New Yorker - Justice Roberts Defends the Embattled Rich

[TomCADem]

The billionaire sponsored pity party for the filthy rich continues.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2014/04/justice-roberts-defends-the-embattled-rich-in-mccutcheon.html

Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits on campaign donations, offers a novel twist in the conservative contemplation of what Nazis have to do with the way the rich are viewed in America. In January, Tom Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist, worried about a progressive Kristallnacht; Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot, said, of economic populism, “If you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.” Roberts, to his credit, avoided claiming the mantle of Hitler’s victims for wealthy campaign donors. He suggests, though, that the rich are, likewise, outcasts: “Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects,” he writes:

If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests, and Nazi parades—despite the profound offense such spectacles cause—it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition.

* * *

Roberts’s other argument is a little sad: “That same donor, meanwhile, could have spent unlimited funds on independent expenditures on behalf of Smith.” In other words, aggregate limits wouldn’t foster corruption, because using money to influence a campaign is much easier with the sort of independent expenditures that Citizens United makes possible.

* * *

But then Roberts relies on a very narrow measure of corruption: “Ingratiation and access … are not corruption,” he writes, quoting Citizens United. (There are a number of citations of Citizens United in this decision.) The argument of McCutcheon, in effect, is that a political party itself cannot, by definition, be corrupted: “There is a clear, administrable line between money beyond the base limits funneled in an identifiable way to a candidate—for which the candidate feels obligated—and money within the base limits given widely to a candidate’s party—for which the candidate, like all other members of the party, feels grateful.” The gratitude may only be for a place of safety where donors, assailed by the popular opinion of bitter, poorer people, can find a little bit of solace.

[Ash_F]

1. Talking about how it "offends" the rest of America is a total strawman

Money gives wealthy individuals more political power than they deserve. That is where we need to focus the discussion. This guy knows it too.

[KeepItReal]

2. Too cerebral for my New Orleans - influenced mind right now but a K&R for later

With an preemptive "eff that guy" to that joke of a justice John Roberts

[passiveporcupine]

3. I can't even finish reading that

That is sick.

[Enthusiast]

4. This was another horrible decision.

What kind of a country do these justices want to live in?

Are they ideological Fascists?

Or, were they simply bribed into such a decision?

Money does not equal speech.

Corporations are not people.

These justices have fucked this country up.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[freebrew]

6. Where did this moron learn history?

Twisted logic and word salad is all I see here.

Is he that stupid or does he really think that of everyone else?

The argument above looks like reason enough for impeachment: he's out of his f@ing mind.

[Doctor_J]

7. the Big Question - Can their media monopoly stave off

Their eventual choices will be, IMO

1. Sic Fox nation on the sane 80%
2. Face the blade

Luckily I'll be looking up at the sod before it comes to this.