Schrödinger’s Cash (The Supreme Court Has Created a Secret Parallel Universe)

As stated in a previous Schrödinger’s Court post, we cannot really know what is happening inside the Supreme Court, because their deliberations are (mostly) private.  From the way the “box” has been shaking and rattling of late, we know something is going on inside. It seems to be at worst (in the words of Miracle Max) “mostly dead”, and perhaps at best somewhat alive. Time will tell.

Having said that, Mr. Blunt and Cranky has noticed that there is a new box in town, created by this Court: let us call it “Schrödinger’s Cash”. Like the Court, we cannot see what goes on inside the box, but can see what happens outside of it as result of what is happening inside (yes, he knows that the physics analogy is breaking down here). The Court did not say that it was building a secretive new world of quasi-legalized Congressional and Presidential bribery, and indeed may not have intended to do so, judging on its writings. But that is what has been created by their Citizens United ruling.

In a virtual box made out of loopholes, hundreds of millions of dollars flow in and out; from and to hidden people in hidden places, beholden to hidden organizations with hidden agendas.  A few people are trying to open this box, and so far getting nowhere. Because, really,  the questions of what the box is, how big it is, where it is, how much is in it, and what is happening  in there are as opaque to us as are the most quantum of mechanics.

Secrets beget secrets: that is not a new observation, of course. And now we see the get of a secretive Court, and the part of the resulting spawn that hasn’t slithered its way inside the box is observably vile and corrupt. Leaving us to wonder, just how much more revolting is the part that is hidden? Pretty darned, one would expect.

This writer would like to end the Schrödinger-esque experiment by opening the box. He figures that would kill off whatever slimy critter lives therein.  After which he’d borrow a VW Quantum from a mechanic, and crankily run the box over, smashing it to bits so that it could never again be closed.

Mr. B & C

Schrödinger’s Court

In college, Mr. Blunt and Cranky studied many wondrous topics suitable for inspiring beer-fueled bull sessions. Among them was the thought experiment known as Schrödinger’s Cat: oversimplified, it postulates that if a cat is in a box and cannot be seen therein, it may be alive or dead (or both). The only way to find out for sure is to open the box. While the box is closed, one may project whatever one likes on its surface, and no one can prove the projector to be wrong.

To an allegory addict like this writer, the most obvious parallel is the judicial branch of the United States Government: is it every bit as partisan as the other two branches, or is it still at least somewhat fair and impartial? Put another way, are the courts dead or alive? Alive, if they function impartially, dead if they have strayed from the vision laid out in the Constitution.

There are those who say that the box has been long since opened and the modern court already found to be dead: they point to Bush vs. Gore and Citizens United as “proof” that the court majority is a load of right-wing Repub ideologues, set on the destruction on everything post-1852. There also those  (some on the left, some on the right) who argue that no box opening has occurred,  and we cannot know for sure; but man, they do not like what is likely inside.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky thinks the lid is still down on the box. He further thinks that when it is opened (AKA when the Obamacare decision is announced), we will find the “cats” of Schrödinger’s Court  either on life support, or turned to Zombies – Schrödinger’s idea that one can be both alive and dead sounds rather like today’s zombie chic.

Zombies make for entertaining graphic novels, but they would not make good jurists. Here’s hoping the courts are merely comatose, rather than undead.

And here’s regretting that we have been reduced to hoping for something so pathetic as a barely-alive judiciary.

Mr. B & C