In the past decade, the Supreme Court of the United States ($COTU$)
has handed down some truly mind-boggling decisions. Three stand out.
In their 2005 decision in the case of Kelo v. City of New
London, the court’s majority ruled
that eminent domain can be used to seize the homes and property of private individuals
on behalf of for-profit private corporations.
And y’all are
worried about your guns, which, by the way, are a far greater danger to the
health and safety of Americans than all the terrorists of the world. Combined.
Worry about your homes instead; I spent 14 months homeless and I don’t recommend it.
What was most
jaw-dropping about the Kelo case was that it was the liberal wing
of the court which delivered the majority decision and the people of the United
States into the mercy of Corporate America, the fourth branch of government.
Much better known thanks
to the Occupy Wall Street movement is the case of Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission, decided in 2010.
The plaintiff, Citizens United, is a pseudo-grassroots movement
organized and financed by and for the benefit of the Brothers Koch. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, together
the third richest family in America next to the Gates and the Walton families, coopted
what began originally as a true grassroots movement and steered it in the exact
opposite direction it real founders wanted.
The majority in
this case ruled that corporations are people with the same rights as actual
human beings. They also ruled that money
equals speech and that therefore Congress has no right to limit its use in
elections because it would be a violation of the First Amendment.
I have not seen any
comment to this effect in anything I’ve read, but the most pernicious decision
of the last ten years has been that in 2012 in the case of National
Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. The NIFB, a Nashville-based outfit, was suing
to block and possibly overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The majority
decision affirmed the right of the federal government to require individual
citizens to purchase health insurance, doubtlessly a boon to that branch of Corporate
America. However, it rejected the effort
of the law to induce states to broaden their Medicaid coverage and allowed
states to choose whether or not to follow that provision.
In other words, according
to the justices who took part in the majority, it’s okay to lay down burdens on
individual citizens as long as those burdens benefit corporations but not to
lay burdens on states that will benefit a sizable group of citizens.
I bet you’re thinking
right now that this sounds like another reprehensible example of right-wing
heartlessness. Wrong. It’s the liberal wing again, joined by Chief
Justice Roberts. Yes, it was the liberal
justices who voted that states don’t have to provide better healthcare to poor
people.
Of course, among
the States most eager to jump both feet-first on the band wagon for denying expanded
health to the poor were Tennessee and Georgia, both entirely dominated by the
Republican Party’s right wing, also known as the Tea Party, or, since its
cooption by the Brother Koch and wedding to the Christian Right, as the
American Taliban.
The most dangerous
part of the NFIB decision, an aspect of it of which no one, as far as I
know, has written is that by allowing states to pick and choose whether or not
to obey a certain section of a federal law, these five justices have, in
effect, overturned the results of the Civil War and the Reconstruction which
followed.
Why is this, you
ask? The Civil War decided once and for
all that individual states of the Union are not sovereign entities. If patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel, the cry of “state’s rights” is certainly his or her first.
Most recently, “states’
rights” was the slogan of the white supremacist resistance to the civil rights
movement. Before that, it was the slogan
for Jim Crow. Before that, for the
defeated former Confederate states.
Before that, for the anti-abolition movement that led to the
organization of the Confederacy.
The truth of the
matter is that “states’ rights” as sovereign entities died in 1789 with the
ratification of the Constitution.
Whereas the Declaration of Independence was signed by the “United
Colonies” and the Articles of Confederation were signed by the “State in
Congress assembled”, the U.S. Constitution was signed in the name not of the
states, but by the People of the United States.
After looking at
the decision this way and realizing that $COTU$ had, in effect, overruled the
victory of the Union over the Confederacy, several other questions came to
mind.
When is $COTU$ going to rule that states don't have to abide
by the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
When is $COTU$ going to rule that states don't have to abide
by the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
When is $COTU$ going to overturn Brown v. Board of Education?
When is $COTU$ going to reaffirm Plessy v. Ferguson?
When is $COTU$ going to rule that states don't have to abide
by the 15th Amendment?
When is $COTU$ going to rule that states don't have to abide
by the 14th Amendment?
When is $COTU$ going to rule that states don't have to abide
by the 13th Amendment?
When is $COTU$ going to reaffirm the decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford?
When is $COTU$ going to rule that states don't have to abide
by the Bill of Rights?
When is $COTU$ going to declare that the Union is dissolved?
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