Apparently one of
the driving problems in the Rand Paul nomination is that he is a libertarian. This means that he doesn't think that government should have the overwhelming regulatory powers that it says it does.
On the stump, Paul often cites a case called Wickard vs. Filburn, in which the SCOTUS decided (in 1937, under Roosevelt's administration, although the case didn't reach SCOTUS until years later) that Filburn, a farmer in Ohio, couldn't grow wheat on his own farm unless he did so according to the specifications of the government. Filburn was told he could only grow 20 acres of wheat. He grew 23 acres, which meant that the amount of wheat on the market was too high, which would drive down prices. Filburn was going to use the wheat to feed his own livestock, and wouldn't put it on the market, but SCOTUS decided that this would itself drive down the price of wheat if too many people were doing the same thing.
Here's the opening paragraph at Wikipedia:
"Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed his chickens. The U.S. government had imposed limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it."
Does government have the power to regulate wheat? Yes. Should it also regulate the number of books coming out, or would the market itself take care of that? So far as I know, the government has never regulated the number of books.
Should it regulate what can and cannot be said in a college?
Should it regulate poetry contests that use federal money and yet openly discriminate against white males?
Should it regulate college admissions that openly discriminate against white males?
Should it regulate restaurants that are open sewers?
Should it regulate who can call themselves an opthalmologist?
Should it regulate whether or not a woman can wear a burqua?
Should it regulate pesticide use in crop growth?
Should it regulate obscenity in books?
Should it regulate who can say what in the television news?
Should it regulate who can grow marijuana in California? (Can it be grown for home use?)
Should it regulate what can be called cheese, and what has to be called a cheese food?
Should it regulate who can live in America and call themselves an American?
58 comments:
"Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed his chickens. The U.S. government had imposed limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it."
Everyone who approved or made this decision in 1942 should have their bodies exhumed and hung.
Everyone who agrees with this decision should be banned from government service of any sort for life.
The more scotus decisions I read the more I want to take the building apart brick by brick.
Maybe this is destined to become the SCOTUS thread. If so, I'd like to discuss a little project.
The SCOTUS web site lists decisions that the court has made this term, c.f.,
2009 Term Opinions of the Court,
and it seemed to me that this is exactly the data necessary to test Kirby's hypothesis of a few months ago that Sotomayor would be some sort of outlier.
If we look at a decision of the court, there are four options for a justice. (1) They can join in the "opinion of the court," (2) they can dissent, (3) they can affirm in part, and dissent in part, or (4) they can recuse themselves altogether.
My idea then was to credit judges for when they join in the opinion, and penalize them for when they dissent. It also seems to me that it is reasonable to penalize justices more when they're on the short end of unbalanced decision, i.e,, a judge who is the lone dissenter in an 8-1 decision is somehow more of an outlier than judges who dissent in a 5-4 decision. One way this might be done would be to assign one point positive point to the affirmers, which then gets divided up among those who support the decision, and one negative point for the dissenters, etc.. So, in an 8-1 decision, the dissenter would get -1, and the eight in the majority would get +1/8 each, whereas, in the 5-4 decision, the 4 dissenters would get -1/4 each, and the five affirmers would get +1/5 each.
The real-world problem is what do to with the splits. For example, consider a hypothetical decision that went 5-3-1, i.e., 5 in the majority, 3 in the minority, and 1 split. I could treat the split as a half majority, half minority, so the scoring would be +2/11ths for each of the five majority votes, -2/7ths for each of the 3 dissenters, and -4/77ths for the split (trust me on this...).
But then, does this make sense in light of a decision like Citizen's United, which Kirby was crowing about a while ago (this is the decision that overturned 50 years of settled law to permit unrestricted corporate donations to political campaigns)? Since I'm willing to bet that none of you have actually looked at the ruling, here is the paragraph relevant w.r.t. scoring:
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA and ALITO, JJ., joined, in which THOMAS, J., joined as to all but Part IV, and in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined as to Part IV. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a concurring opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined, and in which THOMAS, J., joined in part. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
So how to score this? The "opinion of the court" was supported in whole by only four judges (Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Alito). There were two groups of justices who joined in part, and dissented in part, but in distinct groups (Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor vs. Thomas). So the opinion in total did not enjoy majority support, but all four parts of it individually did, albeit with different coalitions. I could take this as 4-0-5, and score it as 2/13ths for each of the four in the "majority" block, and as -8/65ths for each of the "mixed" group. But this feels odd, since Thomas looks to me to be more of an outlier in this decision than the Stevens, Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor group, but the scoring doesn't reflect this. And indeed, it also seems odd give to the minority of justices who supported the opinion of the court the scoring benefit for "being in the majority."
As I said, hmm....
My vocabulary does not seem to recall my either calling Sotomayor an outlier (I probably just called her fat and clumsy but now there's two of them, as the new one is similar in that way), so they can get together and bake up hash brownies and dream of the 60s together.
I'm not sure I "crowed" with regard to the corporations being able to affect electoral politics, but don't see that as the unmitigated disaster that the left does (the left basically is terrified of business, whereas like Reagan, I am terrified FOR business).
How did the Reagan phrase go:
If it moves, tax it.
If it doesn't move, subsidize.
I think there's a fulcrum phrase that characterizes the lousy business sense of the left, but for me, Business is the business of America still stands.
It's business that holds the country together and is why we beat the commies in the cold war, I assume. We have freedom, and therefore can out-think and outfox the closed societies.
They might sink a few ships a la N. Korea, but they will get theirs soon enough.
I do think that government should regulate basic health risks. Companies that put out violently unhealthy products have to be closed down.
And I think public restaurants have to serve everybody.
I'm not sure about the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld.
Maybe he's so small that he doesn't threaten NYC.
You can always get a can of soup from a bodega, or get Elaine to buy you the soup.
I think there was even a certain wisdom in Filburn.
It's finding a balance between regulating to the point where there is no innovation, and deregulating to the point where it's the wild west, and no sheriff in sight.
I hope this isn't just a SCOTUS thread. I think it should also be about regulating and deregulating.
I pretty much like Sarkozy's law in France. I just hope they don't all come here.
I think you have to keep cockroaches out of the kitchen.
Richard Gere is some kind of Buddhist kook who has this live and let live. But I say make the kitchen clean enough so that no cockroach can sustain itself in your kitchen.
I'm in favor of rules and regulations of all kinds.
I think the government SHOULD watch the cereal.
And I think parents should monitor the portions of their kids.
We need to regulate ourselves, too.
In fact, I need to get to bed if I don't plan to be half-dead in church tomorrow morning.
Thank God for the IRS. Those kindly church ladies and the choir director looking after my addled mother-in-law have been billing her estate for three condo payments a month for the past year. Her liquid assets should have lasted at least three years. Haven't figured out if they're employees or independent contractors yet, but I guarantee they will be getting audited.
三分之一的人生,可以決定另外三分之二的人生！！共勉哦！ ....................................................
I think I'm on the side of governing, and governance, and don't want pure anarchy. Government has to govern, has to control the borders, extract taxes from stated citizens, patrol the streets, watch out for malefactors, distribute educational opportunities and beautiful monuments celebrating our model citizens, making sure the grass is cut and raked, the bakeries are turning out healthful products (good brown bread, and ok, a bit of beer, but not too much alcohol in it, and of course, protect us from the terrorists).
Obama's not doing any of this.
He thinks governing is standing around showboating and making incomprehensible speeches about how he's going to change everything. His job is to keep everything the same, but he doesn't get it.
The one change I'd like is over to solar power so the drilling in the oceans can stop so we can leave the oceans more or less the same as we found them.
In general, I think speech should NOT be regulated any more than it already is, but I do think products should be regulated. This particular law (Filburn) strikes me as too draconian and ridiculous. Farmers ought to be outside of the laws, especially now that the farms are going belly up.
My uncle in Fairbanks, Iowa has several thousand acres of farmland and drives a combine bigger than most houses.
I haven't seen him for forty years.
stu:
Citizens United vs FEC was not about corporate donations to political campaigns, and said nothing about donations. It was about whether a corporation could air advertisements or movies about political candidates near an upcoming election. In particular, Citizens United was a non-profit corporation which had produced a movie critical of Hillary Clinton which they were trying to offer on a pay-per-view basis, as well as having advertisements on broadcast television about the film. There were no donations to any political campaign.
