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Nope you have it backwards.

Nope. It's the way of things. Whether you Admit it or not.

It's the Progressives who only respect a right when it benefits them.

Nope. The way it works is that Conservatives make claims about Progressives, expect us to ignore what they've said and done, and then mysteriously, expect us not to notice the rank hypocrisy that they possess themselves as they do what they want to do anyway.

It is part of their false virtues. When it comes down to it, I'd respect somebody who admitted what they were doing, rather than try to cloak it in sanctimony like Conservatives do.

Privacy is enshrined in the 4th Amendment as any US Conservative will tell you.

The 4th amendment, according to Conservatives only limits the government in its searches, providing no other protection, but you know this since...

We may admit that it's not as all encompassing a protected right as some would like.

Oh good, you admit your principles, if not as earnestly as you might have.

But it is there in our "Precious" Bill of Rights and it most certainly does exist.

Not according to Conservative thought. It isn't there at all. They wouldn't have a problem with this kind of ID, though fortunately, their own abusive acts keep losing in court.

I think both of you missed the point. The fact that the Constitution does not address privacy as a specific right does not mean privacy is not a right. From the 9th Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Nope you have it backwards.

Nope. It's the way of things. Whether you Admit it or not.

It's the Progressives who only respect a right when it benefits them.

Nope. The way it works is that Conservatives make claims about Progressives, expect us to ignore what they've said and done, and then mysteriously, expect us not to notice the rank hypocrisy that they possess themselves as they do what they want to do anyway.

It is part of their false virtues. When it comes down to it, I'd respect somebody who admitted what they were doing, rather than try to cloak it in sanctimony like Conservatives do.

Privacy is enshrined in the 4th Amendment as any US Conservative will tell you.

The 4th amendment, according to Conservatives only limits the government in its searches, providing no other protection, but you know this since...

We may admit that it's not as all encompassing a protected right as some would like.

Oh good, you admit your principles, if not as earnestly as you might have.

But it is there in our "Precious" Bill of Rights and it most certainly does exist.

Not according to Conservative thought. It isn't there at all. They wouldn't have a problem with this kind of ID, though fortunately, their own abusive acts keep losing in court.

Um, no.

Um, yeah.

The president was impeached by the

But illegally removed from office. Ukraine's constitution requires a 2/3 vote to impeach a president, but a 3/4 vote to remove him from office. 328 votes is well short of that 3/4 majority. An analogous situation would be if Republicans forced Bill Clinton out of the country if they had 60 votes to convict in the Senate - but the Constitution requires 67.

If you don't support what the protesters achieved in the Ukraine then you don't support democracy, it's as simple as that.

You're so far off-base you're off-planet, it's as simple as that. The United States has spent five biiiiiiiilion dollars propping up the pro-West faction of the country. The first thing the "interm" government did was to strip Crimea of it's autonomy while starting to crack down on ethnic Russians. Oh, and installed the founder of a neo-nazi party as head of the country's security. Like the right wing in Venezuela, they are trying to do by force what they failed to do at the ballot box.

By supporting this coup, you are opposing democracy.

You touch on a lot of good stuff ()... ISPs are () datacenters, datacenters handle bandwidth... on a large enough scale bandwidth = power.

And power = control, therefore bandwidth = control.

Apparently the U.N. (World Summit on the Information Society) and the German courts believe that bandwidth has become fundamental to modern life.

However, the U.S. still believes it has the option of doing pretty much as they please, so don't expect a corporation acting with its blessing to feel beholden to a set of ideals which may conflict with expediency in the exercise of governmental power or worse, revenue. After all, Constitutional War Powers, the Geneva Conventions of War, Habeas Corpus, Federal Information Surveillance Act, the reasonable search requirements of the Fourth Amendment, and the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (for persons, not artificial persons) have all been under duress from Congress and the president, for quite some time.

Unequal Protection, for those of you who don't mind the intrigues of history, is a good read on the history of the corporate assault on the individual rights of persons, which the architects of the U.S. government attempted to protect from assault by that very same institution. Not that I mind the notion of self determination and fundamental freedoms or my ability to speak my mind, but the hypocrisies apparent in the distribution of power seem undeniable when the interests of corporations dominate the everyday life of individuals in health care, environmental protection, adjudication of legal priority in the contest between religious freedom and the institution of the Church.

