Subscribe
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Maurice T. Cunningham on Sandy Hook Was Good for Business
- Anthony DeGregorio on Sandy Hook Was Good for Business
- Maurice T. Cunningham on Sandy Hook Was Good for Business
- Philip F. Filosa on Sandy Hook Was Good for Business
- Nancy Frank on Ed and Cooter: Just a couple of “Good Ole Boys.”
Archives
Categories
Blogroll
- Beacon Hill Institute
- Commonwealth Magazine
- Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
- Ideas Matter!
- Larry Becker's 270 Electoral Votes Blog
- Mass Benchmarks
- Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center
- Massachusetts Taxpayers Association
- MassInc
- New England Economic Partnership
- New England Journal of Political Science
- Pioneer Institute
- Pollways
- The Invisible Primary
- The Martin Institute
- The Math of Politics
- The Mischiefs of Faction
- The Monkey Cage
- WickedLocal.com/Politics
Meta
Tag Archives: Dred Scott
I (heart) Pandering and Gridlock
Since Ed Markey’s comments on Dred Scott and Citizens United some including the Boston Globe’s Farah Stockman have said bad analogy, but Citizen’s United is a grave threat to democracy and should be repealed. So before I get to my admiration for pandering and gridlock let’s start today with a quiz:
Q: Has Citizens United tilted Washington toward the rich?
Dred Scott and the Three-Fifths Clause Today
“They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics which no one thought of disputing or supposed to be open to dispute, and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 407 (1856).
So as bad as the Citizens United decision is, no, it doesn’t approach Dred Scott. But we’re having a problem with this.
Who’s Gaffe is it? Markey’s or the Media’s?
Was Ed Markey’s comparison of the Dred Scott decision to the Citizens United decision a “gaffe?” Are we in for another US Senate election where the press, pundits, and political wise men desperately try to convince us that “little things mean a lot?”