Now with the morning news on this site every day, This Week in Bullshit is less relevant than ever:
* Rush Limbaugh knows where your children go to school.
* Mickey Kaus is an idiot. But on the other hand someone who may or may not exist accuses Hillary Clinton of doing something, so you decide.
* FEMA learned their lesson from Katrina: No more press at the press conferences.
* We may lose another member of the coalition in Iraq. The contractors. But only if they’re ever held accountable for their actions.
* How did you spend your Islamofascism awareness week? I opened presents under the meaningless word that’s a pretext to bomb Iran tree.
* And is there anything that isn’t OK to the far right if it ends up harming a Clinton in some way? Bill Clinton’s distant cousin was raped? Well shit parole the rapist, you’ll be praised by columnists for the liberal New York Times later on, even if they go on to kill one or two women.
Locally:
* Dino Rossi has been a quantum candidate. Both a candidate for governor and not at any given time. But now he’s in. I hope he’ll take his idea man’s advise and try to ban boxing.
* Mars Hill is going to unleash their bunnies and blatant homophobia on another Seattle neighborhood.
This is an open thread
Richard Corliss is a but-wad.
Mars Hill is also, a but-wad.
Don’t forget the motto of the Greek Navy: “Never leave your buddies behind!”
Or is it “Never leave your buddy’s behind?”
#3&4 — Yer a laff riot — NOT—Pizza Face.
That Rush Limbaugh threat needs to be prosecuted. That fat bastard needs to be taught a lesson.
Well, joe, I thought it was pretty funny, and it gets a lot of laughs with the grown-ups!
Even fags laugh at it!
The point of the blog entry was to underscore (a) Limbaugh’s gangsterism
You mean like the gangsterism that Harry Reid tried to pull on Rush recently??? Hehehehehe We know how that one turned out. hahahaha
re 7: That little card table they’ve been sitting you at is not the ‘midget genius table’, like they told you last Thanksgiving.
Rush has everything under control. He already has an out if the (un)fairness doctrine ever gets passed…. Rush News!!!! I imagine he will have 50 million listners then.
#9 — Rush is a hollow windbag. If he really said that, he’d be someone’s target. We got our nuts on the left as well.
Remember the ‘pies in the face’ incident. That kind of thing is a reminder to those bloviators that they are not out of reach.
All it takes to shut your side up for a while is a Marx Bros. routine.
How pussified is that?
Asshole.
# 6 Joe pine says:
“That Rush Limbaugh threat needs to be prosecuted. That fat bastard needs to be taught a lesson.”
So what did Rush do that needs prosecution? Please explain in detail with facts.
12
Pies in the face are childish pranks pulled by lefties who can not debate. What Rush pulled was brilliant. Hey did any of those “real soldier” democrats donate yet??? heehehehe
Hmmm, I dunno. With Mars Hill taking over Tabella it might not be ALL that much different:
The music will be just as loud.
The beer will come later, but it won’t cost as much.
There won’t be any fights, but there’ll be a lot of talk about smiting of enemies.
Most everyone there will know in advance who they’re going home with.
Threatening someone’s child is ‘brilliant’? Then Stalin, Hitler, and George W. Bush must be men of genius in your world.
@13…Me…
Don’t bother asking Pinehead for a rationale to anything. His idea of discourse and debate is endless lobbing of personal epithets.
Essentially insecure in his person and beliefs, he seeks now to outlaw via prosecution that which both confounds him and is beyond is understanding. How American is that? Don’t like what someone is saying, so throw them in jail!
Well, Comrade Pinehead no doubt would have felt right at home in the old Soviet Union or in National Socialist Germany where he would have been given a uniform and a title as an apparatchik political commissar or obergruppenfuher in the ministry of propoganda.
An abyss of anger without much in the way of redeaming social characteristics, he’s devoid of wit, charm, or nuance. And I’ll bet he’s either never listened to Rush Limbaugh or, if he’s listened at all, it was cobbled together snippets put together by his ideological masters.
Give it your best shot, Pinehead; keep insisting that Rush be prosecuted. Pretty soon you’ll look just as goofy as Facts/Farts, which is saying a lot.
It’s fascinating how lefties howl like stuck pigs when Rush sticks it to them only to have to, like Sen. Harry Reid, end up eating their words latter on when Rush turns the tables on them.
But it’s all very high in entertainment value.
The Piper
And, anyway, the fat bastards lieing. They printed what they were going to print. It wasn’t complimentary. But, it could’ve been worse.
So Rush tells you dopes that he threatened the man’s children, and you think he’s ‘brilliant’.
That’s why he calls you nit-wits ‘dittoheads’.
“All of this has led this blogger to speculate that if Christian males do not man up soon, the Episcopalians may vote a fluffy baby bunny rabbit as their next bishop to lead God’s men. When asked for their perspective, some bunny rabbits simply said that they have been discriminated against long enough and that people need to ‘Get over it.’”
http://effinunsound.com/?p=535
Feel free to call me “Reverend Roger Rabbit” from now on! And if enough people pitch money into the collection basket, I’ll make it official by purchased one of those $10 divinity degrees advertised in men’s magazines.
#17 — Oh, shut the fuck up, Piper. Yer a plaid creampuff.
All dogs should appointed missionaries and sent to Heaven immediately, starting with that Balogh mutt!
#17 — Do you really talk the way you write? You sound like a blithering idiot. I cannot imagine the stupidity of someone who would deliberately adopt the tone you use — work at it- even.
