5 Stupid Men

Yesterday something horrible happened. Five individuals released an opinion that set our political fundraising back a century.

For some reason unknown to me, they decided that limiting campaign contributions was denying large corporations their freedom. Freedom of what I'm not sure, I haven't read the majority opinion yet, but I didn't think freedom to buy candidates was part of the Bill of Rights. Maybe they are stretching the definition of freedom of speech, I don't know, but I don't like it.

On my way home yesterday I was listing to NPR and they had two "expert" pundits commenting on the ruling. The first one thought the Court did a good thing. He kept commenting on how this would "level the playing field" so now non-millionaires could have a chance at winning elections. So this would bring candidacy to the hands of the "middle class." Really? That's what you took out of this ruling? Out of all the potential ramifications you decided that the salient point of this ruling was allowing middle class candidates to get "bought" just like the rich ones?

The second pundit was outraged. He saw it, and rightly so in my opinion, as opening the floodgates and giving big corporations (you know, the ones we had to bail out recently because they can't make long-term financial decisions) the ability to give unlimited amounts of money to the candidates that they want in office. Hello . . . does anyone else see the problem here?

Throwing money at things isn't the way to fix them. And yes, I know some of you are thinking, well it worked for the bail out since some of those banks have already repaid their money and have made a profit in this last quarter. I'm sure the bail out was necessary to some degree. We can't have the banks go under and everyone lose their retirement investments and life savings, but come on, how hard was it for them to make a profit when we loaned them money interest free and they used it to make money. If you "loan" me money and I put it in my savings account I will make money too. This doesn't require skill. And for this they gave their executives some hefty bonuses. We're definitely not taking about a bunch of Einsteins here.

So, forgive me if I don't jump for joy that we're giving the big corporations more power to screw up our lives. They already give huge amounts to election campaigns - and if you look at how people voted and look at who financed their re-election, you will see a definite coorrelation. These politicians may say that they know what's best for us. They may say that they're looking out for the people. They may say we need this but not "this" bill. But most of the time it's just that it's not the bill that their corporate puppeteer is happy with - and really nothing to do with their constituents.

I'm a big fan of the Supreme Court and enjoy reading their opinions - even the dissenting ones. I have long enjoyed the fact that they are appointed for life (short of treason) and so frequently can't be bought - because they don't have to win the job every few years. I believe that if they base their opinions on the Constitution and extrapolate from it's admonitions, they will make good decisions that will stand the test of time. I know, some vote their personal opinions and morals, but for the most part, history has proven them to be able to do the right thing (albeit sometimes late.) But I think they dropped the ball with this one. Big time dropped the ball.