Die, You Gravy-Sucking Pigs

It’s hard to believe that it was just last November we changed the world. And we didn’t even mean to.

Dan Savage on Keith Ohh calling for Barry to “man up” and the Dems need “to get off their knees” and get comprehensive health care reform enacted.

Thank you Dan.

@SanFranLefty: Yeah, I was dozing until I heard Dan doing the very Howard Dean thing of “fuck em, let’s get this done”. Ma Nabisco thought he meant to say “get off their asses” and I said, no, I think he said exactly what he meant.

@The Nabisco Quiver: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang anyone? Surely that was your intention, Noj’.

@The Nabisco Quiver: Yes, but I decided to let the flag finish the thought.

now, where we are as a culture, as a civilization, is this: Teh fucktarded CRAZEEs have been emboldned by 8, 24, 32, years, whatever, of the oligarchical republican party buying their political support by pretending to take their CRAZEE seriously, as a purely cynical ruse to gain a majority so they can serve their real purposes of selling the republic to the arms, oil, and financial bizz folks.

But the result has been that Teh CRAZEEs have taken over the republican party. They let too many of the southern racist fucktards and christards into the tent, and suddenly, the majority of the GOP consisted of Teh CRAZEE. And 32 years or whatever of pretending they are not CRAZEE has given them legitimacy, in the eyes of the completely coopted media.

The republicans have created a monster they can no longer control, and now, the GOP is truly, completely, fucked, a no-longer coherent, no longer cohesive, rabble of CRAZEE’s and dying old traditional republicans desperately trying to find a way to be relevant and stay in the saddle while the CRAZEEs buck and flail and generally be CRAZEE.

Poor McCain, he did not even know what he was doing when he nominated Palin, that accidentally, I am sure he just thought he was tapping a nice, normal person, an attractive female republican, I doubt he had any idea that she would somehow crystallize Teh Crazee as noone else ever has, and finally make it clear, that the old guard republicans could no longer control the drooling christtard hateful CRAZEEs they have relied on for so long to give them a majority.

And here we are, public debate, as depicted by an MSM that seems to be in denial, as a debate between differing reasonable views, when in fact the conservative side of our national debate has descended to complete, utter, insanity, drooling gibberish from obviously stupid and insane people.

I don’t think there is a historical analogy to this, does anyone with a greater knowledge of history have any ideas?

An oligarchical corporate kleptocracy has seized firm control of most every major economic institution, and controls all economic, financial, and trade policy.

To do this, they have had to sell out, for 32 years, to complete utter CRAZEE fucktards. It worked well since Reagan, but it stopped working, because Teh Crazees were unable to deliver a majority last year, and now, the CRAZEEs are in control of their primary political arm. The oligarchy is still using its control of the media to present Teh Crazee as not crazy, but its becoming absurd.

And this all happens at the same time as war, terrorism, and a depression, brought on by the oligarchy’s agenda, makes the american rabble start to panic, which only enlarges the ranks of the uncontrollable CRAZEES.

And then throw onto the fire a black president, which brings the most fucktarded of all CRAZEES come out from under their rocks.

The only analogy, maybe, that I can imagine, is 1860 and the election of Lincoln. I cannot see the US remaining one country for much longer.

@SanFranLefty: Jesus fucking christ what the fuck is there to lose. They think they’re being oppressed by nazis? Give to them. Rip out their eyes and skull fuck them to the death and sell the pay per view rights at a premium to pay down the national debt.

@Promnight: Please. Psychogeezer knew exactly what the fuck he was doing. His last moment of integrity, maybe his first and last, was in 2000 when the jesufascist were getting loud and rowdy and demanding single women’s wombs be ripped out and fed to wolves and gays, catholics and jews be bayoneted to death that he stood up and said out loud the evangelical movement in the party was divisive and out of bounds. He, like Powell, had a chance to stand up and tell the plain truth and he walked away from his responsibility. He caved and endorsed Caligutard like the sackless bag of shit he is and later knelt before the snakehandlers and appointed one of them to his ticket. And what did he have to lose with his heiress wife for telling the truth. Nothing but his vanity, his sense of entitlement to the presidency. Oh, fuck, and what the fuck is stopping him now from telling the truth? He is so fucking compromised he has no idea what is true any more. If he were 1/10th man he pretends to be, he’d tell the truth, apologize to America and throw himself into a spinning turbojet.

