Jan 26, 2010

Justicia

The recent Supreme Court decision regarding spending limits in campaigns has many a little hot in the collar which was to be expected. The longtime precedence of viewing a corporation as a person is baffling to me. A soulless entity who's only motivation is profit doesn't seem eligible to have the same rights as other citizens for reasons that I hope are obvious. Still the justices have ruled and we have to live with the consequences.

The anger coming from the public and media baffle me though. Just logging into my Facebook account I've seen many friend post outrage at the decision, but granted their research into the issue was a brief skimming of an online article or listening to the blowhard Olbermann comparing the decision to the Dred Scott case.

Actually I've heard a lot of pundits compare this recent ruling to the pre-Civil War (ahem War Between the States) case of ownership of slaves. I find myself on the side of the NAACP, believe it or not, in the fact that such comparisons are ludicrous. To believe that corporate money donations, or individual for that matter, are in any way in the same ballpark as human bondage cheapens the suffering of generations of inhabitants in our country who never knew freedom.

Yes I agree the ruling is unfair, but the Supreme Court must rule by what is constitutional and if we don't like what's said in the document it's up to us to change it. We bitch and moan about corporate money while we gladly throw ourselves into massive amounts of debt to make them rich buying things we in no way need. Most of us spend our careers making them wealthy. If you're really against the power these institutions wield then simply stop supporting them. It's just that simple.

Sadly the outrage will die quickly, because the idea of not giving Comcast a ton of money for high speed Internet is a foreign concept for most. We can't deprive ourselves of German porn after all.

"The Supreme Court's only armor is the cloak of public trust; its sole ammunition, the collective hopes of our society." - Irving R. Kaufman

2 comments:

JLee said...

I think everyone should get on board with my idea...an "American Idol" style election, where viewers get to vote off who they don't like each week :))
It could work...

Mattbear said...

The outrage is that they *aren't* ruling by the Constitution. They are ruling based on politics and party lines.