"The Koch brothers, the Supreme Court, and a new kind of liberty"

[applegrove]

The Koch brothers, the Supreme Court, and a new kind of liberty

By Paul Waldman at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/04/03/the-koch-brothers-the-supreme-court-and-a-new-kind-of-liberty/

"SNIP....................


The system of “free and open debate” Koch envisions is one in which the volume of your voice is determined by the amount of money you have, but no matter how loud that voice, you are exempted from any direct criticism. That would be a privilege only the wealthy would want or need.

Think about it this way. Nobody is going to run an ad saying, “Barack Obama got a ten dollar contribution from Betty Lundegard of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Just how much do we know about Betty Lundegard? What’s her agenda?” The reason is that it couldn’t possibly matter, so no one cares. But if you pour $400 million into a campaign, then it does matter, and people will care. Betty Lundegard isn’t affecting very many people’s votes, elected officials won’t jump to take Betty’s calls. Furthermore, Betty won’t have the luxury of publishing op eds in the Wall Street Journal defending herself.

So freedom from criticism over your political spending is a freedom only the wealthy would need. Yes, there have been issues in the past about the privacy of non-profit groups’ donors. In one key case from the civil rights era, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Alabama’s effort to get access to the NAACP’s donor list was invalid, because the donors would likely be subject to intimidation and even violence. But Charles Koch isn’t worried for his personal safety. He wants to wield maximal influence with minimal criticism.

......

In a strict sense, Charles Koch and I both have the “freedom” to donate a few million dollars directly to candidates. But in the actual world, only one of us has that freedom. Both John Roberts and the Kochs are doing everything they can to create a zone of freedom that keeps growing upward, with new kinds of liberty that only the wealthiest Americans can access.


...................SNIP"

[warrant46]

1. The Koch Brothers Corporate Shills Extraordinaire

2 evil Acolytes of the Devil

Leaders of the new amerikan ruling class

[salin]

2. "free" speech = money.

Power of that "Free Speech" = how much money beyond what you need to live, you have to spend.

I believe that the Supreme Court has indicated that only the extremely wealthy have "free speech" and the rest of us - have no voice in comparison.

I think the correct political science classification of this political form is "oligarchy", not democracy (or representative republic- the GOP favored term since the election of GwBush.)

Horrified. Noblese Oblige in the US was proved wrong in the two economic crashes of 2002 and 2008 - and the subsequent "recovery".

[applegrove]

3. That wasn't noblesse oblige. The 1% renegged responsibility for anyone other than themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige: ""Noblesse oblige" is generally used to imply that with wealth, power, and prestige come responsibilities. In American English especially, the term is sometimes applied more broadly to suggest a general obligation for the more fortunate to help the less fortunate".

The right led by the likes of Paul Ryan and as demonstrated by his budget and in general by the attacks on health care do not feel any connection to the rest of the country. That is obvious.