To elaborate on (2), it's like wanting to be on both teams: I want to be on the team that decorates their house beautifully, and I also want to be on the team that does the mocking. Cue existential hilarity.
1) people will be believe any horrible thing about Texas. You could have said 130 degrees, and we'd all say, Texas.
2) If someone actually knows the names for the things in the photos--"mood board" "Tolomeo"--they can't be mocking from the outside, which just makes it hipper than thou bitchery, which is not so amusing.
3) I'm sure Charles Koch will use his money wisely.
OP.2 is not funny, just pointless spite.
A sense of beauty is something to cultivate.
http://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/furniture/4/96
So many people manage insipid but pleasant tumblrs. Even successfully done mockery streams, like regretsy or some of the shitty tattoo mockery sites, have I think an underlying sense of hope. A sense that people can do better than hilarious failure seems like a common element to good mockery. That's missing here.
After scrolling past a certain number of those I had one of those gestalt flips to interpreting "Fuck your [X]" in the imperative mood, and it got weird.
I don't think ennui is the word you want here. In the French, it just means boredom. In English it has more connotations of dissatisfaction and restlessness. (It isn't just boredom that is fancier because it is in French.) But still, that's not the word you are looking for here. I think you are just conflicted.
You have one Tumblr mocking your aesthetic, but there are whole reality shows mocking mine*. Or maybe documenting, rather than mocking. Or something.
* I call it "hoarder lite".
4: Oh God, are we on the brink of not being allowed to like Nakashima furniture for hipster/gentrification/privilege reasons? I've always liked it. Can I get grandhipstered in?
6: heading there. It actually cools off to the mid-80s tomorrow.
In 2008, I'd have argued that absolute campaign limits are what made it possible for Obama to have a small-donor base and stay competitive since no one person could drop in enormous amounts. But if you look at governance, is there really going to be a big difference between small-donor president and big-donor president? Given lobbying and everything else that happens outside campaigns.
7: Probably not. I wanted something a little sadder and more existential than "conflicted" though.
The third picture down on the fuck-your-whatever tumblr has the same trim as and very similar floors to our house. I'll be sure to hang my vaguely grody bathrobe someplace prominent later.
I'm really not a decor person, but is that tumblr really mockery? I mean, the pictures aren't particularly ugly or pathetic -- they're sort of self-conscious decor, but they look like people achieved the results they were going for. And someone who's into that look enough to make a tumblr making fun of it, is actually into that look.
And we have totally thought about putting pictures in the fireplace.
7, 12: It wounds her heart with a monotonous languor.
I know whenever we discuss Citizens United and now McCutcheon, everyone smart says "None of these campaign limits ever limited anything anyway."
I don't say this. But possibly I'm not smart.
1. Winter storm warning here -- 6"-12" possible, but that's just bragging.
2. Coffee tables should either be a telephone wire spool or something custom-built by a cabinetmaker that only rich-out-of-sight people have ever heard of. Everything in between is declasse.
3. See, this is what I mean about not having to worry, as a radical, about heightening the contradictions. Capitalism does that itself just fine, and there's nothing that prodedural liberalism can do about it.
On point 1, have you considered dressing all in white linen? Because I understand that it's very cooling.
15: Yes, it's actually the narcissism of self-doubt.
17: John has a long mustache.
7: Mono no aware?
I don't think the coffee table site is actually spiteful in any way. It's admiring of nice design but with a bit of detachment , and also gently makes fun of design cliches. (Gently because the cliches get a "fuck your ___" the same as everything else.)
I am very upset that I did not think of 20.
I know whenever we discuss Citizens United and now McCutcheon, everyone smart says "None of these campaign limits ever limited anything anyway."
"Everyone smart" is about to be in for a nasty learning experience as politicians are outright bought by the 1%. More so than they are currently, that is. CU was a disaster and McCutcheon just compounds it. I'd argue that CU was a bigger deal, since direct contributions to candidates can at least be used in attack ads.
Also 3.2 is correct.
is actually into that look.
Also 23. The site explicitly says fuck you about a single photograph otherwise stripped of context, often adding pointed rude words about hte particulars. If one of the photos were mine, and of a place I liked, I would happily do something shitty to the publisher as a consequence.
