I am sure that nobody thinks that the Justices of the Supreme Court are in any way corruptible. It seems to me, though, that the results of their recent work are such that they may just as well have sold out to the corporate world and profited from it as handsomely as they can.

The verdict just handed down by the Supreme Court in McCornish v. Bennett appears to tell us that free speech is only free if it can be purchased in unlimited quantity. This judgment has declared unconstitutional the state of Arizona's desire to ensure that nobody buys an election by having public funds move towards matching private spending when candidates who choose not to take public funding spend significantly more than the privately-funded candidates. According to the OpenSecrets blog:

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, stating the law limited free speech of outside groups and candidates who accepted private funding, because it matched that funding with government money. 

That assertion, an essentially correct summary of a lengthy judgment, in effect says that the states are powerless to fight against corporate corruption of politics. Justice Kagan is rational and even spirited in her dissenting view, but in my opinion this 5-4 vote sets a hitherto-unseen low in the constitutional ethics of the Supreme Court. This is the most insane judgment imaginable in a world where we have just had ample evidence, from both a global financial collapse and a record oil spill, that corporations are not out to help the people whose lives they profit by.

Following, as this does, hard on the recent judgment in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission that unlimited corporate campaign contributions are "free speech," this heralds an new era in American history where corporations can pretty much buy whatever system of government they want without even having to apologize for it. Let nobody who has observed the naked greed of the Wall Street Contemptibles over the last three years be under any illusions that moderation will be the order of the day. Many of the rich would happily have a poor person starve if it meant an extra dollar in the bank (and most would prefer not to think about such unpleasant topics). Regulation will go to hell (because it's expensive, and corporations have to pay taxes to fund it) and enforcement funding will be squeezed so that companies can freely flout even those laws remaining on the books (as they do in the mining industry) without fear of reprisal.

Until breaches of ethics once more become an acceptable reason for dismissal and career decline there is no hope for the average voter, since there is nothing left to vote for that cannot be corrupted by corporations at the drop of a check book. Welcome to America: caveat emptor, and if you can't buy anything you have no voice.