There's been several carefully crafted changes to the language of American politics over the past twenty-five years and "citizen" has been replaced by "taxpayer" [1] as the relevant political constituency. Since corporations ostensibly pay taxes, their personhood has been lifted. Likewise, since wealthy individuals tend to pay more taxes on an absolute basis (despite an increasingly regressive system) their interests within the constituency of taxpayers are also lifted.
[1]: The case for "taxpayers" has been assisted by the language of "victim's rights" wherein people first accepted the idea that some citizens should have higher status before the law than others. Using the idea that paying taxes is a form of theft, taxpayers establish their victimhood and by an extension a privileged interest over ordinary citizens in matters concerning taxation. The obverse of the coin is "consumer rights" wherein buying "Little Plastic Shit" is seen as a high form of social engagement and the primary civic duty of ordinary Americans.
More noticeably, "people" has been replaced with "citizen."
The bill of rights specifically delineates protections that apply to "people" and protections that apply to "citizens." The dialogue is often about civil rights violations of American citizens, but the original language is more often "people."
From Yick Wo v. Hopkins
The rights of the petitioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they complain, are not less because they are aliens and subjects of the emperor of China. . . . The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.
Example from the other side:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/01/07/kt-mcfarland-chris...With the Detroit bomber we now have a clear pattern that reveals how the Obama administration deals with terrorists – try them in civilian courts with the full rights of American citizens... The president is treating terrorists like citizens and citizens like terrorists.
Note: I've taken both these examples from an excellent Glenn Greenwald article on the subject
As a non-citizen residing in the US, I find this phenomenon particularly noticeable. Like when Dzhokar Tsarnaev was arrested for the Boston bombing and the question of whether he should have his Miranda rights read to him was discussed in the media, the argument seemed to generally hinge on 'but he's a US citizen', as if, if he weren't, obviously this conversation wouldn't be worth having; or when the nature of US drone strikes comes up, and people express specific outrage that drone strikes have been used to assassinate "US Citizens abroad", as if that somehow changes things.
I think you are letting the citizenry off the hook for their part in this. The only reason corporations gained this power is because they have more collective money (or at least are more willing to use that money) to lobby. The only reason lobbying works is because politicians need money to get elected. The only reason politicians need money to get elected is because people are so susceptible to political marketing. Coporate personhood is therefore just a symptom of a larger problem, a disinterested and easily manipulated electorate.
I, for one, am glad to learn that we can fix all this by voting more often, or better, or whatever. Now that I think back, my junior high civics class taught me the same thing!
I am sensing sarcasm, so I just want to point to the 2014 primary turnout numbers. Less than 18% [1] of total eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2014 primary elections. When you have that much apathy, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to sway elections with a few million dollars.
Only if you'd scale that up to the entire country.
But maybe not even then. You vote for the candidate that can best convince you to vote for them. So this is the metric the system will optimize for. Politicians that make good decisions or stick to their principles get outcompeted by those who focus on marketing themselves and pandering to the public. Even if you make the electorate more educated and engaged, this will only do so much to fix the misalignment of values. Unless you know a way to immunize someone to marketing completely, I see no hope for fixing voting. I infer that every democracy, as it matures, degenerates into a popularity contest.
It also does nothing to correct the apathetic public we have had for the past... sixty? Years. The incredible amount of gerrymandering done to rig the house of representatives is incredible, and the Senate is already inherently biased because its giving every voter in Wyoming 67 times the influence of a voter of California. Unsurprisingly, Wyoming has not elected a non-Republican senator in over fifty years.
It should be no surprise that the will of the people no longer has any real correlation with the policy voted into law by congress.
Apathy may be something that grows with time as well. It seems to me (though I don't have much evidence to back it up so I welcome being shown I'm wrong) that a lifespan of a functioning democracy is ~100 years. The people who shed blood for it care. Their children are taught to care as well. But the grand-grand-children, born into a working system, don't have any context of how it was before that would give them motivation to care and perform required maintenance. And then, the system starts to degrade.
And for the US, one could plausibly start that 100 year clock in 1865, rather than in 1789. That would put the start of the apathy in 1965. Feels about right.
(Unless you're going to count it from 1945, in which case the real apathy hasn't started yet.)
You make it sound as though being easily manipulated by people with a lot of resources is a character flaw, rather than a characteristic of all humans throughout history.
It is unlikely (and maybe even undesirable) that we are going to be able to easily overcome our inherent susceptibility to influence. Therefore if we are to improve things we must recognize that this is part of who we are, and design our institutions accordingly.
Realism on all sides of this debate would be amazingly helpful. For instance, this continual disingenuous cry of "the corporations!" is stupid on its face. Are corporations autonomous intelligent entities outside of the will of powerful people? No! It's powerful people lobbying for rules that will help them. Destroy the concept of corporations tomorrow and you will still have powerful people who bend government to their will - you'll probably just have fewer people with much greater shares of power.
[1]: The case for "taxpayers" has been assisted by the language of "victim's rights" wherein people first accepted the idea that some citizens should have higher status before the law than others. Using the idea that paying taxes is a form of theft, taxpayers establish their victimhood and by an extension a privileged interest over ordinary citizens in matters concerning taxation. The obverse of the coin is "consumer rights" wherein buying "Little Plastic Shit" is seen as a high form of social engagement and the primary civic duty of ordinary Americans.