Maybe let me rephrase-- let's say that these were reposted public photographs of slightly overweight women, and the same unkind words and tone were applied by a Maserati owner. Still OK, or is there some procedural or substantive reason why such an analogy is inapplicable?
Are you all dressed in white linen?
is there some procedural or substantive reason why such an analogy is inapplicable?
BANNED.
Okay, the wall of bird's nests on cake stands goes too far. What the fuck is that about?
You mean you don't know? Oh, that is just too, too precious!
26: Oh, I think having that response to something you like is a twerpy thing to do, I just think that internal evidence from the site is that it's generally a list of fairly successful examples, some of which maybe are over the top, of a genre of stuff that the blogger straightforwardly admires.
Damn, didn't see 20! Even the clay probably isn't that cold today.
I agree with 25. People who think things are already as bad as they're going to get are usually way way wrong.
Yeah, it's mocking design-mag type cliches. I mean, really.
I'm torn on the campaign finance stuff. Overall, I hate these decisions and I want tight campaign finance control. But I generally kind of believe that Rube Goldberg regulation is actively counterproductive, because crooks are better at evading it than decent people. While this latest decision is a bad one on principle, practically, I wonder if tearing down some more of the ineffective regulation we have might actually be a positive rather than a negative.
The nice thing about that tumblr is it allows you to look at that stuff without being vaguely embarrassed that you're looking at that stuff. Also, who knew terrariums were such a thing?
I had a really hard time parsing the thing linked in 33 until I realized that "air plant" must be a thing.
OK, I guess I was reacting to the first few photos, which seemed to me like snapshots of actual personal spaces rather than professionally staged and photographed images. Professional backbiting is still pointless, but different from publishing spite about random inamges from the web.
I strongly dislike tumblr's context-stripping presentation.
34 -- You'd have to walk me through that a little. I'm not seeing how no regulation at all, either state or federal, is better in any way than the complicated system still in place. And all the caveats and reservations in this opinion are complete dishonest bullshit, and everyone knows it.
(The way the Court ruled in AFP -- summarily reversing a state court decision that had taken the caveats and reservations in CU at face value -- shows this conclusively.)
As for whether these things matter, our commissioner of political practices just commenced an action in court to remove the Republican senate leader, for campaign funding related violations. This stuff can be real.
The thing that's extremely puzzling to me about campaign finance: These laws protect the US from the influence of foreign money.
These are exactly the worst border controls to weaken. Nobody says this, neither on the left, or on the right, but it's a completely obvious consequence of global capital.
34: Urgh. I think the Rube Goldberg regulation had its flaws, plenty of them, and was easily enough evaded by crooks and swindlers. OTOH now the gates are open to a bunch of people who would never have engaged in the kind of quasi-legal shenanigans needed to evade prior limits.
It's not like tearing down the Rube Goldberg regulations is going to lead to the rise of effective ones. There's a constitutional amendment being bruited about but absent some huge scandal I think it's got a snowball's chance in hell. In the meantime more money will pour into campaigns and politicians will become more and more beholden to the 1%.
I'm trying to send money to politicians I like, or at least can tolerate, but there's limits to how much I can justify spending on politics given that I'm trying to save for the downpayment on a house and put aside something for a rainy day. I don't know really what else a person can do other than agitate.
35: Fuck the terrariums, the antlers are what's really cloying (and sadly passe -- didn't NEST always have a bunch of antlers and shit?)
When's the Supreme Court going to rule on decorative antler limits? That's what I want to know!
Stick pins in your Anthony Kennedy doll?
34: Whether or not the current regulations are good is almost besides the point. Does the US government have the right to regulate campaign finance to limit the extent money can influence politics? The Supreme Court is making it impossible to write any kind of regulations, good or bad. So unless you believe that writing good regulations is literally impossible, this is bad news.
While this latest decision is a bad one on principle, practically, I wonder if tearing down some more of the ineffective regulation we have might actually be a positive rather than a negative.
I don't see how, but I guess it's possible. I don't know how much of a practical effect the now-dead aggregate limits rule had in the first place, but the real troubling thing about McCutcheon (to me) is that the decision was clearly written as a road map for future challenges to what remains standing. The Court is going to apply it's abritrary "exacting" scrutiny to second-guess Congress on whether campaign restrictions truly address quid pro quo corruption. There are going to be plenty more bad cases to come.
