I don't know the answer to your question, and it's not a particularly useful exercise to make a blanket judgement on whether judicial activism is undesirable in every case.<p>What I wanted to refute was your initial statement that a majority of Supreme Court justice leads to a clear interpretation of the law.  What I meant by bringing up judicial activism is to say that one's opinion on judicial activism can influence how one views Supreme Court decisions.  Dred Scott v. Sanford is an example of a majority Supreme Court decision, that in my opinion, was undesirable, despite its "fair" albeit narrow reading of the law.<p>I can't help add, and this will be the last rebuttal I make since we're not going to sway each other's opinion, and I do feel like I messed up by adding something political to HN:<p>As for foreign corporations, again, I want to emphasize, as I did previously, that free speech is not black/white of merely include them carte blanche or else our rights will be infringed upon.  Free speech is not that simplistic although it is sacrosanct.<p>Why not overturn Morse v. Frederick then, which I believe had such free-speech loving justices as Alito and Scalia from the Citizens United ruling also in the majority of that case.  In Morse v. Frederick, free speech could be limited by "important—indeed, perhaps compelling interests" (taken from Justice Roberts writing the decision for the majority). Granted, it limits only illegal drug-promoting student speech, but it is again another example where the justices limited free speech and justified it on grounds of public interest that did not include immediate violence.  The kid could still hang his "bong hits 4 Jesus" sign on his private residence or yell it on the streets.  Corporations before Citizens United could still runs ads, as could PACs and the corporate executives _individually_ donating them. They just couldn't use corporate treasury funds nor could they run the ads a certain number of days before the date of the election.<p>Therein, lies the question of what one considers best for public interest.  Blue-collar wages of workers have remained stagnant over the last 30 years while white-collar and executive salaries have seen a nice rate of growth.  The Chicago School of Economics elegant theories towards markets have not been substantiated by the uglier, noisier empirical evidence.  Having studied psychological/behavioral economics and interned for a government official as well as interned with a non-profit lobbying group, I have a more skeptical view of the "well-informed" voter and the "public" servant.  So this largely explains why I think differently than you do.