Friday, April 4, 2014

Money is speech,... or legalized corruption?



Yeah, it's a shame that billionaires have so little power in America, isn't it? I'm glad that the Republicans on the Supreme Court are standing up to for them.

After all, 646 (Stephen Colbert says it was just 591) of the richest people in America reached the campaign limits in the last election cycle. Those are the people the Republican Party thinks don't have enough influence in our country?

And note that this does not include the amount of money they can donate to PACs and SuperPACs (which is, thanks to previous terrible decisions by the Republicans on the Supreme Court, unlimited).

Oh, and note that Shaun McCutcheon is a self-described activist for the Republican Party, and that the Republican National Committee joined him in his lawsuit. (Here's the Wikipedia entry.) Wow, and the five Republicans on the Supreme Court, appointed by Republican presidents, agreed with the Republican Party in this? Shocking, isn't it?

According to the five Republicans on the Supreme Court - and like most of these terrible decisions, it was opposed by the four Democrats on the Court - the only corruption that matters is when you get a specific agreement from a candidate to vote a specific way due to that particular bribe.

Indeed, according to them, even the appearance of corruption is only valid in that particular, narrow, and hard-to-prove scenario. If the candidate just winks when he takes the money, well, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

This is why the terrible results of voting for Republican presidents lasts for long, long after that president is gone. We still have a slim majority of Supreme Court justices who are far right-wing Republicans. And just as they gave us George W. Bush as president, in a 5 to 4 decision back in 2000, they're continuing to make similar disastrous decisions even today.

Stephen Colbert talked about this last night, too:



4 comments:

Jim Harris said...

I just can't understand why the Supreme Court can't see this reinforces our plutocracy. Nor can I understand why some people deserve more freedom of speech than others. Finally, isn't this legalized corruption?

Bill Garthright said...

They can see that, Jim, but that's exactly what they want. It's the five Republicans on the Supreme Court who decided the case this way - a case where the Republican National Committee was one of the plaintiffs.

Republicans support plutocracy. They think the wealthy should be running our country, even more than they already do.

And as far as corruption goes, they think that the more money you have, the more influence you should have, and what's 'corruption' but influencing people with money?

For the most part, these aren't just jurists, but right-wing activists on the Court. That's why they were appointed by Republican presidents, to change our country into their far-right vision of America.

And note that they were all quite young when appointed. That was also deliberate, since Supreme Court justices serve for life.

Jim Harris said...

I'd like to think were judges first, and party members second. I think the honor and duty of being a judge should sway them differently.

Bill Garthright said...

It's easy to believe what you want to believe, Jim, even if you're not as faith-based as Republicans tend to be. They have faith in the Republican Party, so they find justification for decisions which will benefit that party.

And if you think the rich should control America, as the Founders intended,.. well, this was exactly why they were appointed by Republican presidents. If they hadn't believed that, they wouldn't have been appointed.