@FlyingChainSaw: Oh, he is a sack of vile shit, but come on, noone knew just what a fucktard firestorm would rally around this dimwitted woman. He thought he was just doing the Bush thing, throw a bone to the fucktards, and use them to gain his goal. He is an addled old thing, completely uncomprhending of the cusp in history that his campaign marked, he thought he was going to be able to play the old game that Reagan perfected, throw the christers a bone, and then go on with his and his controller’s agenda. He had no idea that he was the one who would lose control of the fucktard wing by nominating this woman who, through some strange alignment of the stars, was there at just the right time, and pushed, through some mindless instinct, just the right buttons, to ignite the previously reliable christards, and combine them with the utterly insane paultards and racists, to form the explosion that let the crazies take control.

He thought he was tapping a reliable and controllable wing of crazee, he did not know he was the one who would finally lose all control and see the crazee take over. McCain is just a sad sack of shit who happened to be the one who was there when 30 some years of empowering the CRAZEE finally allowed the CRAZEEs to slip the bonds and take over.

@SanFranLefty: @Promnight:

An oligarchical corporate kleptocracy has seized firm control of most every major economic institution, and controls all economic, financial, and trade policy.

…with the utter complicity of the Democratic Party. I just can’t blame everything on the Republicans when we’ve seen how the “loyal opposition” does things for nigh on three years now.

Obama’s administration, so far, is atrocious.

@Pedonator: Oh, don’t get me wrong, Clinton is the one who did more damage than Bush. A slower, less obvious damage, but please, thats why I despise Kankles, and all things Clinton. Clinton presided over Gramm Leach Bliley, the enormity of which will someday be properly noted.

@Promnight: Why such a need (?) to continue to Hope™ that some politicians are wo/men of integrity, if only their Party and the exigencies of Politics would let them shine through?

We need a somewhat more Platonic system, where philosopher-Kings are choesen, more or less at random from a pool of educated lottery losers, to serve the public good with no chance of private gain from it.

Anyone in this system who seeks public office is, by default, under severe suspicion.

@Promnight: “I don’t think there is a historical analogy to this, does anyone with a greater knowledge of history have any ideas? “

Ancient Rome, ancient Greece, 17th Century Spain all jump to mind. Excuse my Euro-centricism due to my “Western Culture” centrist higher education, I’m sure there are equivalent analogies from 11th Century China, or as Mr. SFL informs me, 18th Century Burma.

@FlyingChainSaw: W/R/T McCain – Amen, brother. Though I think I lost most of my respect for McCain with the Chelsea/Janet Reno joke, he rebuilt some of it in the late ’90s, and lost it in 2000 in South Carolina where he didn’t have the sack – let alone the basic paternal protectionist moment of pure rage and love – to stand up for his adorable daughter when Karl Rove and Shrub started the push-pull whisper phone ads that he had a black daughter. I would have voted for him in 2000 if he had the balls/spine/nads/ovaries/[insert organ of choice] to be a good father and put his love for his child above his ego and call Rove and Bush for the sick motherfuckers they were and quit the GOP and run as an Independent. But he didn’t do it, because he didn’t want to call more attention in the South to his “black” (aka Bangladesh-born) daughter because he knew what his party had become. That makes me sick and sad. Those of you who are fathers know this in your bones, those of us who are not fathers know it abstractly, that you should NEVER EVER do that to a child. And the “well, she’s an adopted child” excuse that some offered as if that makes a difference made me all the sicker.

@Pedonator: Its attrocious, because the oligarchy still controls every major economic institution and all economic and trade policy. The only change Obama brings is in the window dressing, the democrats for 20 years are just republicans who pretend to tolerate gays and make meek objections to the christtard control over social policy.