To me it seems that this is pretty precisely under the first amendment's prohibition on restrictions of speech (particularly political speech), and if it really overturns fifty years of settled law, it was the settled law that was wrong, not this decision.
George,
You're right, at least in part, and I was confused. Citizen's United did not overturn limits on corporate donations to a campaign, but rather the ability of corporations and other entities to evade those limits by advertisements "independent" of the campaign they're intended to support.
I appreciate the correction.
That said...
The real legal problem here is with LOUISVILLE, CINCINNATI & CHARLESTON R. CO. V. LETSON, 43 U. S. 497 (1844), the case which essentially granted many of the legal status of a personhood to corporations. If corporations really were people, it would be possible to jail them for crimes, yet obviously that doesn't happen.
And it is the LCCRR v. Letson decision that ultimately gives corporations the right to participate at all in the electoral process, and that decision that raises first amendment issues. After all, if a corporation is not a person (which it manifestly is not), then the right to free speech does not accrue to it under the first amendment. Of course, those rights do accrue to its officers and shareholders as individuals, and that is not at issue.
As for the settled law overturned by Citizen's United, I believe that the practical problem is that it is too easy for a nominally "independent" entity to cooperate with a campaign, and of course by the time the courts have spoken on any particular case, the election is long over. The new status quo is an invitation to criminal coordination.
This is an interesting problem you guys bring up, and I'm going to make it less interesting by moving it out of the realm of law, into the realm of philosophy. A few years ago I read a book by Elizabeth Wolgast (she teaches at a military institute) entitled Ethics of an Artificial Person: Lost Responsibility in Professions and Organizations (Stanford UP 1992).
This book takes on the problems of taking on corporations.
The writer has a background in feminist theory, and writes with some depth about the problems of suing a company for such crimes as putting forth an exploding Pinto, or a Dalcron Shield.
In the hydra-headed monster of the contemporary corporate entity, there is nobody who claims responsibility, finally. A company can knowingly commit murder, and there is no one to be put in prison, or to fry in a chair. A company pays a monetary penalty, for which it can budget.
Wolgast carefully explains that we need a new language to understand corporate responsibility, and in her brief last chapter outlines what she thinks this language should be. In short, we have always used a single-subject model to discuss responsibility. What happens, however, when an army general commands troops over a radio to take a bridge within fifteen minutes, and then signs out, and the general didn't know that there were children playing on the bridge?
Wolgast argues for a return of the role of personal responsibility for everyone -- within corporations, within every institution. If an institution commits a crime, or if one's department within it commits a crime, each member of the unit is equally responsible.
Similarly, she argues that lawyers, and agents, are responsible for any crimes that they commit, or knowingly pass over, even if the result is to free their client. By this standard, Alan Dershowitz, in using his clever abilities to free people who he knows are criminals, is morally culpable.
It's an arresting argument, idealistic and yet powerfully and simply put together.
My only problem was that she didn't take on board many of the new theories of agency, and identity, which have been developed under the name of postmodernism. She resorts to a single subject theory which works, but leaves me wondering what she would do with a schizophrenic, or with the argument that almost everybody is schizophrenic (as Deleuze does). Wolgast claimed to be working out a new language for responsibility, but ultimately she argues for a return to the old model of a single subject left alone with her conscience.
The book raises the big question of responsibility -- to whom, or what, are we responsible? Wolgast claims to the community -- but a community has many constituents -- family, friends, colleagues, rivals, etc. and this is divided by race, gender, class, school ties, etc. Can we simultaneously and always be responsible to all of these?
The argument strains my belief in the philanthropy of humanity. How much good can one do or should one do in a dog eat dog world, if one does not want to be eaten?
If everyone acts as Wolgast suggests, the answer would be plenty.
I think the book does provide language and thinking for Greenpeace activists and others who want to take on corporations, but have a hard time with the hydra-headed structure. This book offers an understanding of corporate responsibility, and allows us to return to a single-subject model of it. Used in courts to argue that each member of a committee, or a department, or an organization, is responsible for the output of any crime by the organization, I think we would see some companies cleaning up their acts very quickly, and a lot less likelihood that young people would be willing to go to work for known corporate offenders.
But now I'm going to devolve into an even more reckless and dissociated turf: that of the criminal organization, or what is called organized crime.
The Bio channel has been doing biographies of criminals, because criminals are inherently uninteresting.
One of the programs was about Pablo Escobar. He virtually ran the drug cartels of Colombia for a long period, and the government couldn't get him because, like Manson, he never did any of the dirty work himself, but had a network of expendable hoods who did the dirty work for him, and the chain of commands was such that it was next to impossible to pin him with the direct orders.
And yet, anyone who went after him found their children kidnapped, or the house blown up.
Finally what happened is that a paramilitary unit formed and went after Escobar's children, and this flushed Escobar out of hiding (he was constantly on the cellphone trying to ascertain if his children were safe) which allowed the paramilitary to track him down. His body had 800 bullet holes in it by the time they were done.
Obviously, this is justice of a South American Variety.
In North America, we have motorcycle gangs, and other criminal organizations that now have tremendous organizational structure such that it is again difficult to ascribe responsibility to those at the apex of the outfit.
Plus, they have lawyers.
One group on Bio was an amazing SW America outfit (operating out of Nevada, I believe, but were trying to muscle into California). They all had beards and sunglasses so that when they started swinging pool sticks and shooting it was impossible for witnesses to tell one from the other. What brought them down was infiltration by federal agents who finally figured out how to tell one from the other.
At any rate, I pulled the conversation away from law toward philosophy of the subject, and then back toward law, stretching the conversation to the point of absurdity, and then creating chaos in the bargain by jumping so far away from what the Supreme Court can do to regulate businesses, and to regulate speech, toward the notion that we might need paramilitaries, such as Greenpeace, in certain instances, to deal with corporate offenders, and even paramilitaries, eventually to deal with drug cartels and human traffickers.
but I did contribute one small effective idea via Wolgast: that the corporation be able to not only speak with one voice (in an ad) but also be liable with one head, if they are caught doing something wrong.
I don't really understand if she thinks that everyone in the Exxon Corporation should sit in jail for the Valdez incident. Should everyone at BP have to do jail time for the Gulf leak? What about people in the chain of command all the way down to gas station owners?
stu,
Is that really what Letson said? My understanding was that it held that, for purposes of suing or being sued, a corporation was said to "reside" in its state of corporation, or where its base of operations is located. It wasn't really about whether a corporation is a "person" or which rights it has, just about where it is.
In particular, one instance in which federal courts are permitted to play a role in suits is when the case is between residents of different states. (The presumption is that, intrastate, the state courts are supposed to deal with the suit.) The Louisville Railroad Co argued that, although they were incorporated and based in South Carolina, they had stockholders in New York, and therefore Letson, a resident of New York, had no standing to sue except in New York state court.
The Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling (Bank of the United States v Deveaux), and said that, for purposes of allowing the federal circuit court to judge this case, Louisville Railroad Co. was in South Carolina, Letson was in New York, and the federal court therefore had jurisdiction.
That is, the corporation lost the argument. This made it easier to sue corporations in federal court.
I don't know how narrowly Letson was decided, but at heart, it wasn't really about whether a corporation is a "person" or not, but rather just about where it can be sued.
I thought too that that was what Letson said. Maybe Stu meant some kind of second-order implication of Letson? I think it has to do entirely with the idea that corporations can only be sued in the state in which they originate, and/or where they do the majority of their business.
George & Kirby,
I think it is perhaps more accurate to say that LCCRR v. Letson was one step of many on a slippery slope that has lead to corporations acquiring more and more of the attributes (specifically rights and privileges) of persons, but without anything like the obligations of personhood. Indeed, it seems to me that the real purpose of a corporation is to shield the parties who benefit from the existence of the corporation (its shareholders and officers) from certain sorts of risk. As the recent mortgage debacle shows (by essentially all analyses, left, right, and center), mis-pricing risk has bad results. And the corporate shield basically sets the price of certain sorts of risks at zero, an extreme mis-pricing.