If you had gone to my junior high, you’d have suffered a plaid wedgie on a daily basis. You’d have been George ‘Piper’ Costanza.
Piper, here’s a clue. You come off like Thurston Howell III. Jim was lampooning that character, not putting him on a pedestal.
George W. Bush has made it a certainty that Piper Scott’s greatgrandchildren will be indebted – in penury — to communist China.
COMRADE Piper.
@20 & 22 – 24…JP…
Res ipsa loquitur.
“Stultum facit fortuna quem vult perdere.” Syrus
The Piper
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
(anything said in Latin sounds profound)
The Economist, a British magazine with a conservative and business orientation, has an interesting essay on estate taxes. They argue inheritances, not estates, should be taxed. That’s always been my position.
http://www.economist.com/finan.....d=10024733
legalize it!
hey got my sheriff hairspray mailer today: says he loves him some children’s healthcare so much that he voted to override is BFF’s veto of the schip. oh yeah and his favorite ice cream is bschip.
@27…RR…
Tax neither…The transfer of property upon death should be a non-taxable event. Why is the government entitled to a piece of that action? Why should those who receive property be subject to taxation? Hasn’t it already been subject to tax upon its earning? Smacks of double taxation.
Who is the master? Government or the people? At the rate we’re going, the answer will soon be government since it will be taxing us all into subservience.
The power to tax is the power to destroy…And I’m of the mind that there’s a whole lot of destroying going on.
The Piper
@26 Latin Affectations
After SIX years of Latin, I cam to the conclusions:
1. This is not a very useful language. Impressive only to the European barbarians and Popes before they themselves and developed much worth reading, Compare the product of the romans over their approximately 1500 years of stultifying occupation of superior peoples with the output of the West post the enlightenment: Voltaire,Descarte, Moliere, Jefferson, Shakespeare, Smith, Tennyson, Milton, Hemingway, Bulgagov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Lenin, Goethe, Luther, Marx, Spinoza, Cervantez, … on the shoulders of the barbarians with an admixture of Jews and Arabs) a great culture arose.
Why afflict anyone with Cicero, Caesar, Acquinas. Justinian?
2. As PURE language, Latin is clumsy compared with the incredible beauty of its Romantic descendents. Anyone who imagines the Romans listened to their written language is deprived of Chanson and Lieder. No wonder the patois of the soldier people form Italy was dropped entirely after Constantinople! Luther’s triumph was recuing the Chrsitian holy texts from the sarcophagus of the “original” Lation, a languge that Jesus almost certianly would have no sue for outside a bar room brawl or court of Roam “justice.”
3. Best use of Latin in 2000 years? Winnie Ille Pooh.
31 The Romans more or less did with culture what Microsoft does to technology–they “embraced and extended” other peoples’ ideas, mores and mythologies. It was certainly a matter of protest by which the Jewish intellectuals “went Greek” instead of using the language of their colonial occupiers.
After Rome adopted Christianity, it spread it around the empire like mayonnaise after perverting it to its own tastes, and that of course included translating the “holy books” into the state-approved language.
Perhaps Latin being the “official church language” over the following centuries provided a common means of communication. Because by its very nature Latin is a sort of “dumb language”, its use might have forced ecclesiasticals to boil down their thoughts to their barest essense. Otherwise the Christian doctrine we know today might have turned out to be even more bizarre than it is.
Good News!!!!
Seattle Jew: Harvard Medical School Shows that Republican med. sttudents Need Coursework in Military Ethics!?
@30 Why should people who inherit money get it free while wages are taxed?
And why, on God’s green earth, should capital gains that have not previously been taxed escape taxation altogether simply because the investment changed hands due to death?
If you’re not going to have estate or inheritance taxes, then at a minimum, the stepped-up basis provision should be repealed so that when the heirs sell the property, they owe the capital gains tax that would have been owed by the original owner.
@30 “Hasn’t it already been subject to tax upon its earning? Smacks of double taxation.”
No. Most estates exceeding the tax exemption consist of real estate, stocks, and businesses that were acquired long ago and therefore consist of untaxed capital gains. When the owner dies and these assets are transferred to his heirs, they get a stepped-up basis.
To illustrate, let’s assume grandpa bought commercial real estate 40 years ago for $75,000 that is now worth $2,400,000. Since he never sold the property, his paper capital gain of $2,325,000 hasn’t been taxed. Under the IRS code, his heirs get a basis of $2,400,000. If they sell it 10 years from now for $2,750,000 their taxable capital gain will be $350,000, not $2,675,000. Without an inheritance tax, the other $2,325,000 of capital gain would completely escape taxation. That’s unfair to other taxpayers. It’s particularly unfair to people who WORK for their money and get exemptions totaling less than $10,000 compared to the $1,500,000 exemption that heirs get.
No one is taxed more heavily than workers. This unfavorable tax treatment of wages creates strong disincentives against work. Many people retire as soon as they’ve accumulated enough to live on pensions and investment income, because the tax disincentives against working are so strong. Our tax code favors investing and inheriting, and punishes people for working. So why should anyone work if they don’t have to?
What kind of social policy is that? The message it sends is you’re a sap if you work. Unfortunately, that’s how our society regards working people, too. Yet, without labor, investments would be worthless, nothing would be produced, and no one would have anything. I think workers should go on strike. I think everyone should refuse to work until the tax code is changed to tax investments and inheritances more, and wages less. The current tax code is very unfair to workers.
