When one person's ability to make himself heard is may times superior to that of his neighbor, that first person can overpower the voice of the second and drown it out. When this is done, the second person's right to free expression has been denied because such drowned-out speech does not exist in any practical sense if nobody hears it.

The Supreme Court, in ruling that there shall be no limits on corporate donations to political candidates, empowered our largest companies to effectively drown out the voices of the people ("And now, the deluge," Jan. 25). It seems clear to me that this court has abandoned an overarching principle of justice: that one individual's rights end where another's begin. If the Supreme Court of the United States opts to empower one individual, by apparent virtue of his size and wealth, to encroach on another's basic rights, as I and our president believe has happened, then a fundamental element of justice has been removed from the guiding principles of our Country.

What protection do we have against a Supreme Court that has announced its antipathy to the citizens it is sworn to protect, and its indifference to the very Constitution that we pay its justices to enforce?

Thad Paulhamus, Baltimore