Clearly, corporations need to have some of the attributes of a person to function, in particular, they need to be able to enter into contracts, and they need to have a legal standing that is consistent with enforcement of contracts, i.e., they need to be able to sue and be sued. But I believe that to give them attributes of personhood beyond this is a mistake, as is corporate shield itself.
To take an extreme, if hypothetical case, assume that (a) BP is found to have been criminal negligent in its handling of the Deep Horizon well, so that the $75M liability cap is moot, and (b) that the eventual damages incurred by the Gulf spill eventually exceed the value of the corporation. The corporate shield prohibits suing shareholders or officers should the company's liabilities exceed its assets. The practical effect of this is an allocation of risk to individuals who are not parties to the corporation, e.g., Louisiana fishermen, restauranteurs, etc, in the example at hand. This may not be criminal, but it is certainly unjust.
And I think the application of the 14th amendment (equal protection) to corporations (by dint of their standing as "legal persons") has been the source of much mischief.
stu:
It's no surprise many of you on the Left, including President Obama in his disgraceful remarks on the SCOTUS decision during his State of the Union address, have attacked the recently affirmed direct constitutional warrant for corporate "personhood" that protects corporate free speech under the Bill of Rights.
Nevertheless, shareholders, employees, and executives of corporations are both persons and citizens who exercise their rights by means of corporate speech, which is constitutionally protected.
Making a bogus distinction between "corporate" free speech and "citizens'" free speech reminds me of the old leftist patter about "property rights" versus "human rights," thus deliberately confusing categories of citizens' rights with a means of exercising them.
Equally bogus is the distinction between corporate free speech by "the press" (however one understands this term) and corporate free speech in general. If the government is allowed to restrict corporations' free speech rights, it can at some time apply these to media corporations as well (or to corporations like GE, which owns numerous media outlets, including MSNBC and Universal Pictures), despite its crocodile assurances at present.
Since newspapers and news stations are in essence corporations, and underwritten by corporations, it would seem that Jacques is right: if Obama is permitted to censor corporate speech, he could in essence control the entire economy, even arguing that Orangeade constitutes secret messages for Florida voters, swinging the state to the Republicans.
Either speech is free or else it isn't. If it's free it ought to be free (albeit expensive) for everyone.
At present, almost the entire newspaper industry is in Obama's pocket. Most of the television news stations are for Obama.
A few conservative outlets struggle mightily against the trend: Fox News and WSJ are virtually the only place to get news unpolluted by the red sludge of the Martian left.
JADL,
So nice to see you back, and charming as usual.
I assume that you characterize Mr. Obama's remarks as disgraceful because they were somehow disrespectful of the court. Yet, Mr. Obama did not disrespect the court, he merely disagreed with a decision it rendered. And it might be noted, in doing so agreed with a majority of the Justices themselves, who filed dissents from all or part of the decision. On the other hand, you were quick to defend Representative Wilson, when he directed disrespectful remarks at the President personally during the previous State of the Union. In so doing, you show that you're not arguing from principle, just arguing.
I'll note a very long history of presidents calling upon legislatures to re-write laws to overturn judicial decisions. We saw this done recently with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (oddly affirmed by today by the Court's unanimous decision on Lewis v. City of Chicago, which turned on the same issue of timeliness), but also in long-standing legislative attempts to overrule Roe v. Wade. Again, the question here is whether you're arguing from principle, or just arguing.
As for officers, shareholders, and employees of corporations, nothing prohibits them from exercising their free speech rights, although even the notion of individual limits on campaign contributions are generally (but not universally) accepted. But I see no reason to grant corporations the same rights in unthinking lock-step. And I speak here as someone who at the moment is serving as an officer in two different corporations, and a direct shareholder in two corporations. The notion that a corporation is a legal person is a legal fiction, a fiction that is useful up to a point, but which in my opinion has been carried too far. As I noted, a corporation cannot go to jail for its crimes, and as GM noted, a corporation cannot be sanctified. Corporations cannot marry. They cannot enlist in the Army, nor be drafted. They can't be called on to serve jury duty. They can't vote (yet). They can't serve in elective or appointive office. The question isn't whether you draw a line distinguishing corporations from people, it is where.
And there is a meaningful distinction between "the press" and arbitrary corporations, although the behavior of new organizations in recent years has blurred that, as they've acted less and less in the public interest, and more and more in their corporate interest. Fortunately, there is a legal trend to extend the constitutional and legal protections afforded to the press to bloggers and their ilk, and there are some interesting blogs on both the left and the right that take more of a public interest than a profit interest.
Seat belts, for instance, will be gotten right only by a few unless the state mandates it.
I am on Stu's side in this matter, which is very odd, and kind of refreshing.
I think I agree with him all down the line on this issue.
You have to think of the 100 IQ parents (which is the average) and of course below that, and of course the crazy meth addict parents, who might not otherwise buckle in their children.
stu:
Thanks for your more than gracious welcome back; our flat lost its internet connection for some months, but now we're nearly moved in to other digs where it's available.
President Obama's upbraiding (a term used in headlines even in the Obama-fulsome NYT) of the SCOTUS justices unwary enough to attend Obama's State of the Union speech was disgraceful, as was Representative Wilson's outburst, given the occasion (the difference being that Wilson recognised this and apologised).
While you point to some elementary and widely-known differences between corporations as legal persons and individual persons (though of course corporation members may be criminally prosecuted for crimes committed in the course of corporate actions), your argument failed to make a case why corporations in general should not be entitled to the same constitutional protections of speech and press as media ones. As Eugene Volokh (Professor of Law at UCLA) has it, the SCOTUS decision
"is also a reminder that 'freedom of the press' doesn’t apply just to a particular industry. People and corporations that publish newspapers or make movies or TV programs full-time have no greater First Amendment rights than those who write books, print leaflets, or make movies as a sideline from their ordinary business lives. The freedom of the press simply means that mass distribution technology (whether old, such as books, or new, such as the Internet) gets the same protection that in-person speech does."
You'll remember that the SCOTUS case that prompted the court's decision also concerned the unfavourable FEC ruling on the airing of a movie ("Hillary: The Movie") done by a conservative non-profit corporation (Citizens United) that was in part corporate funded.
Though you may disagree, it's an argument on principle that voters should be allowed more messages from more sources, not mere arguing, as you allege.
On the other hand, I agree with your assessment that blog sites are entitled to full constutional protection; would that your rhetorical largesse extended to talk-radio stations as well.
I rather like like Ron Paul, the father of this fellow, Rand.
I also liked W.'s dad.
I think in some way that is hard to understand there is a transference of knowledge from father to son.
If the dad was functional, the apple will not far too far from the tree.
Jim Morrison's dad was an admiral.
Rand Paul's dad is a high-functioning politico.
McCain's father was functional?
Obama's mother? A zero, or even in the minus column. Went from man to man without any sense, and she couldn't even raise the boy with a father. What a complete waste of time.
There is a transference. W. may not have spoken in completely correct sentences, but he had a good grasp of what to do and when, and in no way did he leave the country worse than he found it.
Obama is crippling the country with his policies and his ideas, and the people are turning away from him in huge numbers.
By November, even Biden may be rolling his eyes when Obama speaks.
The problem is that Obama thinks that speaking pretty is the whole ball game.
It takes a long time to really understand what you're doing in a field. Before we bought this house, the woman who owned it built up incredible flowerbeds.
I have no sense of what to do to maintain them.
I feel sorry for Obama. He has inherited a very complex bureaucracy that oversaw the most beautiful nation on earth. In two years he's driven the place into the ground with debt, and hasn't got a clue what to do about it.
All we can do is hope the next two years will pass quickly, and he won't pull a Mugabe and attempt to legislate himself president for life.
JADL,
I would argue for restricting corporate participation (as opposed to the participation of corporate officers, employees, etc) simply because we know that money can and does buy votes, and that corporations have a lot of money. In effect, it is the same argument that limits individual contributions to campaigns, that "one man, one vote" cannot be ensured merely by limiting access to the voting booth, but it also requires sensible, neutral controls on the marketplace of ideas in the leadup to the election. The status quo (i.e., unlimited "free speech" for corporations) basically means that the CEO, Directors and/or owner of the Corporation gets many, many votes. The question isn't really whether or not the voters will get to hear these voices, it is whether their volume will be allowed to drown out other voices.