@32 .. Religous Wars Part II
Help, Help .. Pual’s influence is spreading here too. NOT that Paul .. Paul the Macista!
FWIW third usual mac claim about BillyG is utter BS. MS has made a number of major innovations, arguabgly more than any other company in the PCD biz:
1. First useable OS language for a microcomputer.
2. First graphics language on a consumer PC.
3. First object oeriented consumer SW.
4, Powerpoint.
5. Second OS on a mass marketed PC.
6. Useable SW turning the Mac into something besides a toy or graphics machine.
etc.
Things they did not invent:
Internet: Gore, DARPA, Universities.
Basic: Dartmouth
DOS .. Kildall
first mass marketed micro: Radio Shack
GUI: PARC
sprytes, grsphics primitives: some swiss guy
Music coding: Kurzweil
Spreadsheet: Bricklin
Office suite: (Lotus?)
Collab software: Lotus
Windowed interace: Quarterdeck
Graphic standards: Adobe, Apple
PC level database: NASA’s Vulcan
UNIX: Bell
Apple cpm,es closer to your description. They have invented very little but done a great jovb of marketing/
NOW I am going to bed.
@30 “Who is the master? Government or the people?”
Empty rhetoric. Government is mankind’s greatest invention. Without government, civilization is impossible; without civilization, an organized economy is impossible, and no wealth could exist except what a man fashions with his own hands and can carry with him. But government is not free. It needs revenue to carry out its functions. Taxes are the price you pay for the governmental services that make it possible for you to survive, own property, carry on a trade or business, and prosper.
“At the rate we’re going, the answer will soon be government since it will be taxing us all into subservience.”
Wingnut bullshit. Over the last 75 years, federal taxes have held fairly steady within a range of 16% – 22% of GDP, and state and local taxes have held even steadier at around 15% of GDP + or – a percent or two. There is no evidence taxes are steadily increasing as a percentage of individual incomes. Economic statistics say otherwise.
What wingnuts really want is government services paid for by other people so they can profit from a free ride.
Republican = freeloader
“The power to tax is the power to destroy”
Bullshit. Taxes build schools, highways, dams, and pay for a military to protect it all. Without that stuff you’d have no educated workers to hire for your business, no roads on which to move your goods to market, no electricity to power your factory, no water for farms to grow food, and foreigners with guns could walk in and expropriate everything you did have and kill you to boot. Without the courts and judges and jails that taxes pay for you’d have no peace or safety, and property rights would mean nothing because anyone stronger than you could take your belongings away from you. Taxes pay for things that make it possible for you to live, own a business, have a family, and prosper. Without those things, you’d be a hairless ape hiding in a tree hoping not to get eaten by a cougar or bear, and your lifespan would be 16 years if you were lucky.
@30 (continued) 2/3 of King County’s budget goes to public safety: Police, courts, and jails. Do you want to eliminate that? A big chunk of the other 1/3 goes to county roads. What’s left goes to things like parks, libraries, health inspections of restaurants, a tiny amount of social services, and of course administration (mayor and city council salaries, etc.). These things make our lives safer, more productive, and more enjoyable.
In many cases, if you had to replace these government services with purchased private services, it would cost you far more.
Piper, you’re simply full of shit.
@35…RR…
“No one is taxed more heavily than workers.”
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04in06tr.xls
96.70% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of wage earners.
84.86% of all taxes are paid by the top 25% of wage earners.
69.19% of all taxes are paid by the top 10% of wage earners.
57.13% of all taxes are paid by the top 5% of wage earners.
36.89% of all taxes are paid by the top 1% of wage earners.
Again, this is from IRS generated data for 2004.
I posted the 2003 numbers in response to something from Joe Pinehead a couple days ago.
Here’s a fair-share tax plan: Divide the number of people in the U.S. into the amount of revenue needed, and send each a bill for their share. No deductions, exemptions, strings to pull, or anything.
Everyone pays the same – Equal Taxation Under Law!
The Piper
@33 & 36…SJ…
Each time you post, your name becomes a link to your blog. Somewhere along the way, some scurrilous type wearing mittens entered the website information about your blog incorrectly. Hence, any who click on the link get sent to error purgatory.
What is the man said? “I don’t care what you say about me just as long as you spell my name correctly.”
The Piper
@37…RR…
“Government is mankind’s greatest invention.”
You and I simply look at life and the role of government differently. I believe governments are instituted among men and women, and their only legitimate purpose is to safeguard the freedom and liberty of the people.
The larger government is, the more it costs, and the more government costs, the more it has to take from its citizenry. The more it takes from its citizenry, the less its citizenry has to use as it sees fit for its own purposes.
“The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Marshall, C.J., McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819).
Government isn’t the means of my redemption, economic, civic, political, spiritual, social, or otherwise. Government isn’t the highest good. Most things done by government either shouldn’t be done at all, or could be done better or more efficiently by the private sector (if you can make sweeping generalizations, so can I).
There are certain foundational necessities for the good of the commonweal that government can address. First among them is the protection and security of the of the freedom and liberty of the people and safety of their possessions, hence the number one expenditures of the state should always be police, fire, and military in nature. In a very real sense, all other things beyond that are luxuries.
