Bad Decisions, False Ideas
Bad decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court spring from false social concepts that have taken root in the minds of justices. A reader, sent me a quote explaining the basis for the calamitous 1857 Dred Scott decision which held that slaves and their descendents were not protected by the U.S. Constitution. Chief Justice, Roger Taney, strongly pro-slavery, backed by seven justices, wrote that black people were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Two justices dissented, one so strongly, he resigned from the court.
The false concept that led to the Citizens United decision of 2010 allowing unlimited political money via Super Pacs, is that “corporations are people,” which Mitt Romney argued in a stump speech in Iowa: (click for link to video clip)
“Corporations are people, my friend...” followed by, “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.”
Even the reasoning is flawed. If corporations are people because everything they earn goes to people, then supermarkets are people too because everything on their shelves goes to people. Romney knows better, but for him, intelligence and honesty never overrides political expediency.
Corporations by law have the same economic rights as people; they can buy, sell, lend, save, borrow, sue, be sued, contract, and enforce contracts, etc. But economic rights are far less than full human rights. A person who thinks of corporations as people, sees real people as cogs, to be used and discarded. Romney talks about corporations he invaded that flourished, nothing about those that went bankrupt, or that he made fat profits on both. And why won’t he release his income tax?
A personal story is always part of a politician’s qualifications for public office. Mitt Romney earned straight A’s at Harvard, getting degrees in both business and law. But a high IQs and business acumen, do not always come with honesty, scruples, and conscience, and he’s shown himself to be a human weather vane pointing in whatever direction the wind blows.
Would a man whose business life was spent gutting corporations in order to swell his own bank account, likely care a hoot for living breathing Americans were he to find himself holding the reins of power?
Bad decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court spring from false social concepts that have taken root in the minds of justices. A reader, sent me a quote explaining the basis for the calamitous 1857 Dred Scott decision which held that slaves and their descendents were not protected by the U.S. Constitution. Chief Justice, Roger Taney, strongly pro-slavery, backed by seven justices, wrote that black people were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Two justices dissented, one so strongly, he resigned from the court.
The false concept that led to the Citizens United decision of 2010 allowing unlimited political money via Super Pacs, is that “corporations are people,” which Mitt Romney argued in a stump speech in Iowa: (click for link to video clip)
“Corporations are people, my friend...” followed by, “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.”
Even the reasoning is flawed. If corporations are people because everything they earn goes to people, then supermarkets are people too because everything on their shelves goes to people. Romney knows better, but for him, intelligence and honesty never overrides political expediency.
Corporations by law have the same economic rights as people; they can buy, sell, lend, save, borrow, sue, be sued, contract, and enforce contracts, etc. But economic rights are far less than full human rights. A person who thinks of corporations as people, sees real people as cogs, to be used and discarded. Romney talks about corporations he invaded that flourished, nothing about those that went bankrupt, or that he made fat profits on both. And why won’t he release his income tax?
A personal story is always part of a politician’s qualifications for public office. Mitt Romney earned straight A’s at Harvard, getting degrees in both business and law. But a high IQs and business acumen, do not always come with honesty, scruples, and conscience, and he’s shown himself to be a human weather vane pointing in whatever direction the wind blows.
Would a man whose business life was spent gutting corporations in order to swell his own bank account, likely care a hoot for living breathing Americans were he to find himself holding the reins of power?
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