So the Supreme Court decision on Union "fees"

I'm actually not going to address the actual decision; many others, to be honest much more eloquent than I, will be doing that for the next year and a half or so.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the now-repeated idea than somehow money equals speech.

That was a justification for the Citizens United decision (allowing certain groups to donate limitless money to a particular candidate is their speech supporting them).

And now it's justification for gutting the funds that unions use to defend the salaries and protections of all employees, not just the union members. Quite simply, the plaintiffs claim they don't agree with what the union says, and by paying a fee for services rendered (the aforementioned protections and salary defense), they are somehow responsible for everything the union does and says.

When and how did money become speech? And how long will it take until only the rich, with lots of money, get to have the free speech?

Back to the basis for Citizens United:

“A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.  This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money. The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the event. The electorate’s increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech.”

-- from Buckley v. Baleo, 1976

 I'll restate: "virtually every means of communicating ideas [...] requires the expenditure of money."

So, removing limits on how much one group can spend will effectively allow that group to drown out any and all other competing speech. For that matter, denying a groups a source of funds to spend, will render that group effectively mute. To my mind, that isn't just unfair, it's un-American. One man with deep pockets can drown out a multitude who have no money. That's not democracy, not by any means.

And, anyway, the fees the unions require aren't speech in even that way. (Okay, I am going to address this Supreme Court decision.) It's a payment for services rendered. The union will defend and protect even non-members, just as it protects its members.

To do that, it needs money, to hire lawyers, to perform research on whatever topic is under contention, and to simply exist to defend. It seems to a casual observer, from several states away, that the plaintiffs seem to want the effort on their behalf without paying for it. Where are the rich big-wigs protesting "takers" wanting something for nothing now? Paying for veterans' health care, needed because they were wounded when the government sent them to fight, makes them "moochers" but non-union workers are perfectly right to want protections without paying a fee for services is fine?

Without members' dues, or without service fees from non-members who unions still serve and protect and support, unions will have no resources to defend anybody from anything.

Which, honestly, is likely what the so-called Center for Individual Rights, a conservative public law firm that also been involved in some major challenges to affirmative action policies and to the Voting Rights Act (whose donors rolls have been connected to the web of dark money associated with the Koch Brothers), that sponsored and arranged the suit wants.