The economy is in chaos because the greedheads don't understand reasonable limits, and the weakness of men has unveiled the institutionalized classicism we inherited from our European predecessors and embedded beneath the facade of equality!

It's feudal!

I always thought it was the pigeons from planet Zenu. Of course it could also be the squirrels. This is why you never see baby ones as each year they are all collected with their cache of data and new ones put in their place.

I'll get hate for saying it but in this case its probably an insult to the Nazis. During "Springtime for Hitler" in the mid 30s the Nazis were actually quite popular because as Hitler's bodyguard put it in the excellent BBC series "World At War" "At the time we were in a bad way, yes a very bad way. they promised us bread and jobs which seems like such a trivial thing now but then that meant a lot when you couldn't feed your family" so while the Nazis gave the boot to anybody that wasn't like them they also put the country back to work modernizing their systems whereas in America they just ship the jobs overseas or hire illegals and give you the boot. I doubt VERY seriously you'd find the US government popular with anybody but multigenerational superelite who have been making out like robber barons of old.

I'd urge everyone to read this article that drives a stake in the "job creators and lower taxes' lie, followed by this one on corporate taxes and finally some numbers that will make you sick. They are quite a good read and will help to show why we have gotten where we are. Personally i think the elite at the top are trying to condition the public to a mindset of fear so they won't have an uprising spread if they should roll the tanks. they have already seen what the Arab Springs have done to systems that had been there for years and they know they can only juggle the numbers, lie about the true unemployment figures, and print money like there is no tomorrow for so long before the thing falls down and we become another failed country like Greece. I don't know which is worse, the thought they might actually turn the tanks on us or decide that its our turn to be the bad guys and do what Germany did to Poland in South America. But I doubt the rulers at the top of the food chain will just go without a fight, nor do i think after buying the entire congress for years they will just sit by and let the people bring fairness back into the system no matter how badly we as a nation are suffering. i think its gonna get ugly folks, really ugly.

Actually if you look at our history the times of the highest growth was when the top tax rate was 70% or above which makes perfect sense if you think about it. you see when you have a tax rate that high for the uber rich if they sit on the money then they don't sit on the money, they invest it instead since there was all these provisions that lowered their tax rates if they used the money to increase productivity. Now they simply set it overseas thanks to being able to electronically send it anywhere in a nanosecond or just dodge the taxes all together like the double dutch and Irish tax scams. For a good read on the subject i'd suggest this article where the author lays it out clearly and concisely and puts that 'job creators need lower taxes' myth to bed. to see what the lowest taxes on the top 1% in the history of our country has done for us follow it up with this article which again lays out the facts and shows if lower taxes on the wealthy were to actually create jobs they sure as fuck aren't being created here.

in the end its not about fair or letting some fifth generation superrich continue the dynasty, its about a government doing what its supposed to do which is promote the welfare of the entire country and not just a specific class. As Buffet so accurately put it "We have had class warfare for years and we're winning" which all you have to do is look out a window at the boarded up homes and closed factories across this once great nation to know this is true.

If you like Franken, listen to the Thomm Hartman radio show on Friday mornings. Bernie Sanders is on every Friday at 9am (pst) for one hour.

Then why are they not all in Somalia? No taxes at all there. Because from the stats I've seen higher taxes on the wealthy lead to lower unemployement and greater economic growth yet all we hear from the right is "Give teh rich more MONIES! nom nom nom". If this strategy worked, why didn't Raygun sit on top of unprecedented growth? Oh right, we had a nice little recession after he cut the hell out of taxes on the rich.

Its actually quite simple, the rich hoard, the poor and middle class spend. All that money being hoarded? is dead money, its gone, poof! If they invest it it sure ain't here. No in the past 30 years we've had trickle upon, voodoo economics, the "hey lets have trade agreements with those with NO workers rights or environmental laws, that'll work!", two wars while CUTTING taxes, the first time in the entire history of the USA that's happened BTW, and "bailout baby bailout".

If the right were correct in their theory, why we should be having a hell of a economy, with jobs everywhere....oh wait, they used their tax breaks to close 21,000 factories in this decade alone. Why? Because in China they can poison the workers, the air, the water, and it costs them NOTHING. No OSHA, no clean air act, no workman's comp, they can give every worker cancer and all they'll get is fired.