If and when we get to a point as a society where votes are allocated predominately on the basis of ideas, character, etc., and not on the basis of dollars spent, then I'd have no objection to allowing corporations into the arena without constraint.
Let me note that I do support the idea that corporations should be allowed to advocate ideas publicly. Thus, e.g., although I disagree with the position that the RCC has taken w.r.t. abortion, I am entirely in agreement with their behavior in the public arena given that stance. The line can and should be drawn between ideas and candidates. And this gets at why I believe Citizen's United was wrongly decided. And you can bet that if the same facts had come to the court based on an SEIU hit-piece on Palin, then this court would have reached the opposite decision.
And I do note that individuals can go to jail for their crimes, even if committed on the behest of a corporation. But the weakness in your response here is in failing to acknowledge that to the extent that corporations are persons, then they (and not just their constituent officers, etc.) can be guilty of crimes.
I think we'll have to disagree as to whether a meaningful distinction can be made between the press and other corporations. FWIW, although I disagree with large swaths of right-wing talk radio, I've never argued that they are not entitled to the protection of the press. Indeed, part of the essence of the blogosphere and talk radio is that the branding rests more on the individual than on a corporation. E.g., if Rush went from FOX to MSNBC, I doubt that his listeners would do much besides turn the dials. And the fact that the individual is responsible should in the long run provide the kind of public accountability necessary to drive differentiation between ordinary businesses and the press. So, since you prefer assents to be granted simply rather than by inference, let simply conclude: Talk-radio is a form of the press, and is thereby properly entitled to the constitutional protections provided to the press generally.
Oh, and here is the entirety of Mr. Obama's comments regarding Citizen's United during the State of the Union:
With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people. And I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.
What exactly do you object to in this? Obama did not write the headline, and the remarks themselves seem to be carefully and properly worded.
"In the hydra-headed monster of the contemporary corporate entity, there is nobody who claims responsibility, finally. A company can knowingly commit murder, and there is no one to be put in prison, or to fry in a chair. A company pays a monetary penalty, for which it can budget."
This passage accurately characterizes the difficulties in ascribing personhood to corporations. I will further add that they have the rights of an indvidual, but lack the moral compass of an individual. They wants rights, but no responsibilities. As an individual in society, I have rights and also responsibilites to obey the law and can be punished as an individual for shirking them. Fining BP 300 million, or some other minor fine, is similar to spanking me for murdering someone and telling me not to do it again. Individuals operating in a fraudelent manner can be prosecuted but copororations that destroy entire ecosystems or economies are fined. A financial crime is prosecuted, but murder and poisoning rarely lead to jail sentences or receiving the death sentence, especially when they occur in a seperate country from where they are headquartered.
Tom, what if legally-speaking, every corporation had to have a scapegoat, a man or woman who was hired in that capacity, such that if the company did something wrong, that one person would be punished as if THEY THEMSELVES had perpetrated the act?
Would that help?
stu:
I see in your simple equation of money with votes that you argue more from perceived effect than from the principles of equal protection and constitutional guarantees of free speech and press.
But laying aside those principles for the moment (as Obama easily did when he jettisoned his promise to McCain to accept public campaign financing), one notes that labour unions also are included in these constitutional protections and do not by any means automatically side with corporate management on political issues. Further, the old wisdom about large corporations and their functionaries nearly all supporting Republicans hasn't been true for decades. This more than obvious in records of campaign contributions in recent elections.
Yet, more importantly, your requirement that there be government-enforced "sensible, neutral controls on the marketplace of ideas in the leadup to the election" imposes a system of prior restraint on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and press to the present at least differentially applied to some corporations (government- authorised media ones) than to others. What the government deigns to grant only to some may sometime later more easily be denied all.
And no, I wouldn't bet on your insinuation that the court ruled as it did in the Citizens United case due to crass political bias.
Since we were discussing the SCOTUS decision and whether some corporations should be subject to civil (and criminal) penalties for exercising free speech and press rights, I didn't take up the other differences between corporate persons and individual persons you noted, apart from a parenthetical note "praeter rem."
Glad to see you concur on including talk-radio as constitutionally guaranteed free speech and press. And does this preclude government-imposed invocation of the misguided "fairness doctrine" on talk-radio (promoted by presidential advisor Cass Sunstein) so dear to some liberal politicians? At any rate, it seems you might have been tempted to argue the opposite on talk-radio if the audiences and influence especially of conservative talk-radio be weighed in your voting calculus like money. Yet principle seems to have prevailed over perceived effect in this case.
Perhaps a bit later I'll comment on the President's specific remarks you quoted above.
JADL,
I see in your simple equation of money with votes that you argue more from perceived effect than from the principles of equal protection and constitutional guarantees of free speech and press.
Not so fast. I deny that corporations are persons, and therefore that they are proper beneficiaries of the constitutional guarantees you cite. I'm reasonably sure, for example, that the post-civil war authors of the fourteenth amendment would be horrified at the use to which the equal protection clause has been put. So much for "original intent."
As for the whole "Obama public financing thing," I do think this was a borderline dirty trick. But that said, either you accept the notion that dollars influence elections, or you have no injury. My take on this is that there was injury, and that dollars do influence elections.
And I certainly agree with your sense that Citizen's United frees up unions, if not 501(c)(3)'s, to spend freely in the electoral process. I'm not any happier about that. Likewise, it's clear that corporations have been hedging their bets electorally for a long time. I still object.
And no, I wouldn't bet on your insinuation that the court ruled as it did in the Citizens United case due to crass political bias.
Tell it to Al Gore. There have been a lot of 5-4 votes in recent years, where there are plausible cases on both sides, and a political hew to the question at large. I cannot recall a single such case where the outcome of the vote did follow the prediction that might be made based on political considerations. Can you? So feel free not to bet, but Karl Popper would tell you that you're leaving money on the table.
As regards the "fairness doctrine," I do buy it, with some caveats. In so much as the public airwaves represent a limited resource, that resource needs to be allocated in the public interest. These days, it could be argued that over-the-air radio is of rapidly declining significance in light of the internet, which is not subject to the same limitation of spectrum.
Kirby,
That is an enticing proposition and I would nominate the CEO for this position. Perhaps they could justify their obscene salaries and bonuses with the risk that if their company commits an murderous or error with catastrophic consequences then they are put to trial by an international tribunal and imprisoned by United Nations peacekeeping troops. Maybe we could use Guantanamo once the current criminal operation is shut down?
Jacques,
"Further, the old wisdom about large corporations and their functionaries nearly all supporting Republicans hasn't been true for decades."
I disgree with you on this point as large corporations usually support both candidates and have done so since around the time of Nixon. Why influence one horse when you can simply influence all the horses?
Tom, aside from your either jokey or hysterical attacks on supposedly murderous, monstrous and obscene corporation heads as satanic gargoyles, if you read what I wrote again, you'll see I was saying pretty much what you and stu were about corporations hedging their bets by their contributions to both political parties. But I don't think President Obama and his ilk want to destroy corporations, but merely herd and milk them (and taxpayers in general who actually pay rates) for the benefit of his bloated bureaucracy, which will first skim the cream off as tribute to their supposed managerial and regulatory acumen and then allow some of the skim to trickle down to his favoured dependent constituencies. Still, if you savour frontal attacks on corporations as you seem to, perhaps you've seen the movie "Corporation," one of whose producers (Bart--yes--Simpson) I met and chatted with in a laudromat St John's, Newfoundland last year.
stu, as you know, "original intent" (as opposed to, e.g., legal "originalism," "formalism,"
"textualism," etc.) can, ironically, lead to some pretty abstract discussions perhaps best treated by legal scholars. Still, I don't think it a stretch to claim in a general way that differential application of free speech and press rights to corporations (media-specific and others) does not accord with the principle of equal treatment under the law. And you still haven't argued why, if media corporations aren't entitled to constitutional guarantees of free speech and press as you say, they couldn't be lawfully denied by government fiat.