@Pedonator:
Pedo, as happy as I am to see you around here again, please wake the hell up.
I don’t want to make a list, but look at the SCOTUS/Article III appointments, who’s getting hired at the Civil Rights Division of DOJ these days, what’s going on at EPA, FDA, etc., the revised policies on birth control and abortion coming out of HHS and State, a revised interest in integrated housing at HUD, a focus on energy-efficiency at DOE, a remembrance of a wacky thing called science at NSF, NIH, USGS, USFS, DOE, EPA, and I think you won’t be screeching quite the Naderite tune of “OMFG, there’s no difference between Bush/Gore or McCain/Obama, they oppress us and by the way I need to go buy my rehydrated black beans at Rainbow Grocery before going to Burning Man” that the useless Green Party members are screaming when they’re not bitching about bicycle rights. Despite what you and many may have thought I always realized the Unicorn could only do so much and was more centrist then people hoped but was WAAAAAY less bought-out than HillBot –

And can I just scream (not just at you but all the Green Party/Nader holier than thou morons I seem to encounter in my city) are you FUCKING KIDDING?!?! PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!! PRESIDENT PALIN?!? Or to put it in Southern terms “Bless your heart, but darling, the enemy of the good is the perfect.”

Besides, where has Mr. Nader been since 2000? 2004? 2008? Crickets…. crickets…

as much as I think the Dems (see all the Gang of 6 fucktards) are a bunch of bought-off corrupt assholes, the only game in town is the two-party/first across the line system. So we gotta play in it. As soon as your buddy Ralph Nader and his supporters come back from chilling with the trustafarians at Burning Man and change the U.S. and 50 states’ constitutions to change our electoral and democratic model to be a European multi-party system that doesn’t rely upon first-past-the-post system, give me a call.

Until then, the purer then thou routine is getting really fucking old. Nobody earns the right to bitch until they vote and get involved.

And really, I say all this in the most loving way possible. I’m furious with Barry about many things, but then I just say two words: “President Palin”

And if your response is “There’s really no difference” then you are delusional. Bottom line.

@SanFranLefty: Geezers among us will recall that Poppy Bush coined “voodoo economics” before he caved to Reagan.

@Promnight: He fucking knew and he knew better. Anyone who would have this twisted chick show up and say she is ready to take executive responsibility ‘with a servant’s heart’ was beaming out to the theocratic psychopaths at 1,000,000 watts. Inviting a raving theocrat into the White House is not throwing them a bone. It is, in fact, a good bet she’d have control of the country, according to most underwriters, at some point. This kind of politics really is treasonous.

@SanFranLefty: Yes, the little one, yes, that was twisted beyond belief. He could have gotten air time, condemned the party for becoming a haven for psychopaths and gone his own way and maybe won, maybe not and helped the party shuck off the crazy evangelical crowd. No one would have blamed him for going ballistic over that and used it to illuminate how noxious the party had become. It might have saved it from going off the cliff as Promnight described.

@SanFranLefty: ::APPLAUSE::

@SanFranLefty: My Internet was down for many minutes. And I think there’s some cabal of AT&T, Rahm Emmanuel, and zombie Tom DeLay working on that there.

I do not say Obama is NO different than the republicans. I DO say they are both completely beholden to the “special interests” that pay for their campaigns.

SFL, I appreciate the crumbs this administration gives us. But in the fundamentals, in terms of transparency, rule of law, etc. I’m not about to give this Unicorn a pass.

There may be many small things his administration is doing, “undercover” as such as but…

Despite what you and many may have thought I always realized the Unicorn could only do so much and was more centrist then people hoped but was WAAAAAY less bought-out than HillBot –

Yes, I agree, he’s “centrist”, which means completely to the right of any possible solution to our clusterfuck of problems.

I truly don’t expect any politician to stand up and tell us the whole truth, a large part of it comprising that we simply cannot continue the way we do, um, just with a few regulatory tweaks or reforms. The truth will hit us like a cyclone probably sooner rather than later.

When the truth hits, it will really be Cannibal Anarchy. I’d like to see anyone, other than occasionally the Elf King Kucinich, or even less occasionally, Feingold, stand up on the floor and tell it like it is.

Hell, at this point I’d be happy to have Cynthia McKinney as my Senator. Barbara and Dianne aren’t about to do anything radical, which is what we fucking need.

The whole point is, the only game in town doesn’t give us SHITE. The only game in town needs to be changed, which millions naively assumed Obama was all about. It’s not gonna happen on this watch.

Perhaps never on any watch, but I’m not going to praise the Unicorn for dropping a few crumbs here and there while continually kow-towing to the oligarchy. We do live in an oligarchy, not a democracy, and until people realize that we’re no better than serfs.

@Pedonator: And I did vote for Obama this last time, but I’m not at all ashamed of my vote for Nader in ’00. Everyone always says it’s not the time to go third-party, but I think it’s obvious our two-party system is an EPIC FAIL. How do you build a third party? By voting for them.