Is that REALLY the America you want? Where your kids play outside wearing gas masks so they don't get sick, and where your ass better have enough money for purified water or you will suck down so many toxins you might as well drink gasoline? Personally I like having clean air, water, and not working in sweatshops, thanks. of course that must make me an evil socialist since I don't support everything that can be done to maximize profits, which in the end is all the right gives a fuck about.

Uhhhh...hate to break the news to ya bud, but starting TWO WARS while LOWERING taxes? That has NEVER happened in the entire history of this country, and that dumb shit can be laid squarely at the feet of Dubya. Oh and just FYI but you might want to look at the stats which clearly point out that higher taxes on the wealthy lead to lower unemployement and greater economic growth but don't let that get in the way of the classic right wing "Give teh rich MORE MONIES! Nom nom nom!" rant now. BTW you DO know the teabaggers think rasing payroll taxes, you know, the taxes peasants like you pay, is a-ok? meanwhile Bachmann is talking about how the corps should pay no taxes at all because the rich are just God's blessed don't ya know?

The problem with Obama is he is the biggest damned pussy since Jimmy "I ain't got no backbone!" Carter and hasn't the balls to stand up to teabaggers, or anybody else for that matter. Whatever they want all they have to do is act tough and Obama will roll over like a whipped dog. Of course he will end up winning in 2012 simply because the teabaggers will make sure Perry gets it, and anybody saying "Social security should be wiped out" is about as electable as David Duke, not to mention his "record" is such wonderful things like 1st in teen pregnancies, most people working for minimum wage, most pollution, most HS dropouts, most people without medical or dental care, hell the man makes Dubya look like Lincoln!

Riiiiiight. So starting not ONE but TWO wars while, for the first time EVER in our nation's history, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy like in every. other. war. having a president go "Hey ya know what, teh rich are only up to 85% of teh wealth! That ain't right, lets give em more MONIES nom nom nom" didn't do anything because.....what? The magic Texas fairies pulled magic money out their teeny tiny asses?

Sadly what is wrong with this country can be described in a single sentence..."Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom". After all lets take a look at what that policy has gotten us so far. We had Trickle Upon (80-88), Voodoo economics (88-92), Hey lets set up trade deals with countries with NO environmental nor worker laws (92-00), the above "Lets start two wars while LOWERING taxes on teh rich LOL!" (00-08) and finally "Bailout teh rich baby, bailout teh rich!" (08-Present).

The truly sad part, and why the poster above you with their description of republicans as cartoon villains is entirely apropos, is that if they cared about the country instead of their kickbacks and enriching themselves they would see what both the data and common sense tells us, namely that higher taxes on the wealthy increases economic growth and creates more jobs and anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would understand that if they get taxed if they hoard it the rich will instead INVEST it in new businesses, duh. The rich hoard, the poor spend. Is this REALLY so hard to understand?

Apparently it is, because to those on the right there is only ONE answer, the one that they cling to like a greedy child clinging to the candy jar..."Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom". No jobs, high unemployment? Why "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom".A single illness wipes out your family, companies like GE get tax breaks and bailouts and then send the factory to India? "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom". illegal immigration, rampant crime, children going to bed hungry in America? "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom"..

A truly wise man once said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" and if things continue along this path, with ever swelling masses of the poor while the top 1% hold more than 90% of the country's wealth at last count? Well I predict they'll be some watering in our future. There have been plenty of examples in history to what happens when wealth becomes to concentrated, too many poor. The French Revolution and Pol Pot come to mind, neither outcome was very pretty for the wealthy.

Actually your AC posting just proves YET AGAIN that the teabaggers (which that phrase has actually been adopted by many, I guess they don't play Halo) don't have a fucking clue as the ones working likewise want government help to ensure that a single illness doesn't wipe them out which sadly they've seen happen again, and again, AND again. I should know as my sister passed in 2007 after a long cancer fight leaving two teenage boys and bills to this day we are fighting against.

So frankly you and the other teabaggers can all DIAF for all I care. you seem to be just fine for "bailout baby bailout" when it comes to big banks, big pharma, and of course you've NEVER met a military money sink you didn't like. How many teabaggers are all for the two wars under Dubya? yet they DEMAND that they get to keep their tax breaks even though we are AT WAR and never in the ENTIRE history of this country have we been AT WAR and not had tax hikes, yet the baggers act like its a God given right.