While I won't deny that a significantly larger amount of campaign contributions can increase election exposure for a given candidate (just as his or her promised increases in government doles or "earmarks" to self-interested dependents and pledges of special favours for union constituencies can), you seem to have hedged back a bit from your stronger claims that money, tout court, buys votes (though, as a Chicagoan, you have my partial absolution for so thinking).
I did anticipate your agreement with the insidious "fairness doctrine" aimed to adulterate and reduce the influence of conservative talk-radio, despite your professions of agreement that political talk radio is entitled to constitutional protections--ahem, that is, of course, if government commission bureaucrats have determined to their satisfaction that "both sides" (why not "all sides"?) of an issue have been appropriately aired. You must know President Obama's legal minion, Sunstein, in addition, has regulatory designs on internet expression as well.
Finally, on your hypothetical Popper gambit, I don't know what his advice would be, or for that matter (considering his views in less technical philosophical works like "The Open Society and Its Enemies") what he would think of the Obamaite promotion of central governmental authority you applaud.
James, I'm just very glad to have you back. I thought it was something I had said, or didn't say.
It's also interesting to all more or less agree that corporations offer opportunities for corporate greed and evil. What does that mean?
churches on the other hand do offer the power of the many to help. I think churches have done some good in places like Africa, Calcutta, India, and some other places like the Philippines. They have educated people.
In Vietnam and in China and in hellholes like N. Korea the churches might be the only place where even a modest light can shine.
In Romania, that was true, and in places like E. Germany it was true.
And I think in many places in America it is true. Thank God for churches!
They are corporations in a sense.
Unions have also done some good things.
There are even some good companies. We have a new yogurt being made nearby called Chobani. It has gotten a wonderful review in Prevention Magazine, and is on the rise.
I think there are probably some good smaller bread companies.
Let's name some good corporations. What distinguishes them?
Of coiurse all corporations have to keep profit in mind or else they go under.
I think Obama believes that the government is a corporation, but I don't think it is. but in France the government almost functions like a corporation.
Corporations have to make profits but if that's all they're doing I think they go bad.
I think McDonald's is ok.
I like their salads but I don't understand why they haven't got a vegetarian burger. The Burger King vegetarian sandwich is delicious.
JADL,
I don't think it a stretch to claim in a general way that differential application of free speech and press rights to corporations (media-specific and others) does not accord with the principle of equal treatment under the law.
I do not accept the notion that corporations are persons, and therefore, while I accept the notion of equal treatment under the law of persons, I do not accept that the principle applies in this context. So your proof doesn't work for me. If you want to push this argument, you need to argue why expanding the legal fiction that a corporation is a person better serves the interests of the citizens of this country than restricting it.
And you still haven't argued why, if media corporations aren't entitled to constitutional guarantees of free speech and press as you say, they couldn't be lawfully denied by government fiat.
Something is not right here. I affirm the notion of freedom of the press. I accept and support the notion that corporations should be permitted freedom to espouse ideas. I draw the line at corporate endorsement or condemnation of specific candidates as an unwise and manipulative intrusion on the electoral process. It seems to me that laws could be crafted, consistent with the constitution, to draw the line here. As for the government, neither the law nor the constitution are guarantees. Only the vigilance of its citizens.
I did anticipate your agreement with the insidious "fairness doctrine" aimed to adulterate and reduce the influence of conservative talk-radio.
Really now? The fairness doctrine was proposed by the FCC in 1949 with the intention of adulterating and reducing the influence of the then non-existent conservative talk-radio? How prescient of them!
You must know President Obama's legal minion, Sunstein, in addition, has regulatory designs on internet expression as well.
Yeah, I've read a bit of Sunstein on the subject, and I consider his position to be ill-founded. The rationale for the fairness doctrine always turned on limits in the spectrum, which was viewed as constituting a kind of "commons" that should be managed in the collective interest. This was never an issue for the press, hence "freedom of." These days, with 200 cable channels, it's hard to argue that TV slots consitute a scarce resource, especially when they are so casually expended on things like the Home Shopping Network and Dancing with the Stars. The argument remains slightly more relevant w.r.t. radio, but the emergence of alternative modes of communication means that it no longer makes sense to consider the spectral limitations of radio in isolation. And there are no meaningful spectral limits on the internet, IPv4 vs. IPv6 notwithstanding.
I believe that the fairness doctrine had a role to play, and that it still had that role when repealed, but the technical developments of the decade from '87 to '97 mooted the issue. Thus, I don't expect efforts to reinstate the fairness doctrine are likely to prosper these days, and in the grand scheme of Mr. Obama's legislative priorities (Health Care, Financial Reform, Immigration, and Climate Change) they have no place.
Kirby, glad to be back (though we're not fully decamped from our previous digs yet); but know that I'll try to contribute in future as time allows and that my absence over past months certainly isn't your doing.
stu, on the "fairness doctrine," I think it clear that I was arguing against its reinstatement, not its inception in 1949, which is quite another issue. You yourself delivered some evidence against its reinstatement as promoted by Sunstein. At any rate, a clumsy straw-man argument.
I acknowledge your general profession of trust in the "notion" (I prefer "right") of a free press, though in effect you deny that media corporations like the NYT have constitutional protections to endorse candidates by the editorial boards that represent them. While you may profess to afford them unequal (thus unfair, and now unconstitutional) privilege or sufferance in relation to other corporations, you still deny them their basic constitutional right of a free press to endorse candidates (lamentably, these days, the wrong ones) as they do. But unlike you, I believe the proper role of government is to protect speech rather than to manage it and to promote more speech rather than more laws, and especially laws, as you aver, that would inhibit more speech.
JADL,
I acknowledge your general profession of trust in the "notion" (I prefer "right") of a free press, though in effect you deny that media corporations like the NYT have constitutional protections to endorse candidates by the editorial boards that represent them.
Actually, I have no problem with the notion that the NYT's editorial board would endorse candidates. I would have a problem, though, if they purchased advertising on other outlets to publicize their choices, or if they sent "endorsement flyers" to their subscribers.
The distinction here is pragmatic. We expect newspapers to inform us in the public interest. We expect them to inform us on a broad class of issues. Endorsements as a part of that stream make sense, and are unobjectionable because they do not crowd out other voices. The first problem with unrestricted corporate participation is that money can drown out other voices, e.g., by monopolizing advertising outlets, or by driving up costs. The second problem is that a corporation per se should have no interest in the election, although the individuals who make it up do. Thus, I would have no problem if Tony Hayward publicly endorsed Sarah "Drill Baby" Palin, and identified himself as President of BP.
But unlike you, I believe the proper role of government is to protect speech rather than to manage it
I'm pragmatic here. In general I agree, but in context where the particular speech outlet is limited and therefore regulated (as in the case of broadcast spectrum), then "management of the commons" takes precedence. The alternative, btw, is that the government limits speech through the broadcast licenses it grants. Fortuately, we seem to be exiting the era when this was a legitimate concern.
I have seen The Corporation a few times and found some insightful commentary on how amoral corporate policies and objectives can be. My post did include some hysterical rhetoric, but my claims really aren't that farfetched. Many of the crimes they commit simply aren't visible in our country or much of the first world. Here's one recent example:
AP - Senior managers complained oil giant BP was "taking shortcuts" by replacing heavy drilling fluid with saltwater in the well that blew out, triggering the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to witness statements obtained by The Associated Press.
If I burned down a forest, I would be imprisoned, who is going to jail for ruining the gulf, as the ruination occurred through willful negligence? Maybe a better metaphor would be the difference between a driver that takes a life through hazardous driving practices versus one that intentionally hit someone. The former would characterize the crimes of BP?
Perhaps some of the duplicitous issues regarding freedom of speech from news corporations derive from the time in which this law was created? The founding fathers saw the power and humanity of free speech, but were not of a time when newspapers were owned by corporate conglomerates. In fact corporate charters were not as common in the 18th century.
stu, I suppose we've reached a "stare decisis" moment in this debate, for while you don't seem to have a "problem" with media corporations making candidate endorsements on their editorial pages (perhaps to include their reportage or selection of stories in the newspaper at large), you deny them constitutional protections of free speech and press to do so.
