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Breaking News :Unanimous SCOTUS Decision


Civil service exists so that politicians cannot fill the government offices with their own operatives and run it like a private fiefdom. That's how corporations, which usually exist for the purpose of amassing wealth, function. Government is there to see that things get done whether there is a financial return or not.
 
The premise that something needs to be evil to deserve restraint is to suppose that we can forego checks and balances in favor of simply not electing evil people.

The fewer the checks on behavior, whether of governments or corporations or individuals, the more likely they will think that they can get away with evil-doing.

If there is a chance of person monetary gain, the likelihood of evil-doing increases.
 
One need not believe that corporations are inherently evil to desire that their power be held in check. For the same reason we have the Constitution to hold government power in check--it's not inherently evil either.

The premise that something needs to be evil to deserve restraint is to suppose that we can forego checks and balances in favor of simply not electing evil people.
You mean Teamsters, Inc, and AFL/CIO, Inc, are not inherently eeee-vil?
 
No, but certainly capable.

The problem I have with current calls for union "restraint" is that they seem to have thrown the "balances" out of the equation "checks and balances"... so far usually the "checks" I have heard proposed is for the unions to go away and stop bothering people.
 
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I had a roommate once who was an apple cultist.

I'm not convinced you're being sarcastic.
Assuming you mean capital-A "Apple" and not the common fruit, I certainly know the type.

But these people do not want to marry Apple. They want to be Apple's submissives.
 
While I'm glad to hear that businesses were ruled to not have the rights to privacy in FOIA cases, I'm wondering if this will eventually be used to gut people's privacy rights.

After all the Supreme court earlier ruled that corporations are people, and if corporations don't have the right to privacy, and corporations are people; then it could be argued that people don't have the right to privacy...


INRM
"In closing, I want to remind you all that no matter how I die, even if there was a suicide note; it was murder"
 
While I'm glad to hear that businesses were ruled to not have the rights to privacy in FOIA cases, I'm wondering if this will eventually be used to gut people's privacy rights.

Read the cases.

After all the Supreme court earlier ruled that corporations are people,

No.

and if corporations don't have the right to privacy, and corporations are people; then it could be argued that people don't have the right to privacy...

Only by someone who hasn't read the cases.
 
While I'm glad to hear that businesses were ruled to not have the rights to privacy in FOIA cases, I'm wondering if this will eventually be used to gut people's privacy rights.

After all the Supreme court earlier ruled that corporations are people, and if corporations don't have the right to privacy, and corporations are people; then it could be argued that people don't have the right to privacy...


INRM
"In closing, I want to remind you all that no matter how I die, even if there was a suicide note; it was murder"

What Dunstan said.
 
You mean Teamsters, Inc, and AFL/CIO, Inc, are not inherently eeee-vil?
They are democratic institutions created to act on behalf of working people in contract negotiations, job safety measuresand pension management, among other things. It is not a for-profit operation. They need to be incorporated in order to own infrastructure neccessary to their operations.

Publicly traded corporations are oligarchies. A bunch of judges legislating from the bench decided that they had to turn a profit if at all possible. Sole proprietorships are dictatorships.

They have no business directing or heavilly influencing the operation of a representative government, since they represent such a small number of people with an anti-democratic purpose.
 
One need not believe that corporations are inherently evil to desire that their power be held in check. For the same reason we have the Constitution to hold government power in check--it's not inherently evil either.

The premise that something needs to be evil to deserve restraint is to suppose that we can forego checks and balances in favor of simply not electing evil people.
Right, but we have decided that certain things, though they may be evil, are not redressable by our legal system. One of them is speech with which we disagree.

Corporations *are* people. Corporations are simply one way people organize to get things done. If you prohibit, say, AT&T from saying something, you are preventing the people who own AT&T from organizing to say something.

This case, how ever, was about personal privacy. There are certain things that really are unique to being human, and privacy and dignity are those kinds of things. Corporations can have proprietary secrets or information that could injure them if it got out, but they don't have the kind of privacy that humans have. Corporations also can't have their feelings hurt. (Just as corporations can't sue for infliction of emotional distress -- they can't suffer emotional distress.)