@SanFranLefty:

As soon as your buddy Ralph Nader and his supporters come back from chilling with the trustafarians at Burning Man and change the U.S. and 50 states’ constitutions to change our electoral and democratic model to be a European multi-party system that doesn’t rely upon first-past-the-post system, give me a call.

Exactly. Who is pushing for this? I think it would be a good first step.

And HOW do we push for this?

I’m not saying anything I propose is realistic, but without fundamental change in our political system we can look forward to more of the same — no matter who is in the majority of Congress, no matter who is in the White House.

Bookoo for Obama and his restoration of a semblance of science on the federal payroll; how many of the scientists’ policy proposals do you think will be acted upon?

I kinda like the Ron Paul idea that if corporations harm me, I can sue the fuck outta them. Not that it’s realistic.

Given the industrial chemical soup we live in, how could I ever make a case against the mighty DOW or Monsanto when there are so many other factors at work?

I’m no fan of Late Ralphie, but let’s bear this in mind:

1. Gore won the popular vote.

2. If Gore had not run away from Bubba, Gore might have won even more of the popular vote.

3. The only vote that mattered anyway was 5-4.

@nojo: My whole point right after that clusterfuck was:

How could that many people have voted for W?

I truly didn’t believe it possible, at the time. Then came 2004.

And then, even though I held my nose and voted for Kerry, I thought, how could it fucking possibly be thisclose?

That is one reason I feel justified in voting for a third party, once in a while, just to see if my personal vote can stir shit up. Even though it obviously can’t.

But I dutifully voted for Obama in 2008, and the transition from his campaign to his administration has sent a scathingly clear message.

@SanFranLefty: “Bless your heart, but darling, the enemy of the good is the perfect.”

Quickly followed by the mediocre.

Barry has been thoroughly disappointing on civil rights for all Americans, on the Rule of Law applied to all Americans, and on his very disturbing habit of compromising issues like the stimulus and health care before he even brings them to the table. His (stalled) closure of Gitmo looks like so much window-dressing, since all systems are go at Bagram. For someone who promoted Change, he’s carrying forward a few too many bad Bush policies.

I’ll give him credit for the Cairo speech and (so far) his handling of Iran, but that’s about it.

Was I expecting perfection? Of course not. Was I expecting good? Not as such. But I was expecting competence. And I’m afraid I’m not seeing enough of it.

That said, I stand by my vote, given the alternative on the menu, and I’ll offer that vote again if the circumstances remain unchanged. But my enthusiasm I’ll keep to myself.

@Pedonator: I said it at the time, and I’ve said it since: I was willing to cut Barry some slack when everyone was crying foul about his staffing and appointment decisions. I wanted to believe that he really could play Lincoln amongst the Rivals — that these were all talented people, and just needed better management. I was willing to see how it played out before rendering judgment.

Well, we’re seeing it…

@Pedonator: @nojo: I really think Step 1 is serious, meaningful, campaign finance reform and moving away from the notion that corporations have the same rights as individuals. We’ll have more of an idea on where that’s going on Sept. 9, which is when SCOTUS hears oral arguments in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where the corporate challengers are arguing that campaign spending regulations violate their First Amendment rights.

Piece of law.stinque.com trivia – what’s the case that said corporations have the same rights under the constitution as persons, a huge piece of judicial activism if there ever was one since corporations aren’t mentioned in the Constitution?
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 1886.

More trivia: And was this said in the opinion?
No

Nerd levels of trivia: Where did the “Court” say this?
Before oral argument took place, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite announced:

“The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.”

His statement was printed by the court reporter in the syllabus and case history above the opinion, but was not in the opinion itself. Thus, it did not technically have any legal precedential value. However, Waite’s statement did influence later courts, becoming part of American corporate law without ever actually being enacted by statute or formal judicial decision.

/And that’s how we got to where we are, kiddos! A single judge on the Supreme Court’s flippant remark before oral arguments!

@SanFranLefty: I think that any restriction on campaign funding violates the First Amendment. Period. Go ahead, fire away — you’re already whipping my butt at Scrabble.

Also, I would like to officially recant what I said about Obama being the next RFK.

