Drunk Drivers Rejoice - SCOTUS (and Republicans) Have your back

 Oh happy day - have another drink.  Hey - it may be early but what the hell - time to celebrate.  Our most wise, most divinely inspired Comrades of the Court have decided that their special wisdom, their direct conduit to a higher power is far greater than any jury that may have heard facts, may have seen witnesses may have received evidence and testimony.  Yes - for the betterment of the collective - the SCOTUS has ruled that the most famous drunk driver of them all - the Captain of the Exxon Valdez - shall not make his corporation responsible for the amount of punitive damages imposed by a jury:

  http://www.breitbart.com/...

  Another brick in the wall of building an economic system dedicated to insuring incompetence is mortared in - and the price will be paid by us all.

  The year was 1776 - a small collection of colonies was struggling to find its footing in a New World.  The people had a growing sense that all of us have an equal right to shape our destiny and determine the nature of our rules of governance.  Chief among these was the precious right - precious given its long and celebrated history - to a jury trial.  So, in July of that year a man sat down and wrote a list of grievances - detailing those most important to a free people that had been denied them.  So great was this  "long chain of abuses,"   so profound the "usurpations" that 55 gathered to Declare Indpendence.  With some great solemnity that observed that the King had

 "Deprive[d] us, in many cases of the benefit of Trial by Jury.

 
 A decade later a great debate raged among the the now Independent.  Should we ratify this strange document, "we, the people"?  No, cried many - it vests in the hands of the federal government too much power, it would interfere too greatly in everything and how would we protect ourselves.  So, the tireless Madison went back to work and another compromise reached - they would set forth a recitation of ideas so fundamental - so basic - so critical - it would be, well a Bill of Rights.  So even before it got started Thge Constitution was "amended."  Right in there - right in print - still there if you go check - though it feels as if the Memory Hole is creeping ever closer is the Seventh Amendment;

   In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

 So there it is - a deep and powerful deference to juries enshrined in our Constitution.  Today, the SCOTUS substitutes its will for that of a jury.  It does so - despite this clear language,  (using the tired doublespeak of this not being an exclusive province of the jury, etc. ) because the one sentiment that comes through is that these apologists for the wanton, these advocates for the negligent, these mountpieces for malefactors think that it is "good for business"  to make sure that wrongdoing not be punished.

 So drink up - today we have a new rule - destroy the planet - what the heck it is just not that big a deal.