As for your discounting the law and constitution as guarantees of free speech that you claim "[o]nly the vigilance of its [sic--"government" the antecedent?--sounds here like the government possesses "its" citizens rather than the other way round!] citizens" can guarantee, I'll conclude with the opinion written in 1957 on a labour union speech case by three SCOTUS "liberals" (Black, Douglas and Warren):
“Under our Constitution it is We The People who are sovereign. The people have the final say. The legislators are their spokesman. The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. It is therefore important — vitally important — that all channels of communication be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.”
Their joint opinion argued that claiming any group was "too powerful" to be let speak was no "justification for withholding First Amendment rights from any group — labor or corporate.”
(quoted in a NYT article 1/22/2010 by Joel M Gora, professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and long-time ACLU lawyer)
JADL,
you deny them constitutional protections of free speech and press to do so.
Where have I done this? I have denied this repeatedly. Note the following quote from my 10:04 post: I affirm the notion of freedom of the press. If this is a denial, then you're arguing in good faith, otherwise not.
True debate does not consist of the repeated mischaracterization of your opponents views in the face of repeated corrections.
As for your discounting the law and constitution as guarantees of free speech that you claim "[o]nly the vigilance of its [sic--"government" the antecedent?--sounds here like the government possesses "its" citizens rather than the other way round!] citizens" can guarantee
This is as fine an operational definition of eisegesis as one is likely to find. I emphatically deny the parenthetic, which is simply scurrilous, and moreover knowingly so.
stu, I've acknowledged your affirmation of the "notion" of a free press, EXCEPT corporate endorsements or condemnations of candidates--EXCEPT media corporations, PROVIDED they don't send endorsement or condemnation fliers or purchase adverts. And while your claim that they are not persons qualified to receive First Amendment protections of speech and press doesn't negate your "notion," it doesn't grant that "notion" on fundamental constitutional grounds either. You did affirm those constitutional rights in the case of talk radio, PROVIDED their content is regulated according to the "fairness doctrine."
As for your eisegetical reading of my supposed eisegesis on "its," what is the antecendent for the possessive pronomial adjective there? If "government," it reads: "Only the vigilance of the [government's] citizens." Is "nation" the missing antecedent, then? Or what?
JADL,
You did affirm those constitutional rights in the case of talk radio, PROVIDED their content is regulated according to the "fairness doctrine."
You were o.k. up to here, but this is a more complex point, and you've evidently not yet understood my take on this. Please note that I did write, "Talk-radio is a form of the press, and is thereby properly entitled to the constitutional protections provided to the press generally." I'm not sure I can get much clearer than that, but let me try again.
I believe the fairness doctrine was necessary and appropriate until roughly 1997, and unnecessary and increasingly inappropriate thereafter. As I said, I felt it was repealed about 10 years too early. Let me develop the alternative that I sketched out in my previous note a bit further.
Technological limits on broadcast media in the analog transmission days meant that there were only so many TV stations that could be available in any market, and only so many radio stations. I'm sure you remember a day when TV meant the "big three," except perhaps in major metropolitan areas that might be permitted a fourth. As a result, the government has essentially always controlled the allocation of spectrum. Thus, the government has controlled who gets to speak, fairness doctrine or no. Indeed, the practical affect of the fairness doctrine was that it established a safe haven that permitted incumbent stations to retain licenses, despite possible government disapproval. I.e., they could air works that were critical of those in power, and defend themselves by simply airing counterweight pieces in the name of fairness.
In the present, the government still licenses over-air broadcast media, but over-air broadcast has become a relatively unimportant distribution mechanism for TV if not radio. And so many alternative media have developed (largely thanks to the internet, which is all but unregulated w.r.t. political content) that radio has become less important.
Anyway, what this long argument gets me to is that I believe that the fairness doctrine is no longer necessary, the prejudice, intolerance, lies, and misrepresentations of right-wing talk radio, and the gullibility of its audiences, notwithstanding.
As for the semantic issue, yes indeed "nation," or more properly "government," was the antecedent of "its," but you've erred in assigning "its" the meaning of possession. Heck, I feel a bit like Clinton saying that "it all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is," except there's no sophistry on my part here. The dictionary on my computer provides the following gloss for "its": "belonging to or associated with a thing previously mentioned or easily identified." Clearly, in light of my previous writings, my intent was "associated with." This is hardly an obscure usage. I assume that in your copious readings, you've encountered the relational as opposed to possessional use of "its" many times, and that you may have even used it in your own writings.
Cordially, etc.
I wish government would regulate rotten industries. Apparently there has been a letter on BO's desk regarding BP's poor servicing records (I actually saw this on MSNBC's Doberman show) for several months, but he's been so busy slamming stealthcare down our throats, and now, whatever he's doing he's too busy to oversee either the border with Mexico (he would rather gladhand the Latino vote than care that 80% of America wants the border closed).
It's very odd.
To my absolute amazement, Curtis Faville takes a strong stand on these topics on his blog.
I've known for years that these are his private sentiments, but he actually comes out in favor of the Arizona law that forbids ethnic studies classes from teaching a Hate-America help the Latinos take over the SW once more perspective.
I don't know what I think about that law. I wish people wouldn't teach ethnic studies.
It's all evil.
I would rather they teach broader principles, and universal principles, but most have decided that everything is race and gender war, a mindless struggle over paw without any concern for any larger scruples whatsoever.
Obama thinks he can make the whole issue go away with 1200 members of the National Guard.
He's the most insane president we've ever had.
Even his father was a more realistic person.
He must think he's in some kind of light opera where nothing really matters.
The Gulf of Mexico has been ruined under his watch. Terrorists all but blow up Times Square. The debt triples.
Why doesn't he just resign and let someone with a brain into the White House, someone who cares to do the real job of governing instead of ruining private industry and helping our enemies abroad?
The guy's hard to believe.
I'd take Rand Paul in a heartbeat over Obama.
Neither one wants to regulate anything!
But I think that if he actually got into office, his dad or someone would wake up Rand Paul before it was too late. No one can wake up Obama. He's a zombie of the far left.
You seemed to favor the tea partiers Kirby so I'm unclear of why you are in favor of all of these big government solutions. The market will take care of everything, so let them clean up their own mess. I don't want big government in my life cleaning up environmental catastophes, this country is a country of rugged individualism not free handouts.
By the way I believe Obama caved in from pressure from the Republicans and sent those troops to the border.
Where were your horrific cries of injustice when Bush ran a deficit and New Orleans disintegrated "under his watch?" We are throwing all of this money at Colombia, why not Mexico where the real drug problem now lies after the passing of Pablo Escobar?
I don't think the government has an oil spill cleaning agency nor are they equipped to deal with that.
Obama isnt't cleaning the spill, he's letting the market work it out and he's all about "drill baby drill" while Rand Pail worries about BP's feelings as he feels Obama says too many mean things about them. Awww poor BP!
stu, glad to know that you confirmed my reading of your views on the supposed lack of constitutional grounds for corporate free speech and press before the groundless accusation of my arguing in bad faith you made in your penultimate posting. But I still don't understand your discounting of the law and constitution as guarantees of free speech and press.
Glad also to agree with your clarified position on against reinstatement of the "fairness doctrine," sans the nonsense that follows, for you must know that a number of prominent Demos (Schumer, Durbin, Feinstein et al) are promoting its reinstatement. Try to convince them of their folly in doing so.
Kirby,
Google seems to be having issues with comment submission... Anyway...
I wish government would regulate rotten industries. Apparently there has been a letter on BO's desk regarding BP's poor servicing records (I actually saw this on MSNBC's Doberman show)
Right... And if he'd done anything before the accident to restrain BP, the R's would have been all over him. Interfering with the an expert energy business. Not putting an appropriate priority on the energy needs of the US. Trying to sabotage the US economy. Under these circumstances, if you were attacking Obama before on these issues, and while pooh-poohing the ecological risks of development, then you've got neither standing nor credibility on this issue right now.
whatever he's doing he's too busy to oversee either the border with Mexico (he would rather gladhand the Latino vote than care that 80% of America wants the border closed).