@Pedonator: It was close because there was a terror alert and a Bin Laden tape 4 days before the election, and Bin Laden endorsedKerry. It was close because W and Rove and Cheney politicized a war, and cynically pulled every lever to frighten and manipulate the public, and it bears to remember, these are the most evil and dishonest people ever to control the executive branch, they were wholly without any vestige of good faith, there entire platform and public face was cynical performance, their entire agenda and allegiance was to ideals they had to hide from the public. There is always dishonesty and manipulation and spin in politics, but with these people, there was nothing but dishonesty, there was no honesty, they are despicable.

@Dodgerblue: How?

Speaking of teh law, Justice Stevens hired only one clerk for the 2010-11 term.

@SanFranLefty: Man, that dude is old. Going for the Iron Man award on the bench.

@SanFranLefty: How do I let Obama know I am free, if he needs anyone?

@Dodgerblue: C’mon, don’t leave me hanging. Tell me why you think campaign finance restrictions violate the First Amendment and/or how a corporation can have First Amendment rights?

@SanFranLefty: A corporation has no freedom of any kind, does it? It is, for one thing, a legal fiction, not a corporeal thing, and in any event, a corporation is without free will or consciousness or intent, it cannot have an opinion, so it cannot express an opinion, so it cannot be free to express its opinion. So, when a corporation does speak, that speach must be credited to those individuals who control the corporation, for it is their opinions which are being expressed. And therefore, if the corporate speach and actions are of the kind legitimately characterized as donations in kind, then those individuals who control the corporation should be charged with having, pro-rata to their degree of control, contributed to the campaign in question, and if they have exceeded donation limits, well then, donation limits have been upheld.

The legal fiction of the corporate entity may be a nice way to raise capital by encouraging investment by separating ownership from civil liability, OK, I can buy that. But no further, the fictional entity does not exist for purposes of constitutional rights, its nothing but a conspiracy.

Thats how I would analyze it. Now, put me in the supreme court.

@SanFranLefty: Without taking sides, the money-as-free-speech argument does use a familiar logic about the consequences of an action, beyond the action itself. And if you want to pull a thread out of corporation-as-legal-person, it would be fun to watch the rest of it unravel.

Again, not taking sides. But I don’t think the arguments are inherently absurd.

@Prommie: And if I might second-guess Dodger, the privileges of incorporation also apply to nonprofits.

@nojo: If a corporation has 1st Amendment rights, why not 2nd Amendment rights? Why not the right to vote? Do corporations have the right/obligation to serve on juries? Well, that’s just absurd, because THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE.

Not to get all Scalia here, but if you look at the original language of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence (i.e. “We the people,”) and early decisions by the Marshall-era Court, they sounded like Prommie – that a corporation was an artificial entity created through contracts and agreements. Any legal rights that a corporation had were derived from their charter, not the Constitution.

The Reconstruction Era amendments (13-16) all clearly indicate that they apply to individuals, i.e. people.

The Tillman Act of 1907 and the history of the 17th Amendment enacted soon thereafter (amendment that said people directly elect their Senators) were a direct result of the horrific corruption of the Gilded Age.

None other than the conservative Justice Rehnquist said “it cannot be disputed that the mere creation of a corporation does not invest it with all the liberties enjoyed by natural persons.” 435 U.S. 765, 824 (1978)

What the Court did by re-opening the door for the arguments next week is that the decision could have implications waaaaay beyond finance reform. It would undermine the ability of the government to regulate corporations (and non-profits) in a wide array of areas. And there’s just something profoundly troubling if the Court rules that artificial entities such as corporations have identical rights to individual persons.

@SanFranLefty: They were looking ahead for when robots want rights.

@nojo: And the law, in its majestic equality, allows the destitute to contribute just as much as the rich, to the politician of their choice.

But actually, the founders were elitists and they were the richest people in the US, and the expression “freedom of speech” is really a figure of speech, to begin with. It was not intended to empower you to stand on the sidewalk jabbering, or to write letters to the editor, it was intended to do two things: protect you from being prosecuted for the content of your speech, in this respect its related to freedom of opinion, and secondly, it protects your write to establish a newspaper, or printing press, or publish a book, saying anything you want. And today, this means it allows you to buy a TV network and say whatever you want, or a radio station, these being new forms of publication, is all.

