Posted on 02/10/2010 4:24:16 PM PST by GOP_Lady
Nothing—not even George W. Bush—has sent liberaldom screaming into the streets more than the Supreme Court's recent 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The Court's ruling that corporations have a free-speech right to express opinions about politicians running for office really let the furies out.
President Obama's in-their-face criticism of the Supreme Court over Citizens United at his State of the Union speech got pundits on every blogger barstool chattering about the propriety of this public smackdown.
That's nothing compared to how the Supremes smack each other inside their public decisions.
Justice John Paul Stevens dismissed the majority's opinion, written by Anthony Kennedy, as lacking "a scintilla of evidence" for its argument and making "only a perfunctory attempt" to root its reasons in the First Amendment views of the Constitution's Framers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Stevens is a liberal hack. He buys every shibboleth of the Modern Left.
Interesting read, thanks for posting.
The piece is too tame. The thesis is correct, but the anti-business sentiment is far more pernicious. Semantically “corporation” is identified with greed, exploitation, alienation, ... all the negatives attached to capitalism by left liberals.
Under Stevens interpretation corporations would not enjoy freedom of the press either. Both speech and the press are in the same clause. What would Stevens say about regulatilng the major news corporations?
Individuals have “Free Speech” rights.
A “corporation” is an incorporated group of free associating individuals. It’s rights and it’s identity, as respecting it’s individuality, is rooted in the rights of the individuals from whom the corporation is formed.
If “corporations” do not have Free Speech rights, or have such rights only in a manner the government sees fit to grant, then the same must be true (from Steven’s argument) for the individuals who comprise the body of the corporation.
Best part of stevens is his age. dirt nap right around the corner, the old coot who can’t keep her eyes open ain’t far behind.
I don’t see how the right of free speech can be a 5-4 decision. The Supreme Court is violating its sacred oath to uphold the Constitution.
Well said. Congress cannot prohibit a group of people from exercising together a right that it could not prohibit any single member of the group from exercising individually. Particularly when that right is political free speech. The inalienable right of free speech and peaceable assembly means what two people can say on separate street corners can also be said by three people together on the same street corner.
What is a corporation? It’s an association of individuals. Needless to say, a nonhuman object cannot exercise free speech anyway, even if it had the right to do so. And the Constitution also protects the right of free association, as well as free speech.
EXACTLY!!
I wish both Stevens and Ginsburg enough life expectancy for a Republican president to appoint their replacements.
>I wish both Stevens and Ginsburg enough life expectancy for a Republican president to appoint their replacements.
Screw a republican-appointed Justice; I want a Justice appointed because he’s a _Constitutionalist_.
Agreed, but you won't get a Constitutionalist from 0bama.
>>Screw a republican-appointed Justice; I want a Justice appointed because he’s a _Constitutionalist_.
>
>Agreed, but you won’t get a Constitutionalist from 0bama.
I never said we would; if anything I implied that the political-party of the appoint-er is _NO_ guarantee of Constitutionalism on the part of the appointee.
Over and over and over, at least from the liberal case-by-case side of the bench.
And, the demonstrated fact that the current so-called president does not understand the U.S. Constitution nor the proper role of the judiciary is grounds for his impeachment, in my view. That, and his order to stop the interrogation of Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber.
He has violated his own oath of office.
Great cartoon:) Nino tells it like it is— “To exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy.” — we are blessed he is on the high court.
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