I’m not saying no taxation, I’m saying low taxation. Government is a pathetically inept agent of economic activity. When it takes from the private sector, it takes away the ability to plow resources into the creation of wealth. Government produces nothing, it only consumes. Government cannot create wealth, it can only redistribute it. That’s not to say that some degree of consumption or even extremely limited redistribution isn’t appropriate, but it must always serve as a reminder that the dollar you pay in taxes is a dollar forever lost to your use and advantage. And the dollar government takes from you and gives to another is a dollar of your property taken from you and given to someone who has no foundational ethical, moral, or economic right to it.
You didn’t qualify your quoted statement by saying what type of government. The Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany both had governments. Myanmar and Sudan have governments. Are those equally representative of “mankind’s greatest invention?”
Government isn’t a benign agent. Unless severely kept in check, it will by its nature become oppressive and tyrannical. Since nature abhors a vacuum, government will, whenever possible, accrete in favor of it becoming more pervasive, larger, more intrusive, more limiting of our freedoms, more expensive, and more controlling.
The people have several means at their disposal to check this, the ballot box first among them. Another means is limiting by whatever means possible government’s ability to grow, and one way to do this is restricting the raising of taxes and the expenditures of public money.
Government should be dependent upon the people, not the other way around. We’re rapidly creating a society dependent upon government services, largesse, and cradle to grave care; it’s the nanny state run amok. And it seems the larger government becomes toward this end, the greater the demand that it become even larger. If that isn’t the life cycle of hopeless addiction, then I don’t know what would qualify.
When a society discovers that it can vote itself goodies from the public treasury, it takes a tremendous step toward its own self-destruction. Instead of contributing to, it becomes taking from. When is enough enough?
Government does too much, costs, too much, interferes too much, and is just simply too much…Call me all the names you want, but I value freedom and liberty higher than your government benefit.
The Piper
re 25: “Chinga tu Madre en Quatro de Julio.” Ruben Sano
Piper: “The modern-day Pachuco refuses to die.” Ruben Sano
Piper
FWIW The USA is near rthe bottom ih t6ax load per citizen DESPITE a military budget that is bigger than the wrest of the World.
How is this possible?
We deliver less services to the average. Our regressive system charges people for government services that providea more equal playing field elsewhere. In other words .. you are correct thye rich pay more because they get a disproportionate share of pubic services.
Instad of obsessing with out low taxes, take a lok at the low services we get vs. other developed countries.
@48…SJ…
People all the time hold up European countries and Canada as models. High taxes, high levels of so-called “services,” yet that, to me, is anathema.
There is no such thing as taxed to little. Unless, that is, you’re Congressman Charles Rangel who never heard of private dollar he didn’t want to confiscate on behalf of the federal government.
Read http://www.townhall.com/column.....nt_rangula
I would rather forego many of the “services” (let’s start with everything that begins “National Endowment for…”) and keep the money. Those who wish may then voluntarily contribute their savings to what, were they private charities, might be worthwhile causes.
It ought to be a free country.
The Piper
re 45: Where Conservatives and Progressives diverge is that Conservatives seem unable to understand that the rise of Global Corporatism and its close affiliation with governments (elected or not) creates a uniform and largely unelected and largely unrestrained political force that threatens to destroy the personal freedom you profess to value.
The only force that would be strong enough to control or counter that of the global corporations would be a government that is in reality of the people and for the people.
Progressives work within the Democratic Party because that party nominally professes to believe the things that Progressives believe (although the actions of the Pelosis, Clintons, Emmanuels, Bidens, and Obamas give that profession of solidarity the lie).
Your party, on the other hand, eagerly buys into the bullshit notion that corporations are persons and should have the legal protections that persons have.
That’s why we call you guys: ‘Good Germans”. Like Sergeant Schulz, when the walls come tumbling down, you will all profess to: “Know nothing!”
@46 & 47…HL…
Thank you for letting us all know that you are a Frank Zappa fan.
I’ve been sworn at repeatedly in English on this blog, might as well make it in Spanish, too.
The Piper
Piper: The money that Halliburton gets today (that company being just one example) will be PAID BACK by the generations that follow.
So, I fail to see the reality and significance of your argument. I see governments and corporations sucking the life and treasure of the world’s populations and refusing to give anything in return.
Your arguments, Piper, may have had some relevance to the excesses of the War on Poverty in the era of Lyndon Johnson, but it has absolutely no relevance to the world we live in today.
You stubbornly cling to a discredited political philosophy that is very damaging to you and me and the generations to follow.
As Gerald Ford (literally) never learned to do — you must. You must learn upon which side of the English muffin you put the butter.
re 51: Don’t try to kid me, Piper. I know that you had no clue as to who ‘Ruben Sano’ was. You Googled thename. I, on the other hand, did not Google or search for the meanings of your pretentious Latin quotations.
Why? Because with you, Piper, there is no prize at the end of the search. It’s just another empty bag of wind.
@50…HL…
Conservatives and so-called “progressives” diverge an a great deal more than the role of corporations in society.
BTW…the notion that a corporation is a “person” before the law isn’t something cooked up in a back room at the RNC. A few hundred years of Common Law had something to do with it.
Where I sit, Big government, big labor (an oxymoron given it’s continually shrinking size), and big business are a triumverate. Witness Prop 1.
Your paranoia about global corporations rest more in looking for something at the feet of which to lay blame for things not turning out the way you wish. Lose an election, blame a conspiracy rather than face the fact the people decided they wanted the other candidate or agreed with the other position.
In seeking to resist the globalization of commerce and business, you’re baying at the moon or, to use a more apt analogy, commanding the tide to not come in like old King Canute did in Viking England.
