Free Speech and Free-er Speech

I’ve written in the past that a lot of righties seem to think the freedom of speech clause in the First Amendment includes a right to not be disagreed with. Josh Marshall about America’s whiny, paranoid mega-wealthy and notes that seems to be what they want, too.

Extremely wealthy people – enabled by a series of key Supreme Court decisions as recently as yesterday – want to be able to spend gargantuan amounts of money in the political process and remain essentially private persons who don’t get knocked around or criticized like everyone else in the political arena.

See also “If you criticize wealthy donors, you’re basically Hitler.”

Chris Hayes’s book Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy” makes the point that our institutions both public and private are being run by a class of people who got what they’ve got by circumstances largely not of their making; are sheltered from the realities most of us deal with; and who ultimately don’t know what they’re doing, but are so sheltered from the consequences of their own actions they don’t realize they don’t know what they’re doing. Donald Rumsfeld is a classic example. One suspects most of our captains of industry aren’t much sharper. But, y’know, they have lots of money, so we’re supposed to respect them.