The Supremes: Might makes Right
Amos Umwhat
Everyone, Registered Users Posts: 2,523
Spouting an extremely twisted and hyperbolized loose interpretation of the First Amendment, The Supremes have once again taken us another step farther away from the ideal of a democratically elected government. Reductionist logic reveals that The Supremes believe supremely that the more money you have, the more rights you have. So much for "all men are created equal".
Donald Trump may get to be president yet.
I think I'll go throw up now.
Donald Trump may get to be president yet.
I think I'll go throw up now.
Comments
Now that I've read the story, why should anyone be surprised that the 1 percenters (on all sides of the spectrum) are now legally allowed to r*pe the electoral process when they get a slap on the wrist for literally r*ping their own daughters?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/woman-sues-ex-husband-du-pont-heir-dodged-prison-raping-3-year-old-daughter-article-1.1740180
George Soros & Donald Trump must be dancing with glee right now.
Too rich to jail
Shoudlve just been killed instead.
Thing is not who unlocked more purse in the name of free speech. Thing is defining political contributions as speech. Once you do that, you have to unfetter contributions. Hard to see a way around that.
The idea of money as "free speech" bothers me. To an extent, I can see it. I suppose I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the so-called Citizens United decision, which extended the free speech rights granted to individuals to include corporations, and thus corporate contributions. The only way I could agree with this being right would be if every single individual in that corporation had exactly the same thoughts, feelings, etc., about every single thing all the time. Not possible. BTW, the CU decision wasn't the first time corporations were granted "individual" status, it happend also in the late 19th century, but was later reversed, after the destruction of the economy. I suppose we'll be seeing that phenomenon again before too much longer.
I have to concede that I cannot object to any individual giving up to all of their own assets if they choose to do so. That's freedom. I suppose the only reason we still have elections, instead of simply awarding the job to the highest bidder, is because people with that kind of money are too smart to want the job.
Raisindots point is, I suppose, the rational expression of what I was feeling when I read about the decision and began this thread. What happens when power is unchecked? It suppresses any attempt to check its power. A weak, but familiar analogy might be to consider what The Church and the conventional sciences have done with new information and knowledge. Copernicus, Gallileo and their correct view that the earth is not a flat plane, Tesla's AC current vs. Edisons power guzzling DC, etc.
Given the right of free speech, however, it is accepted doctrine that there are, and should be, reasonable limits on free speech. Where does it end?
What I want is for the best ideas that create the best opportunities for the greatest number of citizens possible. And for those citizens to live up to their responsibilities to make that happen. I understand completely that simple pure democracy is not necessarily the best answer. 300 million idiots are simply not as intelligent as one genius. I want that genius to be heard, and the rich and powerful have rarely, if ever, supported the likes of Moses or Jesus Christ (in his own time, there was lots of support once the faith had been properly indoctrinated to Romes satisfaction), Socrates, Thomas Paine, or so many more who've been stymied, murdered, or marginalized by the "Free Speech" of the wealthy and powerful.
So, I guess we're doomed to continue. Wall St. will continue to fund legislators who decree that it's OK for Wall St. to swindle average folks with complexeties that really boil down to large-scale 3-card Monte. The military industrial complex will continue to fund any candidate who will assure more war, more weapons, more American tax dollars being spent on ensuring the continuation of military adventurism for fun and profit, while building a web of "security" agencies that slowly stifle the will and freedom of the public. Americans will continue to search for a "Savior", some individual with all the answers while ignoring the paradox of "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Which, to me, is one of the reasons that when the Savior came, he left without creating an earthly kingdom. Just my opinion.
I'll stop ranting now, thanks to those of you patient enough to make it this far, sometimes I gotta let it out.
Spot on, Amos. To me, the CU decision is one of the most destructive things that ever happened to the electoral process. And you're absolutely right. Awhile ago, I worked for one of those gigantic, economy-killing "too big to fail" banks (in my defense, they took over the relatively "nicer" smaller bank I had originally joined). Not only was part of my job to create some of their political propaganda, but the bank itself placed increasingly heavy pressure on employees to contribute to the bank's PAC. So much so that whether you contributed or not was noted in your annual review. I refused to contribute, since when I looked at the candidates whom the PAC supported, they were nearly all ideologically opposite to my own views (can you guess which party?
No, that's not just your opinion. That right there is the whole sweep of history in its entirety. You'd think that after eight millennia or so of experience at civilization we'd learn to get past the theoretical and grasp the empirical. Government is not nor has it ever been a benevolent association of altruistic intelligentsia there to do you a favor. It is a scheme by which the wealthy and powerful enhance their pilth and power. That's the deal. The rest is window dressing, carrots, and sticks.
Which is my recurring argument with Liberals, who want to get all idealistic, and imagine government solutions to problems real and imagined. I'm not into idealistic. I'm into realistic. Here is realistic: You cannot have good government. You can only have less government.
It's like surgery that way.
... and then, those who did not forthrightly ADMIT that they support swindles get into office and guess what....
Hope and change reveals itself as hype and chains.
It's not Left against Right. It is Government against people.
Under Clinton on the order of 1200 banksters and stock swindlers were convicted
Under Bush on the order of 1500 were convicted
Under Obozo.... well, you've always got Madoff, whose sin was he swindled rich people instead of working people. And even his prosecution was under Bush. You've got an AG comes from the major DC lie firm that defends banksters and swindlers, not only turns a deaf ear and a blind eye, but openly states "too rich to jail".
"ideologically opposite to my own views (can you guess which party?)" ... Dude. Ideology is just window dressing. Party is just pretense. That's how they sucker you in.