I fear government more than I do corporations. Government can seize my property, imprison me, take my life, while corporations can simply ruin my business and beguile me with ads such that I indulge in a profligate lifestyle.
A government that is of and for the people is strictly imited in order not to infringe upon the freedoms and liberty of the people. A primary area of that limitation is economic; the government should be alloted the least amount of our resources necessary in order to perform its functions.
Of course, extraordinary circumstances call for flexibility. There are times when the power of government, representing the collective will of the people, must be brought to bear against either a foreign enemy or a domestic crisis. Yet the two are handled best by diametrically opposed assertions of governmental power.
On the foreign front, a united and aggressive policy in favor of pursuing national interests is best, while, domestically, a more “hands off” coordinating role that provides leadership to state and local governments and the private sector is better (witness the tremendous response to the California fires where well trained and competent state and local government leaders are performing in an outstanding manner).
If you see yourself as a helpless victim in the face of corporations, no government on the face of the earth can protect you. Self-created victims revel in their victimhood; theirs is not a case of injustice, it’s an unwillingness to engage life on life’s terms and make the best of your own situation.
If I must be relegated to the status of one more sheep in the flock by an overweaning government that always knows better than do I what’s best for me, then I’ll take a corporation any day. At least with a corporation, there’s room for advancement.
The Piper
@53…HL…
I’ve no problem admitting I Googled the Ruben Sarno thing. As a child of the 60’s, I’m well aware, though I was never a fan of, Frank Zappa.
I know just enough Spanish to recognize the insult you tossed my way. Glad to see your vocabulary is limited in more than one language.
Ain’t a education a wonderful thing???
The Piper
@49: Proof that Pip is a sociopath.
@52…HL…
Weaving throughout your posts is the strain of liberal thought that evidences the truth of one of my foundational premises: Liberals think conservatives are lesser beings – dumber, evil, snarky, yellow-toothed, mentally ill, etc. – while conservatives simply think liberals are wrong.
15-years ago, had you said this:
“Your arguments, Piper, may have had some relevance to the excesses of the War on Poverty in the era of Lyndon Johnson…”
You would have been called a hater, evil Republican, oppresser of the poor, no friend to progressives, etc.
HL, I believe there’s hope for you yet!
You rail at central-casting-fed villains (Ooooohhh!!!! Haliburton!!!! Oooooh!!!!) without regard to asking yourself who else is out there to do the work. And you fail to see the reality and significance of my arguments because yours is the POV of a cloistered ideological enclave.
Get thee to a netroot nunnery!
Now you profess disappointment with your Democratic party divines. Not red enough for you, are they? Remember, they’re running for office in the U.S., not a now-defunct Soviet republic. Seems as though in your world view, a Barack Obama has more in common with me than he does you.
Is it hard being so lonely?
The Piper
re 54: A few hundred years, my eye! Supreme Court decision, 1886.
It was less of a decision than a declaration.
Bag of wind, Piper. You are a bag of hot air.
@58…HL…
Thank you for defining me. I hope your other manifestations of borderline personality disorder receive treatment at the earliest possible opportunity.
What 1886 SCOTUS decision? There were several that year.
The Piper
re 57 — Monday’s column by Jonah Goldberg typifies the conservative mode of: “I’ll see and hear what I want to hear, and nothing more!” Goldberg bemoans the unfair treatment that Bork received at the hands of all the bad, bad Liberals. He considers it some kind of unprecedented evil unleashed on an innocent Bork for no other reason than that Bork is ‘conservative’.
Well, Piper, does the name Abe Fortas ring a bell? Payback’s a bitch — and there is a boatload more headed your way.
If you think 2006 was bad: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
re 59: The one that relates to a railroad company in California. I’m a Socratic teacher. I’m not going to just give you the answers. You’re going to have to dig a little.
re 59: And this brings us full circle to your intellectual pretentions and your lack of a solid, liberal education.
Piper: I Googled “1886 SCOTUS railroad” and it came right up.
Well, Piper, I cannot find any references anywhere to the hundreds of years of English common law granting personhood to corporations.
I can scarcely imagine what old, puckered brown hole you pulled that gem out of. I think I’m smarter than you — because I am.
@61…HL…
You mean, SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO.,
118 U.S. 394 (1886)?
Please show me in the opinion where it holds such as you contend.
The Piper
@61…HL…
Socrates called…He wants you to stop claiming him as a prototype. Instead, he regards you as one who might have been his last bartender.
The Piper
Actually, Piper, you better head back to your WingNutz™ talking point websites and collect some idiotic talking-points that attempt to contradict the simple truth.
You have spent this many years bending your mind into a conservative pretzel, you may as well spend a little more exploring your pretzel logic. (That’s a ‘Steely Dan’ reference. heh!)And ‘Steely Dan’ is a literary reference.
How do I know all these things? Because I’m smarter than you.
re 65: As they used to say in my old neighborhood: “N….r, Please!”
Piper: Did you know that Donald Fagan used to be a member of ‘Jay and the Americans’?
Piper: You are too old to be a baby boomer, aren’t you? You are the tail end of the Silent Generation.
@68…HL…
Did you read the case?
Do you know the history of English Common Law? And the notion of juristic person? Did you know that corporations are “persons” for legal purposes all over the world?
You’re falling back into looney lefty default mode instead of addressing the questions asked. Doesn’t your sheet of instructions from your ideolgical masters give you any guidance beyond this point?