But no, no, no, a corporation does not have “freedom of speech.” A newspaper owned by a corporation has the same freedom of speech as one owned by individuals, because the corporation is owned by the individuals who own stock in the corporation, the corporation being, as I said, a legal fiction which is used in certain prescribed contexts when analyzing legal issues surrounding corporations, but which does not exist for purposes of other issues, among which is the issue of “freedom of speech.”

There is nothing in the Constitution which would support the notion of considering fictional entities “people” for purposes of constitutional analysis. Corporations are considered “people,” as I said, for certain prescribed and limited purposes, having to do with civil liability in contract and tort for the actions of the corporation. But the useful method of analyzing contract and tort issues using this fiction simply
does not apply outside those areas. There is no sound reason for ever according a fictional entity any right that is not traceable back to, derived from, or attributable to the rights of its owners.

@redmanlaw: Oh great, now I have “Robots” from Flight of the Conchords stuck in my head for the rest of the afternoon…

To allow the creation of a corporation to create an entity accorded constititional rights allows the owners of the corporation to multiply their rights, this cannot be right. I can speak, and my corporation can speak, and my other corporation can speak, and their subsidiaries can speak, and so on and so on, and so on. Make sense?

Typical mental failure of the smart but unwise, shallow, scholars, they simply do not understand that certain propositions are extremely context-bound, while other propositions can be of very general application, and they tend when lying or being stupid to take propositions completely out of context.

Bush and Woo and Gonzalez and Addington using the criminal law principle of “justification” to support the enactment of policies of broad application, for example, was taking the principle of justification absurdly out of context, even though the context was superficially similar.

@SanFranLefty: Mermaid, Mermaid…

@nojo: Have you heard their “Epileptic Dogs” song from episode 6 or 7 of season 2, when they do the “We Are the World” style show to raise money for dogs with epilepsy? Mr. SFL and I keep playing the episode over and over again just for that song.

Mellbell sent us the disc – bringing us such joy in our lives.

@Prommie: Corporations are considered “people,” as I said, for certain prescribed and limited purposes, having to do with civil liability in contract and tort for the actions of the corporation.

There we go.

And that’s why I want to hear this one out. Corporations have a unique historic role in the development of capitalism, and there may well be good enduring reasons for some of the legal rights we grant them. Likewise, there may be good enduring reasons for constraints on those rights. As long as we have a capitalist economy — and that ain’t changing any time soon — I’d like to understand those reasons, and not accept or dismiss them out of hand.

@SanFranLefty: I’m sorry to say I was disappointed in the second season. But I still love them.

@nojo: I think the Australia episode more than made up for everything else.

@nojo: Yes, the fiction of the “corporate veil” which shields the shareholders from liability for the debts, actions, and crimes, of the corporation, has a good and useful purpose, to encourage investment without fear of liability.

The partners in a partnership or joint venture are each individually and severally liable for everything and anything that the partnership may do. If I were to try to raise money going around selling ownership interests in my business, and there was no such think as an LP, LLC, or corporation, all I could do is make you partner, and under the law, even if you own only 1%, you are liable to the extent of 100% for any debts or obligations of the partnership.

So the corporation is a legal means to spread ownership among a large number of people without subjecting them all to unlimited liability. Very useful for raising large amounts of capital. It separates ownership from liability. As a side effect, it has also separated ownership from control, so that the management now acts more in its own interest than the shareholders’ interest, but thats another rant. Also, don’t confuse this with the modern practice whereby Wall Street Finance people have found convoluted means by which they try to seperate ownership from risk, liability is not risk, because liability is unlimited, whereby risk is limited to a maximum exposure in the amount of your investment.

Outside of this context, the analysis of the liability of the shareholders of a corporation for its debts and obligations, the fiction of its personhood is of little or no valid use, and recognizing the fiction of a corporation’s personhood outside this area perverts the original policy behind the decision of the state to create the fiction in the first place. Because corporations are creatures of state law, and their attributes and powers and abilities are solely determined by the state law that authorizes their very existence. For example, every state corporate code contains a provision that explicitly states that the fictional corporate entity has the power and authority to enter into contracts, hold licenses, and to sue and be sued, as if it were a person. But none of them go on and say “any corporation created hereunder shall have the right to vote in municipal, county, and state elections, being deemed for voting purposes a resident of the location of its prinicple place of business.” They are not allowed to marry, either, or bear arms.