You cannot have good government. You can only have less government. Like horse manure. A certain amount is necessary. Too much and you are knee deep in it.
You hit the nail on the head, Davis.
And I read an interesting take on this decision from another website LINK HERE; haven't thought about it long enough and I don't know if I necessarily agree with the post but there's an intriguing idea here. I've copied that post below, what do you guys think?
The sophistry is in the first sentence: "freedom of speech entitles everyone to the exact same amount of free speech:" This is nonsense. It has nothing to do with amount. One guy's got big lungs and the voice of a DJ and owns a newspaper. Another guy has a reedy voice, stutters, and works at a gas station. Both ought to be able to voice their opinions. How much they'll either say or be heard is something else entirely. You're not going to shut up everybody because Helen Keller came along; nor are you handing out megaphones because George Carlin is on HBO.
Astonishing the drivel that passes for logic.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Where's one word of amount?
Well, here's where we get back to disagreeing again, Davis. Frankly, for most of its history, the U.S. government gave nearly complete laissez-faire to businessesmen to run the country whatever way it wanted. What did that result in?
Millions of people working in dangerous sweatshops and mines for pennies a day with no safety protections whatsoever.
Large companies using bribery, extortion, and violence to put smaller companies out of business
Food that was routinely contaminated with disease and waste
The death of millions of people due to lack of access to healthcare
The impoverishment of millions of poor elderly people who had no income to retire on once they were kicked out of their jobs
The wholesale and uncontrolled contamination of lakes, ponds, groundwater, wells, and other sources of public drinking water and property by companies pouring hazaradous materials wherever they wanted with no repercussions
Unlimited freedom of employers to exploit lowly paid workers however they wanted to
The total extinction of the passenger pigeon and the near extinction of the bald eagle, buffalo, wolf and the Sacred Cod
The enslavement of millions of black people that only a civil war could resolve
The post Civil War oppression and unpunished lynching of black people because they had no laws or government forces to protect them
Billions of dollars of Americans' savings lost when the banks they thought were safe collapsed in the Great Depression
The near impossibility of interstate commerce because there was no interstate highway system or even good state roads because no one was willing to pay for them
Total lack of protection from commercial development of great swaths of American wilderness
It took a generally pro-business Republican president--Teddy Roosevelt--to finally have the vision to see how false the dictum "What's good for business is good for America" was and is. His expansion of federal powers to set limits on business set a precedent that, as a whole, has made America a better place. If you say that "there is no such thing as good government," and that therefore government should have little or no power, you therefore must be saying that an America where slavery is legal, minorities are oppressed, workers are exploited without recourse, only those with money can get healthcare, no one's food would is safe to eat, no one's water is safe to drink, thousands of species are hunted or fished to extinction, and all of our national parks become strip mines, shale oil fields, ski resorts and strip malls would be a much better place.
If that's what you truly believe, then, well, that's what you believe. For me, as a member of the non-1%ers, I would trust even a very flawed government (such as ours is) to protect me from total exploitation by business, rather than trust corporate America to work in my best interests.
But part of your comment makes me think you agree.
"Both ought to be able to voice their opinions. How much they'll either say or be heard is something else entirely."
Your line above reminds me of that old saying "Money talks, bullsh!t walks" ....
You're right the guy who owns the newspaper has a better opportunity to be heard. But so do the wealthier folks who can take out ads & pay the writers/editors for favorable stories. So in that case you're right, the fellow who works at the gas station and doesn't make a whole lot of money probably won't be heard.....
It's quite a conundrum.
Well, for a little bit of light at the end of this depressing tunnel:
This may have been true, say, 20 years ago, but one thing has leveled the playing field--that little thing called the Internet.
Today, that guy in the gas station has the potential to have his message reach millions--perhaps billions--of people all over the world at the cost of a month's worth of data or Internet time. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever--all these things have created a level playing field that can circumvent the usual media channels owned by the wealthy. The 99% movement was almost entirely social media based--these people didn't own the newspapers or TV stations--they communicated through their phones and put together a gigantic political movement that changed exactly---nothing. But, around the world, political change has been enacted through Internet communication. The mass demonstrations the let to the ouster of Khadafy and Mubarek were largely "organized" and communicated via the Internet. Blogging, self-publishing and site forums like these give opportunities for expression denied those who don't have the money to buy TV time. If this same energy devoted to watching kitten videos could be harnessed for cultivating alternate candidates outside the two party system, it could make the money game irrelevant.
He gave an example of why this is necessary. For instance, Giant Megacorp Dedicated to Dumping Toxic Sludge on Playgrounds wants to control legislation that allows it to continue to dump toxic sludge. Naturally, the American way is, buy some Congressmen a seat and have them create or block laws for you as needed to accomplish the goal of filling your stockholders bank accounts, at the expense of poisoning people. Don't worry, they'll be poor, or "lower middle class" people. But, since no one is going to vote for a candidate backed by GMDTDTSOP, they form and then fund a PAC and call it The Amber Waves of Grain and Purple Mountains Majesty and Blue Skies Forever Political Action Committee. This is the name of the sponsor for the ad that folks hear, and vote for.
Now, all the names of donors don't have to be roll-called when the ad plays, but the information has to be there for the asking. Currently, it is not. What the former FCC commissioner proposes is that we, or actuallly our representative government, start actually enforcing the law that's already on the books.
Why aren't we already? Well, because our representatives are far more interested in getting next campaigns funds from GMDTDTSOP. There have been historical precedents, however, when real live voters like us contacted their representatives and demanded that laws already on the books be inforced rather than ignored for the benefit of the powerful. They don't get elected if the 99% know what they're up to.
Just something to think about. We the People could be in charge, if we'd pay attention, and take charge.