The more you insist upon how smart you are, the more you prove the false premise of your insistance. If you have to tell everyone, you lose the battle before the first shot was fired.
Again…did you read the case?
The Piper
@70…HL…
Your…interesting…fascination with details of my personal life is…uhm…not quite flattering, but…let’s stick with interesting.
Just to ease your mind…DOB: 12/09/49. By every definition a Boomer!
The Piper
#71: Playin’ catch-up again, Piper? An hour ago you’d never heard of the case and now you have the temerity to challenge me on whether I’ve read it or not?
I know that you haven’t.
But I also know that you have most likely dredged up and read some little, arcane WingNutz™ talking point and you are just dieing to play ‘Contrarian Piper the Secret Smartypants’.
Sorry, bub, I’m not playin’.
Piper @ 54 (et. al)
Government can seize my property, imprison me, take my life, while corporations can simply ruin my business and beguile me with ads such that I indulge in a profligate lifestyle.
You forget the part where they can sell you tainted meat, lock your family members in a workshop while they burn to death, cheat you of your wages in overpriced company stores, or throw so much muck in the river it catches fire
No, that doesn’t happen anymore. Usually. At least not here. That’s because we have a government which regulates corporations and curbs some of their worst excesses. As citizens, we also have a responsibility to curb some of government’s worst excesses.
As Winston Churchill might have said if he were asked to quote on the subject “Capitalism is the worst form of economics except for all of the others that have been tried from time to time”.
Speaking as someone who has spent most of my life working in entrepreneurial businesses, and who is plenty keen on money, thank you very much, I think you have an overly rosy and optimistic view on the nature of corporations and the people who run them. People who run corporations aren’t evil. No more than any other large group of people. They do tend to be very driven, very competitive, and not above using the occasional sharp elbow when necessary. Just like top-flight athletes at a game, it’s not unreasonable to have a referee to keep things honest and fair.
Corporations are fortunate. As voluntary cooperatives, they get to pick who they want working for them. This is as it should be. However, government has to represent everyone, not just the swift, the strong, the smart, and the ambitious.
You also have a very simplistic attitude about why the US (arguably) works better than other countries. High taxes == less wealth. Wow! Tax collection has completely stopped in Somalia. It ought to be the richest place on Earth. I would argue that Continental Europe’s overly rigid labor laws have as much to do with their growth (or lack thereof) than their pensions or taxes. It’s hard to let go of people when business goes down, and so you have to be overly conservative about hiring when business is good. Laws that intend to protect jobs fail to create new ones.
Likewise, Canada’s stiff, conservative banking and financial system has a lot more to do with why it is the country it is than the fact that they grant maternity pay or provide decent schools and community centers with tax money.
Yes, if you’re well-to-do, have a paid for house or three and a well-stuffed bank account, government is nothing but a transfer mechanism to take money from you and give it back. That is, and always has been a minority of the members of society. I am a member of that class and so are you. You are willing to say “I got mine, you go off and get yours too!”. I am not.
You bring up some good points. Globalization is happening and there isn’t much that government can do about the fact that it’s coming. For people with education and skills, this is a wonderful thing. Markets get bigger, opportunities get bigger, and the amount of money on the table expands. For people who don’t have portable skills and find their jobs are on the Pearl River Delta or somewhere outside of Chennai, not so much.
The question is what can be done to address that. More education is obvious, but some folks are harder to educate than others. 50 years ago, the C students would be told “well, I guess you can always dig ditches or fix cars”. Fixing cars is a skilled trade these days, and mechanization means we don’t need so many ditchdiggers as before. So what do you do when everyone who wants to have anything above a minimum-wage job needs to be an A or B student? If you think you have an answer for that, I’m all ears.
We also have a lot of people right now who are having hard times because of the effects of globalization on our economy. I suppose you could shrug and say “Sorry. I hope your children do better and take care of you in your old age.” but that seems like a cop-out to me. More has to be done.
I ask you again, Piper: Who, or what, was Steely Dan? (The literary one.)
I’ll give you a little help. The author is Terry Southern.
If you can name the book. You win the prize!
@73…HL…
Au contraire! I had heard of it, but I needed to refresh my recollecion thereon. It’s been a while.
Again the question: Have you read it? Does its holding support your contention? Have you looked into the Common Law notion of a corporate entity regarded as a “person” for purposes of the law? That it can sue and be sued in its own name rather than in the name of its shareholders? That it exists apart from its shareholders? That it can own property in its name rather than the name of its shareholders?
Look before you leap…
The Piper
@74…HL…
I didn’t know this was a contest.
While familiar with Terry Southern, I couldn’t off hand recall the context. Candy…a gender-flipping version of Voltaire’s Candide…made into a semi-naughty movie.
That’s as much Terry Southern as I’m in the mood for today.
Keep your prize…I don’t need a Che t-shirt.
The Piper
As a humorous aside Piper, you believe in the economic inevitability of globalization, with all that means for transit of capital, labor and jobs, but in the thread yesterday, you wanted to build a rhetorical fence to keep anyone other than people with a 45-year coat of moss on their North side out of the Northwest.
I see a teeny tiny contradiction here. Do you?
77…JSA on CD…
Did you move?
Rather than re-quote the Emerson dictum on consistency for the umpteenth time, let me just say that it’s not that important for me.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large—I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass.”
