Tax Lawyer's Blog

A fellow named Bret Michael Dykes in article written for Yahoo news makes much of the fact that a majority of Americans are opposed to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Citizens United:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that the vast majority of Americans are vehemently opposed to a recent Supreme Court ruling that opens the door for corporations, labor unions, and other organizations to spend money directly from their general funds to influence campaigns.

As noted by the Post’s Dan Eggen, the poll’s findings show “remarkably strong agreement” across the board, with roughly 80% of Americans saying that they’re against the Court’s 5-4 decision. Even more remarkable may be that opposition by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents were all near the same 80% opposition range. Specifically, 85% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, and 76% of Republicans opposed it.

In short, “everyone hates” the ruling.

Frankly, I don’t care a whit what “everyone” thinks of a Supreme Court ruling. You shouldn’t either.

How many of these naysayers have actually read the Court’s majority opinion? How many have read Justice Stevens’ dissent and Justice Scalia’s concurrence? Did “everyone” attend law school and acquire a strong foundation in constitutional law before forming their opinion of the Court’s opinion? Did “everyone” get vetted by the White House before being asked to opine on complex constitutional law questions? Did “everyone” undergo a grueling advise and consent hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee? Did “everyone” get confirmed by the United States’ Senate?

Once again the left is using rank propaganda to create in the minds of the have nots a virulent hatred of the haves. It’s populism at its worst and it’s very effective. If history has taught us anything, it’s taught us that it’s easy to persuade the powerless to buy into the lie that the powerful are the cause of all their woes. 

I’ll put up a year’s salary that says the mob has no knowledge of the legal reasoning behind the Court’s decision and lacks the intellectual energy or curiosity to find out.

In this case, big business is again being scapegoated by cynical ideologues with cynical agendas. What “everyone” is being told to hate is not the legal reasoning of Citizens’ United majority, but the consequences of the ruling i.e. that corporations will be able to spend large sums of money to publicly promote political candidates.

Lazy, ignorant people are the propagandist’s low-hanging fruit. He needs an empty vessel that he can fill with his own lies, biases and prejudices. In this case, the propagandist knows that few people will have taken the time to actually read the 183 page (with dissent and concurrences) Court opinion and the ones that have read it likely lack the intelligence to understand it. So he tells them, and they readily believe, that the majority Justices are in cahoots with big business and that the Court’s ruling will result in future legislators being chosen solely by corporations.

I don’t care that “everyone” hates the Citizens United ruling, but I do care about the soundness of the Court’s reasoning. And I find it to be very sound, indeed.

To paraphrase Justice Scalia, the First Amendment prohibits the restriction of “speech.” It says nothing whatsoever about the identity of speakers. Thus, corporate speech is every bit as protected as individual speech.

If you hate that, you hate the Constitution.

Here are a few other Supreme Court cases that “everyone” hated:

• Brown v. Board of Education 
• Kelo v. City of New London 
• Roe v. Wade 

Perhaps in the future we should put every constitutional law question to a public vote? This way we could eliminate the judiciary and save the taxpayers money in the process.

Related Posts:

• First Amendment Guru Floyd Abrams Applauds Citizens’ United Ruling
• Obama Slams Supreme Court on Result, Not Reasoning
• 7 Techniques of a Propagandist

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