And to add to 44, to which I agree, it's not just federal limits being set aside: these decisions kill state limits.
I thought air plants were totally 80s, but I guess what goes around comes around.
41: I have a cow skull, but it's for a good reason, and it lacks horns.
We also have a cardboard moose head which I guess has cardboard antlers and is totally a design cliche that shows up but whatever, it was a gift and we like it.
I haven't had time to catch up on the campaign finance ruling--is disclosure still required?
And someone who's into that look enough to make a tumblr making fun of it, is actually into that look.
fuckyoureahnoguchicoffeetable
It is, for now, and that's one of the dishonest bullshit excuses for getting rid of cumulative limits.
I don't really have an argument, more delusionally looking for a silver lining. Which is probably not there. There's certainly nothing sane about the decision itself.
I passed a pick up truck today that had a sexylady silhouette decal with an added set of enormous (male) deer antlers. Now I actually think a sexylady with enormous (male) deer antlers would be a wonderful gender- and- species bending woodland sprite. Unfortunately I think this was just a nasty conflation of two hobbies that implies violence toward women.
I think this was just a nasty conflation of two hobbies that implies violence toward women.
Maybe a super-creepy True Detective reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Orangina_Naturally_Juicy_Amber_the_Doe-Print_Ad.jpg
These laws protect the US from the influence of foreign money.
Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't really see the problem with foreign money, as such. And nor does the US, in principle - we spend huge amounts of money on foreign elections, let alone directly propping up governments and leaders. The problem is money - the influence it buys and the way the need for it turns policymakers into fundraisers - not where exactly it's coming from.
53: reindeer hinds have antlers. So antlers doesn't necessarily mean "male deer".
56. John McCain and the Saudis would both dearly love war with Iran. FDA rather than USDA does seafood inspection, has already outsourced a bunch of batchwise inspection of imported seafood to China.
I come from a small country with powerful neighbors, where exactly the boundary is for outsiders is a topic that matters. Do I remember that you're British? Isn't the influence of foreigners on the financial system there, and I guess on how polonium assasinations are identified, something that comes up there also?
The problem is money - the influence it buys
I agree with this personally, but apparently many people do not. However, except for AIPAC, the prospect of puppet congressmen seems widely objectionable. But nobody talks about this.
57: Congress can no more deny those rights to non-citizens than it can to citizens.
Sure it can. For one thing, the case I think you're thinking of held that the First Amendment rights of non-citizens may not be as "robust" as those of citizens, especially in particular areas. For another, even where First Amendment rights exist, Congress can abridge them to advance a sufficiently compelling interest in a narrowly-tailored way, and there's no obvious reason that analysis couldn't come out differently w/r/t foreign participation in the electoral process.
Is there any time that there's ever an argument made that all citizens should have the same amount of a right? Like, you wouldn't say "You get to assemble in a group of 2, because that's all you can afford, but that guy over there gets to assemble in a group of 1000, because he can afford it." (In practice, I guess that happens all the time. But it's not a legal argument, right?)
I remember trying to make pretty much that argument back in law school -- that freedom of speech is freedom to speak publically. Unreasonable public amplification of speech through massive spending is not the same thing (although related) and should be regulatable. I don't think I convinced anyone with it.
I get that having to raise money in order to get elected creates perverse incentives for candidates such that we end up with glad handing narcissists as political representatives, but what I don't get is why they have to raise so much money? It seems the the lobbyists and professional campaigners are the emperor's tailor's, requiring more and more but delivering nothing real. Are people really influenced by ten more direct mail pieces informing them that the candidate's opponent is the spawn of Satan?
To those who've explained here in the past how "money is not speech" is a mistaken principle that could result in new forms of muzzling, I see the logic, but wonder what the implied next step is - specifically, how would you phrase a constitutional amendment to overturn these recent decisions and solidify the ability of Congress and the states to regulate money in politics however they see fit?
Are people really influenced by ten more direct mail pieces informing them that the candidate's opponent is the spawn of Satan?
Substitute TV ads for direct mail and the answer is yes, unfortunately. Repetition gets results.
Also, who knew terrariums were such a thing?
[raises hand] They're such a thing that, here in Backwards Land, I bought AB a terrarium class for her birthday last April. Which suggests that they've been passé in at least 3 NYC boroughs since 2008.
