Judging from the rhetoric coming from Democrats in the Roundhouse, you'd think the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case is responsible for (in no particular order): the downfall of the Republic, the popularity of Justin Bieber and the embarrassment of toenail fungus.

Two legislative measures have wafted their way through the Roundhouse in the form of House and Senate memorials -- completely symbolic measures decrying the 2010 Supreme Court decision that don't have the force of law.

"Corporations are not people!" goes the rallying cry, and although it's a catchy slogan, it fails on a couple of fronts.

First of all, the people who decry the Citizens United ruling always seem to leave out one crucial aspect of the high court's decision -- that, yes, while it allowed political spending by corporations, the court also allowed unfettered spending by unions as well.

And when you look at the chart produced by the nonpartisan group, www.followthemoney.org, showing that the top 15 organizations that have donated the most money to national political campaigns since 1989 and see that unions appear nine times; well, it's more than disingenuous for Citizens United critics to point at the supposed corrupting influence of cash from one group but not another.

Citizens United opponents say they want to take money out of the political arena. Aside from the fact that getting money out of politics is like taking salt out of the sea, there's also one nettlesome problem -- namely, the First Amendment, which plainly states Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. There is nothing in the First Amendment that says anything about personhood.

But politics is the art of the practical, and for those who fervently believe that Citizens United is a horrible decision, I proffer this thought experiment:

Let's say you -- like many other liberals with a techie bent -- really, really hate the prospect that the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect Intellectual Property Act might become law. (For those who are unfamiliar, SOPA and PIPA have generated furious opposition from such organizations as Google and Wikipedia.)

Congressman Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat, co-sponsored SOPA but backpedaled after the uproar. On the Senate side, though, fellow Dems Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman have co-sponsored PIPA and while Udall now says, "we must strike a balance" on PIPA, he hasn't withdrawn his sponsorship. Now let's say Udall comes back -- damn the torpedoes -- in full-throated support of PIPA.

You hate this bill and since Udall will be up for re-election in two years, you want to do everything in your power to install a Democrat who hates PIPA just as much as you do.

But Sen. Udall is an incumbent and incumbents are hard to unseat. So you're delighted to hear that ahead of the primary election, Google wants to produce a series of TV ads explaining the horribleness of PIPA and why voters should vote for an upstart candidate dedicated to making sure the act doesn't become law.

Thanks to Citizens United, that can happen.

But if the campaign-finance laws Citizens United obliterated were in place in New Mexico, guess what? Google couldn't do that because Google is a corporation and, as the left tells us, corporations are not people and therefore would not be allowed to spend the vast amounts of dollars necessary to unseat a sitting U.S. senator.

On top of that, if the McCain-Feingold campaign-reform legislation were in effect, Google (or even a collection of small New Mexico tech companies) could not broadcast any ads in the critical last 30 days before the primary because the government says such spending amounts to no more than filthy lucre that needs to be hounded out of political discourse.

Hey, you say, that violates free speech!

Welcome aboard. You've just agreed with the majority opinion in Citizens United.

Rob Nikolewski can be contacted through the website he edits, www.capitolreportnewmexico.com.