Im shocked! Shocked! that the Supreme Court sided with Big Business.
The Supreme Court ruling is shocking, but not a surprise. That a government would collude with business leaders to suppress the rights of workers has been happening longer than there has been plebeians and patricians or have and have nots, or people with clubs and people without clubs.
Not only is this always a disheartening fact, but there is much more disappointing about this decision than you might think.
The Supreme Court is charged with protecting the rights of citizens; for them to so shamelessly side with those whose fundamental charter is simply profit over all else is unconscionable. Decisions such as these are a direct subversion of the basic tenants of the institution and totally counter to the reason for its existence. I will say it again, the Court’s sole responsibility is to Protect the Rights of the Citizens of the United States (‘functioning as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution’), thats it.
‘To interpret the constitution’ is the social contract the ‘people’ drafted to institute ‘legal fairness’ with the notion that the people within this society should have certain ‘inalienable rights’; the purpose of the Supreme Court is to protect these rights, PERIOD.
When the last protection the people have against the tyranny of the State and corporations, sides with those who would subvert our rights in favor of monied interest or acts with a political agenda, we have a problem.
This is the power (and fundamental flaw) of capitalism tightening its grip around the neck of the citizenry. As with most decisions that come out of Washington these days, this is tremendously short sighted; corporations always seeking higher profits at all cost are essentially undermining their own food source; continuing to siphon more wealth and influence from the citizens is unsustainable, eventually the well runs dry and what are you left with?
I have always had some measure of faith in the Supreme Court, certainly more than the other branches of our partisan government. Free from the constant cycle of money and election, these ‘intellectuals’ are supposedly free to vote their conscience and be the arbiters of the Founding Fathers ideas of a great republic. Although appointed and voted on by these same prejudicial ‘leaders’, I always felt that loyalty to sober consideration, logic and the law would rule their sensibilities; it is at times like these that my faith wavers.
The reason for the lifetime appointment, as I mentioned above, is that it is supposed to be an antidote from the power of a polarized, political nation. The idea that the justices should be released from all the campaign peril inherent in the process; to be beholden to the law alone, and no man/woman or organization -save his/her own conscience- in interpreting the Law. This should be, and hopefully is, the expectation of every American; and yet more and more it seems, these Justices vote according to the whim of congressional and presidential partisan leadership of the moment.
From the dismantling of campaign finance reform, to this latest ruling further weakening workers rights and frankly, free speech, these actions further illuminate the growing apathy in goverment to the plight of many Americans.
Corporations have recently begun adding arbitration provisions into their contracts with workers, often as an ‘or else’, with your getting the job largely hinging on agreeing to limit your right to sue or fight for fair treatment as a group of employees in an effort to mitigate the overwhelming cost of pursuing such a lawsuit, which is, in and of itself, unconstitutional; as a citizen can not give away a right that is “inalienable” such as signing away your right to due process and equal treatment.
The Supreme Court is supposed to protect these rights, not give them away to the highest bidder.
