November 26, 2012
Dear members of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
I am writing to urge the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending. We undrestand the principle entailed in anonymous speech, which is encouraging speech which would otherwise be silenced through intimidation if others knew its source. However, we first of all do not believe corporations are people; they are entities of the state, created through laws. It follows from this that they should not be allowed the free speech rights of persons, much less unlimited free speech. Also, from a consequentialist point of view, the unlimited funds being spent are destructive of democracy, as it gives certain people (CEO's) much more speech than meme citizends have.
Since we cannot at this time yet block the expenditures, at least we may be able to know what is spent by whom (or what). Both shareholders and the public must be fully informed as to how much the corporation spends on politics and which candidates are being promoted or attacked. Disclosures should be posted promptly on the SEC's web site.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Michael Miller