Why shouldn’t the state allow a corporation to vote? The corporation is a huge taxpayer, it should get at least one measely vote, no?

Ahhh, but I think we see the problem, it would actually be unconstitutional to give a corporation this constitutional right, wouldn’t it be, because the effect would be to dilute the voting rights of the real people. I mean that sincerely, thats a very serious point. Because once you see the truth of it in regard to voting, why is it not also true with regard to EVERY right? According a “right” to a fictional entity cannot but dilute that right when exercised by real people.

Here is a nice hypothetical; suppose a state altered its corporate code to state that “no corporation formed hereunder shall engage in expressing its opinion.” Does the Constitution prohibit that? I cannot see how. As it is now, all state corporate codes allow corporations to define their own powers and abilities in their own corporate charter or articles of incorporation or by-laws. If a corporation is created and it states within its charter that “this corporation shall not express its opinion,” is that restriction on the corporations authority and purpose constitutional?

No, on this I know, I am right, and all who disagree are wrong, the fictional personhood of a corporation is a proposition the validity of which is limited to the original policy context which justified the creation of corporations in the first place, encouraging capital investment by separating liability from ownership.

@SanFranLefty: “People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully”

/plants earworm, runs away

@redmanlaw: Depeche Mode is more like a trouser snake.

@Dodgerblue: I think they ought to restrict how much candidates and their aligned noise-machines can accept and/or spend. Anything over $1 million has to go to charity or to orgies for the campaign workers.

@redmanlaw:
“Domo arigato, mr. roboto, domo…domo
Domo arigato, mr. roboto, domo…domo
Domo arigato, mr. roboto, domo…domo
Thank you very much, mr. roboto”

/plants a bigger one in your ear

plus, I love DM

You light up my life…

Go for the kill, I always say.

@nojo: Sailing…takes me away…to where I always heard it could be…”

/runs away hoping not to be mortally wounded by Nojo

@nojo: Doesn’t work for me. First time anyone here mentioned that song I immediately went and found it on YouTube. Not a whit of recognition.

@SanFranLefty: We’re veering very close to Yacht Rock territory.

@nojo: I’m embarrassed to admit that I have most of those songs on my “Hits from Hell/Guilty Pleasures” playlist on iTunes.

@SanFranLefty: The videos linked to those song titles are very funny, if you’re in that mood. It’s an episodic mockumentary about how those songs were created.

@mellbell: For the first time, I envy you your youth and innocence.

@SanFranLefty: I have “I’ve been to Paradise (But I’ve Never Been to Me) on my ipod, I have a masochistic streak, I like bad songs, I also have The Night Chicago Died, Billy, Don’t be a Hero, and Seasons in the Sun. WRT Seasons in the Sun, this is a translation of a song by the immortal Belgian balladeer Jaques Brel, and was originally arranged by Terry Jacks for the Beach Boys to record, he only recorded it because the Beach Boys turned it down. Its a good song, I like it.

Der Kommisar’s in Town.

@Mistress Cynica: Yeah, but they have to listen to stuff like Panic! at the Disco and Snow Patrol, although BRB once posted something by Bat for Lashes I liked a lot.

@Promnight: My favorite memory of that tune was it blasting out over a huge plaza in Juarez, when a photographer and I were getting some taquitos while down there reporting a story on the PAN party challenging the PRI in a state election.

@redmanlaw: I will admit to a soft spot for “Chocolate.”

@redmanlaw: Besides, you can do worse than that. Namely, this.

@Promnight: I’ll see your “Seasons in the Sun” and raise it with the “Cat’s in a Cradle” that came on my iTunes when I was on the treadmill at the Y tonight. What’s more embarrassing is I realized I was audibly humming along to Jim Croce.

Now *THAT’S* an earworm, made all the better due to the fantastic take on it by The Simpsons.

@SanFranLefty: “Cat’s in the Cradle” was Harry Chapin. I know because my ex loved that song. Excuse me while I have a flashback.

@SanFranLefty, cyn, et al: Here’s my nostalgia tune for today. Those guitars, heavy bass riffage and lyrics always do it for me.

Phil Manzanara/Brian Eno, “Miss Shapiro”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN3A-6Qb9Is

BTW, Eno is all over the new U2 as a “fifth Beatle” and helps make it great in spots.

Earworm