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ORIGINAL: Raddocmed
For those of you like myself scream about special interests on both sides, you have to feel worse. You can wrap this in the 1st all you want, but this was apolitical decision. If not then why had two courts already ruled on the opposite. That includes a less than liberal court in 2003. This is conservative judicial activism plain and simple. I also doubt seriously that our founding fathers had in mind that every corporation, union, group, etc was an individual with individual rights. The Bill of Rights was aimed at protecting individuals not companies, unions, etc.
If you are opposed to abortion then you would have to have a rather perverse sense of logic to rule companies have rights under the constitution but women don’t.
Of course its “conservative judicial activism, plain and simple”, Raddocmed, because you say it is. I’m sure any SCOTUS decision that went against your omniscient understanding would be. Funny you mention abortion and the rights of women, a favorite stalking horse of the left. I’m inclined to agree with this direct comparison of Roe and Citizens United…
“So, can one endorse Citizens United (as I do) while criticizing (as I do) Roe v. Wade? Sure. (“Do you believe in infant baptism?” “Of course, I’ve seen it done.”) What’s wrong with Roe besides the fact that it constitutionalized an ersatz right to cause the death of another, vulnerable human being is that it (for the most part) removed by judicial decision from the arena of political debate a crucial and controverted moral question. Roe distorted, and short-circuited political dialogue, discussion, and even compromise.
Now, seen from the critics’ perspective, Citizens United probably does the same thing, in that it tells those who (mistakenly) think that discomfort with the tone of election-related speech provides a justification for regulating or silencing that speech that the First Amendment does not permit them to write their squeamishness into law. The case is better understood, though, as a vindication of political freedom: In a free society, politics is messy. Roe was an attempt, but a dramatic failure, to tidy up politics by telling the pro-life side, in the name of the Constitution, to be quiet and go home. Citizens United, by contrast, tells those whose lives are made easier by laws that censor their critics, “listen!”, and tells the rest of us, “speak up!””
Richard Garnett, NRO, Bench Memos Blog, 21 january, 2010