Also, it just jacks up the price of TV ads. The quantity of ads is already saturated, but the ever sky-rocketing price edges out more and more candidates except those pandering to the sufficiently wealthy.
Repetition gets results
Surely there are diminishing returns?
Perhaps there should be a tax imposed on funds raised. Fair political practice committee will then fact check all ads and issue correctives to be run after the offending ad.
66: A constitutional amendment that sends the 5 members of the majority in Citizens United to Spandau Prison for the rest of their days. I think they tore down the prison, so we'll just bury them in the rubble.
I almost bought some decorative taxidermy animal heads with antlers for my house when I was single -- I have a big wall in my stairwell that I've long dreamed of having covered with animal heads, hunting lodge style (n.b I don't actually hunt but whatever). Then I found out that animal heads are super expensive, plus I got scared that the wall of animal heads would seem extremely creepy and turn off the ladies. Then I got remarried and was told that the wall of animal heads would in fact be extremely creepy and that there's no way we're doing that.
Actually, the cliche about Pgh being a decade behind the times is, itself, a decade behind the times. Between the internet making the cutting edge universally accessible and the last 5+ years of young person immigration, there is a very small latency gap between whatever the bright young people are doing in hipper places and what happens here.
Crazy fact I learned/chart I saw the other day: Pittsburgh has seen small but real population growth over each of the past 5 years despite being the only MSA among the top 40 with a natural population decline. 36 of 40 grow between 0.2% and 0.9%/year based on births over deaths; Cleveland and Providence are a touch above 0.1%, Tampa is about 0.03%, and Pittsburgh is -0.12%. Lot of oldsters on their way out.
Issue all citizens a $50 voucher that can only be used on campaign contributions.
74: Yes! Like those little wooden "coins" you get at Whole Foods when you bring your own bag! Today . . . the puppies are the recipient of my coveted wooden nickel!
AB's uncle in western Germany is an avid hunter* whose foyer is covered in the skulls and antlers of chamois (I guess - they're mostly small). Oh, and in the basement he has a little bar with a cabinet full of schnapps. Now I'm really looking forward to August.
*also chain smokes small cigars; how he's alive at 70-something I have no idea.
75: For some reason they discontinued that system at my WF, which is a shame, because the kids really enjoyed it. Iris was always torn between kid-centric ones and animal-centric ones.
I strongly agree with 37.last.
And I'm not buying how a series of FY posts is A. adding anything to the world, or B. somehow sneakily complimentary. At best you might talk me into kidding on the square, which I'm not impressed by either.
On campaign finance, I have a bunch of thoughts but not much time. As a legal matter, this (I think more so than Citizens United, just as a matter of law) is a truly despicable decision. 44 gets it right that (following the logic of the decision) there is basically no form of campaign finance regulation that's not subject to review by the Supreme Court; if the Court's current makeup holds, what this means in practice is that regulations that limit the ability of the wealthy to finance campaigns will uniformly be struck down; regulations against more "populist" forms of corruption will be upheld.
What I've long feared, and which is a logical extension of this kind of reasoning, but which hasn't quite come to pass yet, is moving this kind of analysis outside of the realm of campaign finance regulation and into "commercial speech" more broadly, thus subjecting forms of market regulation that are arguably affect "speech" (e.g., securities fraud) to strict constitutional review by conservative courts on purported First Amendment grounds. I think that there is a real, present danger of increased use of the First Amendment to establish libertarianism as a matter of constitutional law. And this is particularly noxious when combined with the use of the equal protection clause to exclusively protect the sovereign dignitude of the states and the interests of white people. We really are getting very close to a late 19th/early 20th century constitution which is used by a conservative, elitist court to protect business interests from all forms of progressive legislation.
As a practical matter, I'm skeptical about the importance of campaign finance legislation for the progressive agenda and I don't think this particular decision is a game changer. But that's because I'm more pessimistic about the influence of money on politics than you are, not less so.
75: For some reason they discontinued that system at my WF, which is a shame, because the kids really enjoyed it. Iris was always torn between kid-centric ones and animal-centric ones.
They did at mine too (you still get to pick where to donate your bag credits but no more wooden nickel). Future plutocrat Jane for some unexplained reason hates the wooden nickels: "Don't donate, Mama, don't donate!"