Cite, please. The last poll I could find was the AP-Univision Poll. It said that 66% of all adults believe that illegal immigration is an extremely/very serious problem, and that 26% think it is a somewhat serious problem. So there's something close to unanimity that there's an issue here (and it is one of Obama's legislative priorities, as I mentioned a few comments back). But the same poll also cites that 59% favor providing a legal path for illegal immigrants already in the United States to become US citizens, and suddenly majority opinions become irrelevant to the GOP. Democratic immigration proposals include such a path, which the Republicans promise to filibuster. So I'd say that the political problem that immigration reform faces is finding a way around Republican obstructionism. Fortunately for our country, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have proven reasonably adept at working through this kind of political problem.
This has been a recognized problem for some time. So where, I ask, is the Bush administration's immigration plan? Oh, yeah, because Bush also felt that there should be viable paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country, and he was shot down by his own Republican dominated congress.
The Gulf of Mexico has been ruined under his watch. Terrorists all but blow up Times Square. The debt triples.
Regarding the Gulf of Mexico, see above. Regarding Times Square, contemplate the World Trade Center, and the significance of "almost killed hundreds" vs. "killed thousands." Please remember that the largest successful terrorist attack in modern history occurred under Bush's watch, and that his response, symbolized by "bring it on!" resulted in a huge increase in the terrorist threat. And the increase of debt is a direct consequence of the tanking of the economy, with was broken during the Bush administration. Remember, when you do the debt calculations, that TARP gets billed to Bull/Paulson, as it was allocated and expended during that administration. Your side is persistently dishonest about this, just as you're persistantly clueless about the distinction between debt and deficit.
Why doesn't he just resign and let someone with a brain into the White House, someone who cares to do the real job of governing instead of ruining private industry and helping our enemies abroad?
Well, for one, he'd disagree with the premises of your question. As do I. I'm kind of wondering why an entity as bereft of competence, ideas, and willingness to participate constructively as the current-day Republican Party doesn't just close up shop, but that's not happening either.
JADL,
glad to know that you confirmed my reading of your views on the supposed lack of constitutional grounds for corporate free speech and press before the groundless accusation of my arguing in bad faith you made in your penultimate posting
You're still blowing smoke. I affirm that there are proper constitutional grounds for free speech by the press, and I deny that there are constitutional grounds for free speech by corporations. As for media corporations, some of their speech acts occur within the context of "the press," and so are constitutionally protected, whereas others are not.
I don't consider these to be a particularly subtle points, but they seem to be going straight over your head.
Tom, I think the government has a regulatory role (it should not be in the business of production, but it should be in the business of oversight of production so that milk is pasteurization [but not to the point of non-utility], car seats are made according to code, buildings made according to code, restaurants functioning up to code, and if oil companies are going to drill in very sensitive ocean floors, and risk geysers that may potentially last for years, then government should oversee these.
I believe in checks and balances.
If the private sector is left to go its own way, the natural propensity will be to cheat and give the buyers less than they believe they are getting.
Government's job is make sure everything is on the up and up, and to imprison those who aren't making the grade. Someone from BP should end up doing at least fifty years for this mess.
If not the CEO then someone else who should have been more responsible than to create this mess.
My understanding is that this blowout on the ocean floor is in federally-monitored waters.
Katrina happened on land that technically was monitored by the states, cities, counties and other areas. W. didn't have the right to step in until he was asked. At the moment he was asked, he rushed federal aid.
I see Katrina as the fault of the foolish and sybaritic mayor of New Orleans who couldn't even bother to bus kids out of the city, and also the fault of the Democratic governor. They blamed Bush, but he was not technically responsible for their jurisdiction.
Obama IS responsible for the blow-out on the ocean floor, and should have sent as many scientists and other experts in right away.
But he was busy figuring out other ways to overreach his powers instead of using the powers he was given by the Constitution, along with the responsibilities therein.
That Obama! I don't think anybody cares whether he's the first this or the first that. There's only one of each particular person, so everybody is the first of their kind, because they are the only one of their kind.
What we need is competence.
What we have is incompetence.
Kirby,
Obama IS responsible for the blow-out on the ocean floor, and should have sent as many scientists and other experts in right away.
My understanding is that the "war room" for the oil spill has involved 70 companies and the US, day and night, since this all began, and that more than 20,000 people are directly involved in the effort. This sounds to me to be pretty close to "as many scientists and experts" as possible. The fact is that a blowout on a well a mile undersea is a new problem, and not an easy problem.
I loved the way, b.t.w., that FOX news credited the "top kill" procedure with stopping the "seepage" from the well. Seepage. Seepage! Somewhere in the range of 20,000 to 100,000 barrels of seepage per day. What tools.
stu:
Smoke's one thing that normally passes over my head, and you've puffed a good deal of it on this thread. While you've cleared the air on a few points I called you to explain, you left unexplained:
"As for the government, neither the law nor the constitution are guarantees [sic--of free speech?]. Only the vigilance of its citizens."
Though we're not going to agree on the SCOTUS decision, I agree with sensible liberals like Professor Gora (earlier cited) that it's a great victory for the First Amendment
At any rate, a recent (CNN/Opinion Research Poll taken after the poll you cite tends rather to confirm Kirby's assertions about illegal immigration:
"What should be the main focus of the U.S. government in dealing with the issue of illegal
immigration -- developing a plan that would allow illegal immigrants who have jobs to become
legal U.S. residents, or developing a plan for stopping the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.
and for deporting those already here?
May 21-23
2010
Allow to become legal residents 38%
Stop illegals/deport those here 60%
No opinion 2%"
Stu, where did you get the 20,000 figure, with the US monitoring the situation?
Wiki has an article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
It doesn't list the numbers. Most Americans blame Obama for not doing anything sooner.
Apparently, there is a cap of 70 million dollars damages, but Democratic lawmakers are trying to make the law retroactive up to 10 billion dollars.
The costs will probably go up to about 60 billion dollars, according to the article.
I can't think in numbers that high.
Compared to the trillions and trillions that stealthcare will cost (the CBC keeps revising its numbers upwards), I suppose this is minimal.
IF the press was doing its job and would criticize the president as they did Bush, for even half of the things he was doing wrong, it would be ok to give Obama a break here and there.
But since the press loves Obama, and is practically a chorus of slave-girls worshipping their master,
everybody else has to chime in and mock him at every possible opportunity.
You tend to think in dichotomies, Stu.
Us and them.
I do, too.
But Obama is no saint. He's probably better than Bush in terms of his looks, and his vocabulary.
But Bush I think was a responsible person.
Obama is a sneak. No one knows anything about this man. I suspect that if anybody cared to actually look he'd be about as clean as Edwards, and have ties to corporation that were at least as dirty as the Clintons.
At some point the media will turn on him. I don't know what will cause it.
Probably a leak in the yellow press, started by a crummy paper that discloses something seemingly innocuous.
Then, Obama will run but he won't be able to hide. The press will get him.
For some reason he's like Orpheus now. Everything he says tames the savage beast.
Even though he's wrecking the country, and it will take generations to make up for this president. Worst oil spill in human history.
Obama should have dove down and personally capped it, as his daughter Malia suggested, if he's such a superhero.
JADL,
"As for the government, neither the law nor the constitution are guarantees [sic--of free speech?]. Only the vigilance of its citizens."
That government will remain within the bounds that its citizens have set for it, including respecting the right to free speech. Understanding, of course, that this is a relational and not possessional use of "its."
At any rate, a recent (CNN/Opinion Research Poll taken after the poll you cite tends rather to confirm Kirby's assertions about illegal immigration
It would have been nice to include a URL,
CNN/Opinion Research Poll on Immigration (PDF)
The question you cite is badly crafted. Clearly, what people want is (a) to stop illegal immigration, while (b) allowing illegal immigrants who have become productive members of our society to remain. It is not possible to give this answer to question 35, which you cite. So, yeah, if you remove the majority's real preference, and force them to chose something else, you'll get an answer. But that answer won't be indicative of the majority will.