When Citizens United came out, a lot of people were surprised that corporations had most of the same Constitutional rights as people. But it has to be this way. How much good would freedom of the press be if the New York Times didn't have it because it's a corporation? And would the New York Times dare to publish articles that embarrass the government if the government could size its assets for public use without due compensation or fine it civilly without the Times being entitled to due process or a jury trial?

leftysergeant said:
They have no business directing or heavilly influencing the operation of a representative government, since they represent such a small number of people with an anti-democratic purpose.
Yeah, we definitely need to shut them up, lest they influence people by talking to them. AT&T alone has over a million and a half people who personally hold shares of stock, it's not exactly a small number of people.
 
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Corporations *are* people. Corporations are simply one way people organize to get things done. If you prohibit, say, AT&T from saying something, you are preventing the people who own AT&T from organizing to say something.
Utterly untrue, aside from those punk shareholders who are not citizens of this country. Nobody should give a rat's what those dirtbags have to say. Haliburton has no right to even have a lobbyist in Washington DC, let alone participate in our election campaigns.

They ain't American.

How does a dope dealer in Bogota or the owner of a boy brothel in Patpong get to have a say in how we run our country?

Get freaking real.

This case, how ever, was about personal privacy. There are certain things that really are unique to being human, and privacy and dignity are those kinds of things. Corporations can have proprietary secrets or information that could injure them if it got out, but they don't have the kind of privacy that humans have.

Even that right is taken too far in that it prevents proper regulation of hazardous products.

Corporations also can't have their feelings hurt.

Which is why they should have only those legal rights which allow them to conduct business.

When Citizens United came out, a lot of people were surprised that corporations had most of the same Constitutional rights as people. But it has to be this way.

Not really.

How much good would freedom of the press be if the New York Times didn't have it because it's a corporation? And would the New York Times dare to publish articles that embarrass the government if the government could size its assets for public use without due compensation or fine it civilly without the Times being entitled to due process or a jury trial?

This is covered under the First Ammendment. Corporatist argue from the Fourteenth, which is utterly brain-dead.

AT&T alone has over a million and a half people who personally hold shares of stock, it's not exactly a small number of people.

And every bloody one of those shareholders has an indivdual right to vote or contribute to an election campaign or stand on a street corner shrieking like a teatard that he wants his country back, if, and only if, they are Americans. They have, collectively, no right to bribe a senator with a big campaign donation.

Those shareholder who are not Americans can just sod off. They have no constitutional rights if they are not here, and those are limited to criminal justice and private speech. They have no right to participate in ourt political process at all.
 
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Utterly untrue, aside from those punk shareholders who are not citizens of this country. Nobody should give a rat's what those dirtbags have to say. Haliburton has no right to even have a lobbyist in Washington DC, let alone participate in our election campaigns.

They ain't American.

How does a dope dealer in Bogota or the owner of a boy brothel in Patpong get to have a say in how we run our country?

Get freaking real.



Even that right is taken too far in that it prevents proper regulation of hazardous products.



Which is why they should have only those legal rights which allow them to conduct business.



Not really.



This is covered under the First Ammendment. Corporatist argue from the Fourteenth, which is utterly brain-dead.



And every bloody one of those shareholders has an indivdual right to vote or contribute to an election campaign or stand on a street corner shrieking like a teatard that he wants his country back, if, and only if, they are Americans. They have, collectively, no right to bribe a senator with a big campaign donation.

Those shareholder who are not Americans can just sod off. They have no constitutional rights if they are not here, and those are limited to criminal justice and private speech. They have no right to participate in ourt political process at all.


Just so I'm clear, you seem to argue that corporations should not enjoy the right to participate in the political process, but that unions should be able to participate in the political process. Is that a correct understanding of your position?
 
Actually I reluctantly came to agree with the Citizens United decision after carefully reading it, and listening to commentary from a lawyer, in fact.

What really sold me was thinking of the news angle--can we ask the courts to distinguish between a corporate sponsored campaign ad, or a news editorial? What if a corporation owns a news service? Getting into muddy waters there and I'm just not sure a fair legal distinction can be made.

Another way of thinking about it that influenced me, is the idea that it is the speech itself that is protected, regardless of its source. So you can rule that way without even identifying a corporation as a person.
 
Just so I'm clear, you seem to argue that corporations should not enjoy the right to participate in the political process, but that unions should be able to participate in the political process. Is that a correct understanding of your position?

Seems rather bizarre, if true.
 
Seems rather bizarre, if true.

At this point, I am hoping to confrim that I understand his position correctly. If so, it may be that he has a logical argument for his position. I do not see one at this point, however I don't want to assume that he feels this way because he is ideologically pre-disposed to accept differing standards for two roughly equal groups.
 

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