Can the Roberts' Court Have it Both Ways?

John Roberts, Jr.
Chief Justice of Supreme Court

Today (2/28/2012) the United States Supreme Court heard testimony in the Koibel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum case. And, as expected, the conservative majority of Justice Roberts appeared to favor the argument that corporations do not have the same responsibility and culpability as individual persons. Please recall that these same five conservative judges ruled in Citizens United that "corporations are persons," as Mitt Romney contends, and as such are able to donate as much undisclosed money to political campaigns as they choose.

Big business and huge corporations have won the day. All their efforts to get these five conservative Republican judges seated have paid off. What a deal. They rule that corporations are persons so that they can pump millions and billions of dollars into the electoral process to influence elections, but on the other hand, corporations do not have the same responsibilities as persons in terms of human rights abuse.

And, then we are surprised that some people around the world question our concept of democracy.

Please be advised that I am presuming in this case, as in the past,  that, based on the comments of  the justices, the five conservative justices will side with the corporations. I can only hope that my presumption will be proven incorrect.