Yeah, 79 all rings true to me and fills me with gloom (the fact of reading it in 79 isn't what fills me with gloom, though it's put better and more precisely there; my prior gloomy take on matters was already glooming me gloomishly).
There's plenty of room left for more money to be spent on primary races, state races, and initiatives. I don't have any worry at all that smart people will find ways to use that money to some effect. If you can't buy the seat in district 10 -- either because the demographics are just too bad, or you've saturated the media there -- then go ahead and see if you can buy the seat in district 11. Buy 12 too, while you're at it.
Individual limits are going to go, whether before or after disclosure, I don't know, and in 20 years William A. Clark will be seen as a misunderstood political genius.
I think an amendment to the constitution could be written, and we've asked our congressional delegation to do just that. You should too, folks.
Maybe a tiny silver lining is that the Kochs will spend even more of their money for decreasing marginal returns.
I kind of think this rush of campaign finance rulings is a response to the growing awareness amongst Republicans that their party was in trouble.
83.3: Hasn't the "corporations are not people" line also been problematized here to some extent?
Once unthinkingly instigated a traumatic encounter between a mini weenie dog I was fostering and a stuffed javalina head with a removable tongue. Feel bad about it to this day.
However, except for AIPAC, the prospect of puppet congressmen seems widely objectionable.
Well, sure, but I don't see why a domestic puppet is any better than a foreign one.
Maybe a tiny silver lining is that the Kochs will spend even more of their money for decreasing marginal returns.
I try to think this too. There've been some expensive campaigns in California that went no where. Perhaps this is a transfer of wealth from billionaires to printshops?
Unreasonable public amplification of speech through massive spending is not the same thing
WE BEG TO DIFFER
85 -- Oh, it's problematic. But that doesn't mean you couldn't write an amendment to the First Amendment that excepted regulation of campaign donations in state and federal campaigns from 'shall pass no law.'
We're all still pretty mad at the dishonest bullshit holding in ATP -- as our Supreme Court explained, we had damn good reasons for those restrictions, and CU was written to appear that reasons matter. Nope.
We may feel a little more strongly about this, hence the 75% vote to reverse the Supreme Court. Your state, though, may well have a majority. It's the only way (short of replacing a justice) that the trend gets reversed.
Yes, there's a reasonable chance of 90. The 2016 election is super important, in my view, for precisely that reason. Of course the irony is that the 2000 election would also have changed the composition of the Court, had the Court not intervened.
There's also a decent chance of President Ryan replacing them with three College Republicans.
I see Stevens wants this language. How does it look?
Neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the Congress or any state from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.
My first issue at a glance is that it seems to foreclose on the possibility of moneyless campaigns.
Not bad. The odds of getting such an amendment passed are near zero.
85: This was a refreshing bit of sanity.
The "corporations aren't people!" line deeply raises my professional hackles by being basically legally stupid (the truth is that they kind of are, kind of aren't, people, but that you can be a legal person without having all of the rights of a natural person). But I've come to accept that it's politically useful and emotionally resonant with people who have good intentions.
82: Right, I wasn't suggesting 62 was the best or right way to resolve the issue, only that it remains doctrinally available even after CU (which is what I thought 57 was asking about). I think the linked Hasen piece overstates the extent to which the reasoning of CU ineluctably precludes limits on foreign contributions (I suspect deliberately, to make out a reductio).
This from the dissent (that is, pro-CU) opinion in the state opinion in STP:
Lastly, I am compelled to say something about corporate "personhood." While I recognize that this doctrine is firmly entrenched in the law, see Bellotti, 435 U.S. at 780 n. 15, 98 S. Ct. at 1418 n. 15; but see 435 U.S. at 822, 98 S. Ct. at 1439-40 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), I find the entire concept offensive. Corporations are artificial creatures of law. As such, they should enjoy only those powers--not constitutional rights, but legislatively-conferred powers--that are concomitant with their legitimate function, that being limited-liability investment vehicles for business. Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people--human beings--to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creations of government. Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency, and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons.
ATP (then known as WTP). The opinion linked in 91 is a fun read, as the contempt with which the Chief Justice regards the sleezoids of unlimited spending is so satisfying.
Is there any reason not to support a Constitutional amendment to the effect of the cite in 99?
That is, "Corporations are creatures of legislation, and possess rights only as granted by the creating legislation. Rights enumerated in the Constitution are limited to natural persons."