You can have all the globalization you want while keeping the riff raff out at the same time. If they wish a PNW experience, there’s always Oregon.
The Piper
jsa divides his time between Beacon Hill in South Seattle and Commercial Drive in East Vancouver. They are similar (rapidly gentrifying immigrant neighborhoods). One has good Mexican food. The other has good Italian grub. Both have good libraries, good schools, and tons of kids. One has industrial strength horticulture available on demand. The other, not quite so much.
I have been under the “commercial drive” moniker for nearly two years now, and autopiloted the name entry. SJ types with mittens on. I type on autopilot, which is one of the things that makes my entries so long.
I was mostly giving you a hard time. I don’t expect you (or anyone else) to be consistent all the time.
re 76: They don’t make them big enough to fit you. You’d look like Haggis in cammo.
re 78: Your constant quoting of Emerson and Whitman’s ‘dictum’ effectively shuts down any discourse with you because when somwone points out a weakness in your argument, you simply state that you are so capacious that you simply ‘contain’ the contradictions.
Well, far be it from me to judge another, but you are no Whitman or Emerson, and your use of them is just a cheezy Winger rhetorical device.
“NO! NO! DON’T SPEAK TO ME! I CONTAIN MANY CONTRADICTIONS!”
Your mind, Piper, is not a finely aged wine — just a smelly, old cheese.
I also see the filter has held one of my longer posts. ZOMG! Censorship! Goldy hates conservatives! You can’t handle the truth! eleventy!11!!!!
If a corporation is a person, and that person is owned by shareholders, are the shareholders engaged in slavery?
Obviously, the English common law construct that a corporation is a person is more in the nature of a literary conceit than something to be taken literally. The SCOTUS decision gives corporations 14th amendment rights, which obviously are not a part of English common law.
Besides, English common law (much like Whitman and Emerson) contains many contradictions which we are not necessarily bound to follow — much the way this administration treats habeus corpus.
@79…JSA of Indeterminate Locale…
I recognized you were tugging on my kilt.
Trust me…during my days in the band when we played some of the dives we did on St. Patrick’s Day, my kilt got tugged mucho. Every drunk in town wanted to see if it was true…
No worries, mate…
The Piper
@81…HL…
If I’m smelly old cheese, then I must be right up your alley.
If you carefully analyze Emerson’s quote, he emphasizes “Foolish consistencies…etc.” Since I’m pretty consistent on the big things and core values, I shan’t be loosing any sleep at night.
If my contradictions confound or bother you…I’m happy to offer them up.
The Piper
@83…HL…
Did your legal education come from the inside of a matchbook cover?
A corporation is a “person” under the law, but not all “persons” are “natural persons.”
Did you read the opinion in the Santa Clara County case? Might want to before going too far down the route you’ve chosen.
So…tell me…how are your habeus corpus rights at issue herein?
The Piper
So, what about the 14th amendment rights that the decision gives corporations? Do you think an ‘unnatural person’ needs or deserves those rights.
I don’t.
You have a positive losthing of the meat of the argument, don’t you?
More to the point, Piper: Did YOU read the decision?
http://www.thomhartmann.com/un.....tion.shtml
“Because of a mistaken interpretation of a Supreme Court reporter’s notes in an 1886 railroad tax case, corporations are now legally considered “persons,” equal to humans and entitled to many of the same protections guaranteed only to humans by the Bill of Rights – a clear contradiction of the intent of the Founders of the United States. The results of this “corporate personhood” have been:
• Unequal taxes
• Unequal privacy
• Unequal wealth
• Unequal trade
• Unequal media
• Unequal regulation
• Unequal responsibility for crime
• Unequal protection from risk
• Unequal citizenship and access to the commons ”
You are just copying the wikipedia entry, Piper, the Cliff-Note intellectual. I’ll bet in grade school you did your book reports from ‘Classics Illustrated”.
@87…HL…
Did you actually read the opinion?
In order for there to be a viable economic system, there must be a system of law that’s predictable, consistent, and not subject to corruption. No less than natural persons, corporate and other entities are entitled to due process and equal protection.
Cardozo’s notion of “ordered liberty” by which the 14th Amendement was used to apply to the states some, but not all, of the provisions of the Bill of Rights shouldn’t be confused with individual state law, which governs corporations.
Note that, aside from Congressionally chartered corporations, there isn’t a federal process by which to incorporate. State law governs, and the law in each state has, since day one, regarded a corporation as a person in its courts.
As an aside…ever tried filing for a divorce in a federal court?
You confuse apples and oranges.
First…The Santa Clara case doesn’t hold that corporations are “persons” per the 14th Amendment; any contrary referance was an editing error by the writer of head notes.
Second…I do believe that all “persons,” whether natural or juristic, are entitled to Constitutional protection.
Third…The Constitutional rights of corporations don’t equate with those of natural persons; corporate First Amendment rights are considerably less than those of a natural person.
Fourth…As a legal commentator, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Again…Did you read the case? The Opinion?
It’s pretty obvious you have a hatred of corporations, to which you’re entitled per the First Amendment. But your loathing of what the law is doesn’t constitute grounds for saying that the law is different or even should be different.
Read the case, then learn something about a topic before proclaiming expertise. You might start with Walter Bagehot’s, “The English Constitution,” and anything by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
That is, if you can squeeze it in between issues of People Magazine.
The Piper
@89…HL…
Yes…the first time back in the very early 70’s, and then again today, albeit skipping over the minutae of the case’s facts.
