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 nother
thing that would be bad about being a liberal is that you'd have
to read the gaseous opinions of Justice David Hackett Souter. Even
when Souter writes majority opinions — you know, the "law of
the land" — I race through them at lightning speed. I've found
that if you zero in on a couple of topic sentences near the beginning
you can usually get the gist of it. (This week's holding: Congress
shall make laws abridging the freedom of speech.)
By contrast, the dissenting opinions there from a Souter opinion
I read lovingly, reverently, and in the case of Scalia, repeatedly.
Every member of the Federalist Society is with me here.
I used to think every lawyer was with me: Who would read Souter's
pompous, impenetrable ramblings? And why? It takes him 20 pages
to make a point Scalia can knock down in a single dependent clause.
(There are web pages devoted to Scalia dissents.)
In a riveting development — it only seems like this column
is going no place; I'm breaking real news here — I happened
to notice that liberals do just the opposite. A New York Times
article on the Supreme Court's recent campaign-finance decision
quoted more lines from Souter's opinion than I got from actually
reading it. (Well, "reading" it.) But intriguingly, the article
summarized the dissent using only a few sentences from the opening
paragraphs.
So in addition to not having to line-dry clothes like Barbra Streisand,
conservatives don't have to read Souter opinions.
In Souter's "Congress shall make lots of laws" opinion, the court
essentially held that a political party's campaign expenditures
are legally indistinguishable from large checks cut by individuals.
The Republican party could be trying to buy influence with Republican
candidates! As Justice Souter explained (near the beginning): The
law provides "a functional, not formal, definition of contribution
..." blah, blah, blah — you get the idea.
Consequently, the court upheld limits on money spent by political
parties to elect a particular candidate — if they talk to the
candidate first. If the party hated a candidate's guts and refused
to speak to him or his campaign, it could spend unlimited amounts
of money promoting his candidacy. (This may provide some insight
into why Rep. Chris Shays loves the campaign-finance laws.)
Justice Clarence Thomas argued in his dissent that it was absurd
to treat political parties like individual contributors because:
That's what parties do — get candidates elected. A "party's
success or failure depends in large part on whether its candidates
get elected. Because of this unity of interest, it is natural for
a party and its candidate to work together and consult with one
another during the course of the election."
Another excellent Souter sentence (it was in the Times) was
this: "Spending for political ends and contributing to political
candidates both fall within the First Amendment's protection of
speech and political association." Apparently the only catch is
that "protection" means "total fascistic control."
Total fascistic control of political speech is important because
political speech is like dishonestly shouting "fire" in a crowded
theater. Liberals think all speech is like shouting "fire" in a
crowded theater. They will tell us on a case-by-case basis what
speech is not like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Screw
magazine and Nazis marching in Skokie, Ill., for example. That is
not like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. (And would it really
be so bad to shout "fire" in a crowded theater? Seriously. Couldn't
you just look around and see there isn't a fire?)
Thus--according to the New York Times — Souter raised
the horrifying prospect of parties being able to spend lots of money
electing candidates: "If a candidate could arrange for a party committee
to foot his bills…the number of donors necessary to raise $1
million could be reduced from 500…to 46." (You're welcome for
the ellipses.)
That is the evil campaign-finance laws seek to prevent. Instead
of whoring for money from tens of thousands of people, politicians
could be bought by a select few. In fact, as has been conclusively
proved by economist John Lott, politicians may be stupid, but they're
not bought. Money follows votes; it does not buy votes.
But suppose you haven't read Lott's devastating study, and you haven't
read the Constitution, and you don't think a market in politicians
would be GREAT. It would be easier for a politician to vote his
conscience if he needed only a few rich backers. If they got uppity,
he could trade them for 46 new guys.
The way the system works now, politicians are forced into constant
fundraising from thousands of nickel-and-dime contributors. Politics
becomes homogenized, gerrymandering essential, and smarmy glad-handing
a crucial political attribute. Even under liberals' own preposterous
and counterfactual assumptions, someone is already falsely shouting
fire in a crowded theater. Not many people have noticed, though,
because it's Souter.
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