"Near zero' becomes 'exactly zero' if no one tries.
I don't agree that 'near zero' is accurate. It' up a steep hill, to be sure.
99- Yes, but as you well know that dissent is kind of stupid and political and fudging around the meaning of "person" in the law, as well. It's perfectly possible to be an "artificial creature of law" and a legal person for certain purposes, such as the right to sue and be sued, and has been since the concept of legal "personhood" first developed in the middle ages or before. No one, not even the Citizens United majority, thinks that corporations are "bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency, and morality" as natural persons. The question is whether it makes sense to assign particular rights that more properly belong to natural persons, like First Amendment political speech or freedom of religion rights (though I for one don't think that corporations should have *no* First Amendment rights, just that those rights need to be constrained by the fact of the corporate form). In fairness there does seem to be a corresponding political legal chicanery from the right about legal personhood, so it's not just a left wing thing, but on both sides it's just a word trick of borrowing a word that has a technical, jargonistic meaning and using it in its non-technical sense.
Doesn't mean it's not a politically useful trope for people on the left, as I just said.
101 -- sure there is. Corporations need to be entitled to certain due process rights, for example. Or to rights under the takings clause. That the assignment of constitutional rights to corporations has recently been abused doesn't mean that they should be entirely outside the constitutional framework of rights.
101 -- I think corporations have to be able to own property, in order to function, and that such property has to be immune to taking without just compensation. There are other provisions that have to apply to corporations as well.
10[45]: Why can't it just be considered the joint property of the shareholders?
103 -- The preceding several pages, where he explains why CU is wrong wrong wrong, would probably suit you better.
Sorry if that question just made every lawyer here emit a weary sigh.
Oh, sure. I should have said that part of the dissent was kind of stupid and political.
106 -- Because the point is creating a separate entity to own the assets and liabilities.
Not to v. the analogy b., but the 13th amendment wouldn't have had a chance in Hell of passing in 1860, let alone 1850. Not to mention the 19th amendment. And then of course there are the 18th and 21st amendments, which would seem to demonstrate that just about anything is possible when it comes to amending the Constitution.
106: Because the whole function of the corporation is to insulate the shareholders for the kinds of liability that generally arise out of property ownership.
Corporations have to have some kinds of legal rights. I don't see why they have to have any rights not created specifically by statute though.
I mean, yes, from a "would 2/3 of state legislatures & Congress vote for such an amendment right this minute?" perspective, the chance is zero. I think you'd get a pretty decent result with a fair plebiscite though, and who knows what pressure might be brought to bear if there are enough outrages?
Still, I am pessimistic that affirming limits on corporate personhood or campaign spending would radically alter things for the better. Maybe buy a couple of years, but mostly no.
No one thinks that districts are people. They conduct business just fine with the powers given to them by the legislature.
104, 105: Well of course. But the enabling legislation simply has to lay that out. My point is that, instead of a convenient, but contingent, legal fiction, you actually consciously create the rights.
I mean, honestly, for SCOTUS even to consider the idea that a corporation can have religious rights shows that the idea has been hijacked and become officially an absurdity. Just because something dates back to 1300 doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best possible way of doing things.
Not trying to make any point at all, but:
CorporationsRobots are artificial creatures oflawtechnology. As such, they should enjoy only those powers--not constitutional rights, but legislatively-conferred powers--that are concomitant with their legitimate function...CorporationsRobots are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people--human beings--to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creations ofgovernmentUS Robots.
Like, water districts, mosquito control districts, community service districts.
112 last -- I don't think you can have a meaningful concept of the corporation as having legal personhood without giving it at least some rights to due process. For example, the state or a private citizen couldn't just seize the assets of a corporation at whim without process. Similarly, for the takings clause; hard to see why a piece of farmland owned by an individual farmer is subject to the takings clause, but not the same piece of farmland owned by a corporation with two farmers as shareholders.
I think this needs, to some extent, to be extend this to First Amendment rights as well -- I don't think you'd want to, for example, exclude media corporations from any First Amendment rights whatsoever (so, for example, you could impose civil liabilty in the amount of 1 billion dollars on any media corporation that published communist propaganda, or impose prior restraints on publications by corporations). That's a very different issue than whether corporations have precisely the same First Amendment rights as natural persons.