But if you look a little further down, you'll see that 80%(!) support the idea that illegal immigrants who have been here "for a number of years," had a job, and paid any applicable back taxes should have a path to permanent residency. But the GOP won't accept this, which is why the Bush effort failed, and why it will be difficult for the Democrats too.
It only says that most would allow illegal immigrants TO APPLY for citizenship IF they have a job AND are willing to pay back taxes for their years as illegals.
So first they have to jump through two hoops, AND then there's no guarantee that the APPLICATION will be successful.
Meanwhile, 71% want to fine at a rate of $10,000 or more PER ILLEGAL any company caught hiring an illegal.
Wouldn't this include Hillary Clinton? she's not a company, but didn't she hire some domestics who she knew to be illegal aliens?
I can't remember that story.
I would prefer a prison sentence of no less than two years for the CEO (again, very difficult to tag a corporation, but every corporation ought to have ten or fewer people who can be charged as if they were individuals.
If an individual caused the BP oil spill that KILLED eleven, and did it deliberately and it was tried in Louisiana, what would be the highest penalty the BP official could receive?
I assume like many southern states Louisiana still has a death penalty.
It's not even clear to me who has sovereignty over the site.
BP wouldn't allow anyone in for about two weeks.
But it's so close to American territory that you wonder how on earth that situation arose that we allowed in this horrific corporation with its horrific track record (two similar incidents in the last two years).
They should just turn over their entire holdings to the US. We should confiscate their stuff, and imprison their entire executive branch and execute the top executives.
Kirby,
Stu, where did you get the 20,000 figure, with the US monitoring the situation?
You won't like the source, but it's a place to get started.
Daily Kos: Gulf gusher "top kill" attempt
We can look for confirmation/contradiction through other sources.
Apparently, there is a cap of 70 million dollars damages, but Democratic lawmakers are trying to make the law retroactive up to 10 billion dollars.
There are no ex post facto laws, so 75M is a cap on oil for damages that have already happened, unless negligence can be proven. Again, there are sources that make a good case for negligence, but I think it is best to withhold judgment for now. As for damages that haven't yet taken place, but are already committed to, then yes, the cap can be lifted.
Or maybe you think it's ok that Louisania fishermen who had little to gain from BPs well get wiped out because of the blowout?
The costs will probably go up to about 60 billion dollars, according to the article.
The civil penalty aspect is a big part of why BP has been lowballing estimates. Evidently, the fine for polluting is $4700/barrel. At an estimated 3M barrels, that's $12B+. And then there are civil damages, currently capped, unless there's a finding of negligence or a change in law.
Kirby,
It only says that most would allow illegal immigrants TO APPLY for citizenship IF they have a job AND are willing to pay back taxes for their years as illegals.
So first they have to jump through two hoops, AND then there's no guarantee that the APPLICATION will be successful
True. But I think it is reasonable to assume that the people who want to allow application have a real process in mind, i.e., a process which, if there are no additional barriers to permanent residency (the poll didn't ask about citizenship) would result in such.
Meanwhile, 71% want to fine at a rate of $10,000 or more PER ILLEGAL any company caught hiring an illegal.
I've got no problem with this.
Wouldn't this include Hillary Clinton? she's not a company, but didn't she hire some domestics who she knew to be illegal aliens?
News to me. I think you're confusing this with the Zoe Baird story, a Clinton nominee for Attorney General whose appointment failed over essentially this issue, although at the time, the non-payment of Social Security taxes was seen as a bigger deal than the nanny's illegal immigration status.
Kirby, I've scanned the polls on illegal (and legal) immigration at PollingReport.com, including the one stu cited, and there seems to be strong support especially for enforcement, including the necessity for documentation as well as support for Arizona's new law. In the poll stu cited the % of those polled on the question of whether the US government should do more to keep illegal immigrants from entering and staying in the US, 81% agreed, and respondents gave Republicans a 10% advantage over Democrats in dealing with the problem, even though this poll among all major ones taken in the past month or so seemed most favourable to stu's liberal positions.
I agree with some of your unfavourable ad hominem assessments of President Obama. He obviously likes to lecture and to change, avoid, dodge or not to answer direct questions from reporters. I'm not sure if he'll meet with increased scrutiny by the MSM; perhaps an investigation into the Sestak case might yield something, but at present the Obama regime has stuck to stonewalling through paid prevaricators like Gibbs and Axelrod. Representative Sestak seems unwilling to say more at present after some pretty damaging revelations last year, but I think he has much to fear from retaliation by the "Chicago Way" regime. Without an investigation by the DOJ, however, we probably won't find out soon.
I think Sestak will have to be on the absolute outs with the administration to cough up what he knows now about the attempted bribe to keep him out of the Spector race.
He's probably logical, and unless he's pushed hard, will realize that now Obama has to deal with him, and he with Obama.
But it would be nice if they went head to head like the flake from NY State whose name started with an M and said some things about Obama, and then suddenly the papers were flooded with damage control about how he was a perp.
Strange, until he stood up to Obama, everything was fine, and he was a wonderful person.
I wonder if they have enormous files on everyone, and it's only if they stand up to Obama that the files come flying out. That's fairly paranoid thinking, but it seems nevertheless to be the case.
I guess that's the Chicago machine, and has been since Capone.
At any rate, let's see if Obama spoke too soon. Apparently the oil started up again. Pesky stuff. You can't bribe it and you can't kill it.
IF the press was doing its job and would criticize the president as they did Bush, for even half of the things he was doing wrong, it would be ok to give Obama a break here and there.
Bob Herbert, one of the most liberal NY Times columnists, just published and editorial lambasting Obama's response to the oil spill.
"Lambasting"?
Could you quote an example of this, Tom?
Were rough words really used? Or was it not just the usual mollycoddling?
Give us a particularly rough paragraph.
I don't believe the NYT would allow this. But prove me wrong.
Here are some bits:
President Obama should have taken charge of the response to the oil spill — which he called a “potentially unprecedented” environmental calamity — from jump street. He should have called in the very best minds and operatives from the corporate and scientific worlds and imposed an emergency plan of action — to be carried out by BP and all others who might be required. Instead, after all this time, after more than a month of BP’s demonstrated incompetence, the administration continues to dither.
President Obama has an obligation to make it unmistakably clear that BP’s interests are not the same as America’s interests. He needs to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people who are taking the brunt of this latest corporate outrage. The oil has now stained nearly 70 miles of the Louisiana Coast. No one can say what terrible toll the gusher is taking in the depths of the gulf. And spreading right along with the oil is a pervasive and dismaying sense of helplessness from our leaders in Washington.
This crisis has gone on for more than a month, and neither BP nor the Obama administration seems to know what to do.
And while I'm at it, here is a very critical article on Obama from the Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/article/american-century-so-over
Well off to Colombia tomorrow so wont even see your response!
Tom, Hasta la Vista, Baby!
Also, I'm glad to see the use of the word, dither.
I think it characterizes Obama.
He gets totally locked into a plan of action if he thinks his ex-pastor would have been for it.
But if his pastor hadn't given him marching orders on something, he has no idea what to do.
Reverend Wright is running Obama's brain, or so I think. Now he's doing it from remote control, but I think it's still the case.
I think in short that Obama depends on a circle of authority figures in his head. Wright is clearly one of them, although he would deny it. Some of those Marxist professors he's had, and Saul Alinsky, are no doubt also still running their programs in his head.
I don't know who else.
However, if there is a new situation and he can't get input on it, then he doesn't know what to do.
With Officer Crowley, it wasn't himself speaking, but various Marxist professors talking.
Of course, they were thirty years out of date.
But still, it gave him something by which he could understand the situation.
Most people function like that. Very few can think for themselves.
Even McCain in the Vietnamese prison cell was thinking, What would my dad do?
And in this case, McCain's dad had a pretty honorable set of directives for his son.
Reverend Wright? Not so much.
In the event of an ecological catastrophe, Obama is totally unprepared. There is nothing in the Marxist literature about nature.
It's all about race, gender, and class.
Any problem that falls outside those parameters cannot be dealt with, so, he dithers.
In the event of a war with another culture, Obama CAN understand the gender aspects of freeing the Afghan and the Iraqi women using his parameters. But race confuses him, and class confuses him.
So, he dithers.
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