flashy colors and catchy slogans. Literally ANY risk that there exists some cognitive difference in the way we encode and interpret information coming from various mediums warrants that a legal distinction be made between the two forms of content, because whatever pernicious difference that exists between the two, however minute, will be amplified by the fact that corporations will exploit their new power with astonishing regularity.

To think labor unions or munificent organizations have the power to mitigate corporate influence is laughably fatuous at best, and neglects the stark reality that corporate dominance is now an essential component of political engagement.

The recent healthcare debate is a prime example of the insidious power of corporations over people — when an entity is able to mobilize a population against that very population’s own self-interest and independently control the outcome of political decisions, how can we claim to have a democracy?

Goldman Sachs spends more annually on paychecks to its top employees than the total net worth of all major national labor unions combined. You thought we had a chance?

It is said there can be no revolution without shared suffering, that public sensibilities are so numbed from disuse that only pain can recover the agency required to take back freedom from corporate interest.

Like a frog in boiling water, we have become complacent with our servitude, chasing after the shiny objects dangled in front of us by corporations with no interest in our welfare.

This is our chance to prove ourselves. We can demonstrate, as we have time and time again, that we really are all just big-brained chimps paralyzed by our cognitive limitations, or we can prove that we are an evolved society that looks beyond the shiny colors and catchy slogans of television ads.

I really hope I am wrong; I really hope this decision won’t change a thing; because if I’m not, than democracy never had any justificatory value in the first place. Perhaps the Supreme Court has given us a chance — an opportunity to prove democracy isn’t a lesson in futility, we are more than just echo chambers for corporate interest, and we still have the capacity to change our circumstances.

Or maybe we’ll just turn up the volume.