114: Yes, but are they able to completely fuck over the wider world of politics? If not, then they're clearly being unfairly constrained.
117 -- they actually do have some constitutional rights, and are treated as legal persons in the technical sense.
That's a very different issue than whether corporations have precisely the same First Amendment rights as natural persons.
At the moment, it appears that we are headed to them being, in fact, precisely the same. And absent an amendment, how do we change that?
122 -- have better judges on the bench.
Another snippet from Justice Nelson's dissent:
While, as a member of this Court, I am bound to follow Citizens United, I do not have to agree with the Supreme Court's decision. And, to be absolutely clear, I do not agree with it. For starters, the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield inordinate power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins; the transition is seamless and overlapping. In my view, Citizens United has turned the First Amendment's "open marketplace" of ideas into an auction house for Friedmanian corporatists. Freedom of speech is now synonymous with freedom to spend. Speech equals money; money equals democracy.
I don't think you can have a meaningful concept of the corporation as having legal personhood without giving it at least some rights to due process.
I think this is right -- that a corporation without due process rights wouldn't be much use -- but that there's no fundamental reason corporations have to exist at all. Human rights are in the Constitution (as far as I'm concerned) because a society without them is a bad society that injures people, and it should be very difficult for a state to impinge on a natural person's civil rights. Corporations aren't in the constitution -- they're a creation of statute -- because they're a convenience for business people (wildly important in practice, if statutes creating and regulating them were all repealed there would be utter chaos, and so on), and their existence or non-existence isn't fundamental to whether our society is a decent one.
Any state legislature that recognizes that they need to have corporations to keep their economy functioning properly is probably going to give them whatever legal rights they need to work; I just don't think that sort of determination needs to happen at the "what sort of society are we, fundamentally" level that Constitutional human/civil rights cases are about.
114/117: I (by some chance) can actually point to a CA court case confirming that public entities have First Amendment speech rights, though they're prohibited from spending money on campaigns in a non-neutral way:
SBCAG has shown that appellant's claim arises from SBCAG's constitutionally protected activity and, therefore, is a SLAPP suit. First, government agencies and their representatives have First Amendment rights, and are "persons" entitled to protection under section 425.16, subdivision (b). (Bradbury v. Superior Court (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 1108, 1114; San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. v. Contra Costa County Employees' Retirement Assn., supra, 125 Cal.App.4th at p. 353.) It can no longer be questioned that section 425.16 extends to government entities and employees who issue reports and take positions on issues of public interest relating to their official duties.
Really? I guess that could be true, but I've never heard any hint of that. Further (and nearly dispositive) Wikipedia doesn't mention legal personhood on its page on special districts. Neither does this intro to special districts.
127: That could be because it's not specific to special districts - public entities of all kinds, possibly.
125 -- well, if you allow corporations only rights that are in the charter, and then allow the legislature to regulate away those rights with no constitutional constraints, you (in edge cases) have no due process or other rights for corporations at all. For example, the Delaware legislature could just amend the charter of a corporation to make the takings clause no longer apply, and then seize all the assets held by a corporation without recompense. Or take its property without process. Or impose a hypothetical $1 billion fine for publishing communist propaganda. I'm using obviously unrealistic edge case examples, but my only argument is that if you're going to recognize the corporate form as something with legal personhood (that is, the right to sue and be sued, employ agents, and own property) the corporation also needs to hold some form of constitutional rights to protect against obvious abuses of state power (which, in practice, would have similar effects to similar abuses against individuals).
There is a reasonably good chance of President Clinton replacing both Scalia and the two aging liberals between 2017 and 2025.
Why Scalia? Is he sick?
This can only end with corporations being emancipated from their shareholders.
126: But that case you linked gets into a long discussion of whether the association of governments has free speech rights without diverting itself into whether the association is a person.
Hm, Scalia isn't as old as I thought he was (born 1936) but he is by far the oldest of the four hard-right conservatives. (Anthony Kennedy was also born in '36 so one could hope for Pres. Clinton to replace him as well).
123: In 2021, when we finally have a liberal majority*, are they really going to put this genie back in the bottle? I don't think that's any more likely than the amendments you're writing off.
