In a just society, truth has nothing to fear, but falsehoods are punished. In an unjust society, the reverse it true.
The Supreme Court of the United States is hearing a challenge to California disclosure laws for big donors to non-profits. The case is a transparent attack on similar disclosure laws governing political contributions.
Let’s dispense with false equivalence: This is nothing like protecting thousands of small donors to the NAACP in 1950s Alabama — modest folks who skipped meals so they could scrape together what little money they had to support each other in the fight against brutal oppression by violent white supremacists. Disclosure was deadly. The violence was perpetrated or sanctioned by officers of the state.
By contrast, when a single mega-donor has enough discretionary wealth to dump many multiples of the median annual income of a family of four into an issue, that person is one of the oppressors, not the oppressed.
Dark money is the fast-lane to corruption. It is the principle vehicle for money-laundering, tax-evasion, fraud, coercion, intimidation, bribery.
Societies ruled by corruption do not prosper.