Again…your legal education?
The Piper
I’ll tell you about my legal education when you tell me about your degree in climatology.
It’s a legal axiom that ignorance of the law is no excuse. That being the case, everyone is required by law to be their own expert.
By the By, Piper, did you know that the SCOTUS has ruled that corporations, as persons, are entitled to political expression? And that contributing money is a form of political expression.
@93…HL…
I don’t have a degree in climatology, nor do I claim expert credentials. What I am, however, is a skeptic, and I don’t trust many of the climate change advocates because I either know them from other venues (Al Gore) or I’ve seen their kind before (late 60’s poplulation bomb alarmists).
I don’t believe the debate is over, nor am I convinced that what climate change that has taken place is exclusively caused by people.
The law does not require everyone to be their own expert. Your ignorance of the rules and law of evidence is apparent.
Please provide me a citation to a SCOTUS case supporting your contention that corporations cannot be prohibited from making direct political contributions. They’re allowed under current state law to contribute to campaigns just like unions. You have a similar problem with unions contributing? Unions share the same constitutational juristic status as do corporations.
My idea of political campaign reform is no limit on contributions, all contributions from individual human beings (no PAC’s, unions, corporations, or ancillary groups), and all contributions must be publicly reported and posted on the Internet within, say 36-hours of receipt…no exceptions! Let the public decide if a campaign is subject to undue influence.
The Piper
Piper, you are indeed a halfwit. Here’s what I said:”By the By, Piper, did you know that the SCOTUS has ruled that corporations, as persons, are entitled to political expression? And that contributing money is a form of political expression.”
Piper’s interpretation: “Please provide me a citation to a SCOTUS case supporting your contention that corporations cannot be prohibited from making direct political contributions. They’re allowed under current state law to contribute to campaigns just like unions. You have a similar problem with unions contributing? Unions share the same constitutational juristic status as do corporations.”
Piper’s interpretation is that I said the opposite of what I said.
Piper says: “You have a similar problem with unions contributing? Unions share the same constitutational juristic status as do corporations.” That’s far afield from the question. You are muddying the waters by bringing in unions. AND
Do you agree with EFF’s efforts to prevent the unions in WA from making political contributions?
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/corplaw.htm
Here are some of the regulations that limited the activities of corporations in the U.S. prior to 1887. I’ve never seen you so passionate about freedom as when you are defending the rights of a sheaf of papers – or maybe it’s the irresponsible people who hide behind the sheaf:
“Limited Duration: Charters were granted only for a period of 10, 20 or 30 years after which the corporation had to be liquidated with the proceeds distributed among the shareholders.
Limited Land Holdings: Many states imposed limitations on the amount of land a corporation could own. Most often the amount of land was limited to that required for the factory or mill site.
Limited Capital Holdings: Once again many states limited the amount of money or financial assets a corporation could own. Some state banned corporations from owning other corporations or stock in them. Once a corporation exceeded the limit, it had to be either dissolved or split.
Specific Purpose Charters: This was perhaps the most common of all restrictions in the early years of this country. Corporations were chartered only for a specific purpose such as the building of a canal or road.Once the stated purpose was completed the corporation was dissolved. Now charters were issued that enabled a corporation to engage in any type of businesses.
No Limitations on Liability: Directors, managers and shareholders were held to be fully liable for any debts or damages. In some cases the lender or injured party was entitled to double or triple the damages. Other states imposed extremely high interest rates until the debt was fully paid.
Restrictive Shareholder Rights: The internal governance of corporations was much more restrictive than today. Shareholders had more rights. In case of mergers some states required a unanimous vote of shareholders.
Restrictions on Pricing: Some states maintained the right to set prices on corporate products. Wisconsin for one gave the state legislature the power to set prices on products after reviewing the corporations expenses.
Revocable Charters: States maintained the right to revoke or change a charter at the will of the it’s legislature. Almost all of the states adopted this clause after 1820.”
@96…Pinehead…
So what? What’s your point? Corporations can be limited in scope, duration, function, or whatever if the legislature so directs. Big deal. That has nothing to do with the central point of whether a corporation is a “person” under the law.
BTW…most of the limitations you cite have, themselves, gone the way of the dodo bird. Still the preferred method of orginization for businesses, incorporating offers many advantages.
What exactly do you have against the corporate form and corporate governance?
The Piper
@95…Pinecone…
Read Federal Election Commission v. Beaumont, 539 U.S. 146 (2003), then revisit your POV…
The Piper
Muslims Against Sharia congratulate David Horowitz FREEDOM CENTER and Mike Adams, Tammy Bruce, Phyllis Chesler, Ann Coulter, Nonie Darwish, Greg Davis, Stephen Gale, David Horowitz, Joe Kaufman, Michael Ledeen, Michael Medved, Alan Nathan, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Daphne Patai, Daniel Pipes, Dennis Prager, Luana Saghieh, Rick Santorum, Jonathan Schanzer, Christina Sommers, Robert Spencer, Brian Sussman, Ed Turzanski, Ibn Warraq and other speakers on the success of the Islamofascism Awareness Week.
Islamofascism (or Islamism) is the main threat facing modern civilization and ignorance about this threat is astounding. We hope that this event becomes regular and reaches every campus.
A great many Westerners do not see the clear distinction between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism). They need to understand that the difference between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism) is the same as the difference between Christianity and Christian Identity Movement (White Supremacy Movement).
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