*knock wood
129: So aren't you just saying that any entity that doesn't have full legal personhood is ever at peril of being destroyed by the caprice of corrupt state legislatures? That doesn't sound right. Furthermore, so what if it is? What if you had a corporation that had monopolized antibiotic manufacture through various legal means, and was refusing to sell antibiotics except at exorbitant rates? Wouldn't you want the legislature to be able to undo that?
Megan: the law at issue is California's anti-SLAPP law, which protects "'act[s] in furtherance of a person's right of petition or free speech under the United States or California Constitution in connection with a public issue." The Court there holds that the association of governments' speech rights falls within the anti-SLAPP statutory provision, because it concerns an "act in furtherance of a "person's" right of petition or free speech under the United States or California Constitution in connection with a public issue."
In addition, and not directly related to that case, the entire premise of special districts in California is that they can sue and be sued, own property (in the governmental sense), and have agents, and thus be "persons" under the law in the sense of being legal persons.
134: 2021? So soon after a redistricting? You are more optimistic than I am.
135 -- no, that's not what I'm saying, and there's no such thing as "full legal personhood." Allowing some constitutional rights to corporations would not prevent, at all, the government from shutting down your hypothetical antibiotic monopolist -- just from doing so without process or in an arbitrary or illegal way.
134 -- yes, that's substantially more likely than a constitutional amendment. Doesn't mean it will happen, but it's a lot more likely.
137: SCOTUS majority. Dems should have a Senate majority from 2016 on, and (knocks wood) a Dem WH from now until then. I think that, realistically, Kennedy and/or Scalia will be gone by then, and President Patrick will replace them with decent liberals.
when we finally have a liberal majority*, are they really going to put this genie back in the bottle? I don't think that's any more likely than the amendments you're writing off.
I'd guess Sotomayor and Kagan would relish the opportunity to overturn these decisions.
I think organizing and pushing for an amendment will create spinoff value. Anyone want a glass of Tang?
Anyhow, you can all take it up with this medieval pope/canon lawyer who is commonly credited with formalizing the concept of legal personality in canon law in the 13th century, and who had the awesome name "Sinibaldo."
Re-up my wacky plan to randomly select senators: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_12702.html (see #124 and #245)
145: Your wacky plan?
Re-up my wacky support for this proud institutional arrangement with a rich tradition and heritage &c.
I don't think ennui is the word you want here. In the French, it just means boredom.
Maybe тоска, or purportedly untranslatable Russian whateverness. I think it kind of means what we all think ennui means.
Corporations don't need protection from parliamentary supremacy to operate perfectly well in an economic sense. Rights created by statute and common law work perfectly well for that --- that was, after all, the way that English law operated until EU accession.
On the other hand it does seem that legal persons as a broad category do need free speech rights --- unions, clubs, associations etc. See an Australian case with where a conservative government used campaign finance to knife the NSW ALP* and the unions.
* not that the NSW ALP isn't the corruptest thing going but.
Well, but in English law until EU ascension, there were no real constitutional rights at all, except that there kind of were.
Chalkboard wall is fun! I already added a drop shadow to the stuff Blume wrote. And I finally found the post on fucketc.tumblr.etc that makes fun of cardboard taxidermy. Phew! They have not yet mocked the pendant lamp we have in our entry, oddly. Can only be a matter of time.
тоска...I think it kind of means what we all think ennui means
Is that really why she jumped? I'm rethinking the entire opera now.
151 yeah, which is one reason I don't really believe in written constitutions, when you get down to it. But.
Why does "т" when italicized look like an "m"? Is this one of those "Russian cursive is unreadable" things? I remember someone I knew in college who was studying Russian saying that every single word in cursive looked like a long chain of connected "m"s.
I was worried about Russian cursive because I had a hard time learning English cursive, but it turned out not to be so bad. I probably had better handwriting in Russian than in English. I'm guessing my hand-eye-write motor skills took a long time to develop. I had to use a special triangly thing to learn to grip a pencil properly.
I remember someone I knew in college who was studying Russian saying that every single word in cursive looked like a long chain of connected "m"s.
This is definitely true.
157. A lot of them look like a chain of "u"s if you pick the right words. The letter than looks like a backwards N ("ee"), Sh, ShCh, L, and M string together nicely in this way especially if your Russian cursive is a little sloppy, as mine was.
Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table is designers bitching, sure. If it were done gently, it'd gently convey the following. Respect function; creative repurposing is not very creative; strive harder for originality.
