Today is the last day I will be interviewing Jon Ralston for my noon segment. When you’re watching all the back and forth and game playing in the election process, you tend to conclude that everything—every issue—moves toward the center. Life is a series of compromises. No matter how strident any group is to force its position down the throats of others, (the TEA Party is a perfect example of the inability of the excesses to have their way) average always prevails and average usually means very little progress will be made.
If you’re thinking this economy will wake up and charge ahead unfettered by negative influences, stop kidding yourself. Average is always the answer and not a very good one at that.
Undoubtedly, the forces that will lead the charge to “average” (your definition) will be lead by corporate and other entities (Super PACs) ordained with the Constitutional right of free speech grafted to the United States Constitution by five conservatives justices of the Supreme Court in the now infamous decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in January 2010.
ReplyDeleteA word or two about the Judiciary that may have set us on a trajectory of "average" in recent years that has roots dating back to Thomas Jefferson’s era.
THE JUDICIARY IS CONSIDERED BY SOME TO BE THE MOST POWERFUL AND THE LEAST PUBLIC BRANCH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
In the history of the republic, there have been only 17 chief justices. However, 18 people were nominated. The political power and relevancy of the Supreme Court in the United States has always been cloaked in such legalese that a layperson needs the double entendre legal jargon translated.
The judiciary exerts its will on the people behind its black ceremonial robes.
One hundred and ninety-three years ago, on September 6, 1819, Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to Spencer Roane, a judge on the Virginia Court of Appeals, cautioning, “the Supreme Court’s power to determine constitutionality must be curbed or it would continue to consolidate the power of the federal government. Further, that the judiciary’s independence from the will of the people upsets the checks and balances established by the Constitution.”
What immediately comes to mind from reading Jefferson’s 193-year-old letter is the 2000 presidential election and the Supreme Court cases, Bush v. Gore as well as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, handed down on January 21, 2010. (We mark the second anniversary of the decision tomorrow)
The First Amendment is considered our most sacred right. However, the Roberts court’s expansion of First Amendment rights to corporations (non-breathing, non-feeling, non-voting, non-human things) will go down in the annals as the greatest threat to America’s democracy―foreign and domestic―since the founding of the nation in 1776.
Unintended consequences of the decision will be that multinational corporations, (including state-sponsored corporations), and foreign governments will have deleterious influences on U.S. elections.
It appears that the 5–4 conservative majority of the Supreme Court has outsourced our democracy.
We the people must change the trajectory with an improved economy that foster jobs and an informed citizenry.
Average is always the answer and not a very good one at that. (Jim Rogers)
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth!