In all the focus, thought and obsession with Roberts and Mier, we may have missed an important point. That is, although there may be some wiggle room, some vague chance that these appointees are going to continue the razor thin support for some degree of protection of our civil liberties, there is exactly no chance that either of them is going to do anything to reign in the power of gigantic multinational corporations over individuals’ lives.
Both Roberts and Mier are unequivocally, completely, avowed corporatists. By this I mean that they strongly believe (and not just in a legal sense) that corporations are people too. And that as “people,” corporations have certain rights and deserve certain protections from government encroachment and regulations. Laws that protect our water and our air, laws that protect worker safety and minimum wage, laws that make it harder to make defective, poisonous, or harmful products and put them on the market, all these are at serious serious risk under the Roberts-Mier regime.
Ah, you hasten to point out, that battle was lost long ago, in 1886 in the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad which created the legal fiction that corporations are “persons” deserving of protection from the constitution. Moreover, you add, O’Connor and Rehnquist were already avowed corporatists themselves, so what changes?
First I ask, have we reached the point in our history where we have given up on moving forward and all we can think about is not losing ground?
Secondly, what’s palpable here is I think is the degree to which Roberts seems likely to make it part of his judicial philosophy to turn back the clock on these issues, and the degree to which Mier has devoted her whole life to supporting George Bush and his corporate cronies like Halliburton.
All I am saying is let’s not let our civil liberties, as precious as they are, be used as a slight of hand to distract us while our collective pocket is thoroughly picked.
I agree completely. In all the media hype surrounding the nominations very little attention is paid to the current (and assuredly future) court’s stance on the commerce clause. It seems all too clear that the Rehnquists court’s nakedly “activist” assault on 60 years of progressive legislation through a narrowed definition of the commerce clause will be continue with the Roberts court. Though not as easy to characterize in a 15 second sound bite as abortion or gay marriage, this continuing back door attack on the social contract directly effects every working person’s daily life and livelihood. Perhaps we need to broaden the definition of civil rights to include the right to a living wage, the right to affordable medical care, the right to consistent and adequate funding for education etc. While the country rages over the ideological divide always brought into relief by the nomination process the larger and more pracitcal effects the court has over all of our lives fade into the background – to our peril.
nice, comfy place you got here :)..