This is a great article from Dahlia Lithwick on how Stephen Colbert has masterfully, through satire, rendered the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision allowing unlimited campaign spending utterly ridiculous.  I thought this was an especially insightful point from the article articulated by Colbert's "personal lawyer" Trevor Potter.

Potter says Kennedy’s majority opinion is not so much disconnected from reality but, rather, “assumed that the world would work in the way he thought it would.” (In Kennedy’s fantasy, there would be no chance of corruption, no coordination between PACs and candidates, and full disclosure of corporate contributions.) And had the FEC done its job, had Congress passed better disclosure rules, had shareholders been better able to control corporate activity, the Kennedy decision would have been less monumental. (Potter is quick to point out that the court needn’t reverse itself completely for the country to fix the worst problems in the post-CU system.) Still he adds that Citizens United “epitomizes the problem of having a court where no justice has ever run for any office, including dogcatcher.”

I think this is an oft overlooked point.  The members of the supreme court do not have a lot of experience being answerable to the public whose lives are affected by their decisions.  Often coming directly from the federal bench, they have spent large portions of their careers completely insulated from any meaningful consequences arising from their decisions.  Also, they don't have a lot of experience actually making laws. Developing case law and what the Supreme Court does are not the same thing. The Supreme Court actually makes laws (or unmakes them), it doesn't just develop a body of interpretation around them. And of course the supreme court makes laws in perhaps the worst way possible, it makes them in the form of individual cases, it transforms seemingly limited disputes into massively influential precedent. It does so without much debate, maybe an hour or two and a nice 30 to 50 page brief from each side, and then a neat little conference, where they decide the cases in complete secrecy (take that openness and accountability!).  Say what you will about Congress, but the legislating that it does allows far more outside input and involvement, which helps to add a lot more reality to the deliberative process, and is actually openly visible to the public (except with regards to certain national security issues and the usual influence peddling).  People who are going to be impacted by the new laws Congress makes actually get to weigh in. The Supreme Court accepts briefs from outside groups, but it knows that no matter what, whichever way they vote, they'll have a job.  Members of Congress usually have a healthy dose of fear of the public (however, that often includes lobbyists).

Congress is imperfect, but at least it allows in information capable of disabusing it of any absurd notions it has about the way they world works. It still makes rotten decisions, but its at least usually been forced to reckon with those who know they're rotten. The Supreme Court doesn't have to reckon with anyone, except maybe being chastised by the President or Stephen Colbert on national TV.  This allows it I think to continue to hold onto many absurd theoretical precepts that just don't work in the real world no matter how much their legal philosophy says they should.  The public doesn't honestly care whether freedom of speech means that cop orate speech should be protected.  Most people have enough common sense to realize that the consequences of the Citizens United decision tilt the playing field massively in the favor of the few over the many.  That the Court was unable or unwilling to see this, or that they frankly didn't care is just one in a  long line of reasons I think the Court should be reformed and greatly reduced in power.  You can't hand 9 unelected people a job with unbelievable power and influence for life and not expect them to become corrupted and more disconnected from the rest of society.