Gaffes Are Sometimes Just People Saying What They Really Think

There is some tendency on the part of people to say that Mitt Romney's statement that "corporations are people too" was a big flub, but in this case, it's just Romney saying what he really thinks. There has been a big movement on the Right in recent years to give corporations the full verisimilitude of personhood, in order to get those rights that only people possess. Inalienable rights. Like free speech. Which makes campaign spending limits automatically void. The Supreme Court, in particular, has been enthusiastically behind this campaign. It's the new frontier of the law!

The trouble is obvious, of course. Corporations generally speak only as their management sees fit. They possess huge pools of money to amplify their speech. And the like. There are plenty of obvious problems with corporate personhood. A child can point out these problems. Why the Supreme Court can't see these problems is a real mystery.

But at least people are saying what they think.