Of course in the end its just another spin by the Kock bros on the classic "give teh rich MORE MONIES nom nom nom!" which they've been pushing for damned near 40 years. it got us trickle upon (80-88) voodoo economics (88-92) having "free trade" with those that have NO environmental or worker protections (92-00) followed by "hey the rich only control 85% of teh wealth! Lets give them BIG TAX BREAKS while starting TWO wars LOL!" (00-08) finally we are up to "Bailout the rich baby, bailout the rich!" (08-present).. Did I miss anything?

The teabagger bullshit is just another spin on the same fantasy that if you "Give teh rich MORE MONIES! nom nom nom" that this will magically trickle upon the working poor, which is total horseshit. in reality simple facts and common sense (something that is an oxymoron when it comes to teabaggers I know) says that higher taxes on the wealthy leads to lower unemployment and more job growth since if they get taxed if they keep it they invest it into businesses instead of hoarding it. The poor spend, the rich hoard. This is basic econ 101.

But please keep spouting the teabagger bullshit, i'm sure the Kock bros (misspelling intentional because they are serious pricks) sitting in the Lear jet are quite happy they have plenty of useful idiots such as yourself.

Hi MR Teabagger! I just love how your choices are "fire everyone and become a communist state" or "let those poor 1%ers keep on NOT PAYING TAXES which will magically trickle upon the rest of us!". Funny your should bring up Buffet's company when Buffet himself, and I quote, says "There is something wrong with this country when my secretary pays more taxes than I do". And I notice you didn't say shit about the fact that NEVER in our history have we been at war and NOT raised taxes...ever.

So waste your mod points labeling me a troll for daring to call out your bullshit. but statistics as well as common sense shows that higher taxes on the wealthy increases employment and growth because if they get taxed if they keep it the rich will invest in businesses rather than pay the higher tax. Its common sense, the rich hoard, the poor spend and thus keep it in the economy. The majority of that money gates and his pals are sitting on is "dead money" for all intents and purposes might as well have been burnt or sent overseas never to return for all the good it did. This is why the "Obama bucks" stayed in the economy while "bailout baby bailout" went up in smoke.

If your mythological "Give teh rich more MONIES nom nom nom!" plan for this country weren't anything but a cash grab by the top 1%, who not only have historically low taxes to begin with but then take advantage of dodges like the "double dutch" or incorporating in Ireland (Another company you named MSFT does this so they don't pay shit on their profits while the little guy? Can't afford the scams) to end up paying NO taxes or getting a tax break, which they use to send jobs overseas (Look up "GE Tax break India" to read more) then your magical bullshit WOULD HAVE WORKED BY NOW but instead we are worse off then any other time!

But what do we expect from the "we're so full of shit you can smell us before you see us" party. Lets see how your philosophy has worked...we had trickle upon (81-88), voodoo economics (88-92) Lets give free trade status to those with NO environmental or workers regulations (92-00) the "Hey the rich only control 80% of the wealth, lets give them all MASSIVE tax breaks while starting TWO wars!" plan (00-08) and finally bailout the rich baby, bailout the rich (08-present). And now of course we have the "lets fuck the poor AGAIN!" debt 'compromise'. Well let me just say from the American people I wouldn't piss upon a rich man if he were on fire and when we have our own Arab Spring, which is coming mark my words, I'll be happy to knot the rope that we hang 'em with. I predict the smart rich will re-enact the fall of Saigon as they run for the choppers to get the fuck out of here, the rest? We got a lot of rope and a lot of trees.

The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I have a feeling it is just about time to do some watering.

Wow are you REALLY that clueless? And what is with the Unix looking text? afraid of HTML or something?

Since you seem to need it explained i'll spell it out...You have a party that at EVERY SINGLE TURN tries to fuck the poor, be it cuts in medicaid/care, social security, freezes to cost of living, giving bailout to companies sending jobs overseas (look up "GE India bailout" if you wish to read about it) and generally kicking the dogshit out of the poor at every single opportunity...yet you have the poor going "please sir, can you kick me a little harder?". And my analogy is quite sound thank you. In BOTH cases you have a group that obviously looks upon a certain group with hatred, yet in this case you have the group being spit upon championing the spitters which makes about as much sense as "Blacks for the Klan" since in both cases you would be supporting someone that HATES you. And how can you describe it as anything less than hate, when most poor that are getting any assistance are living like animals on a pittance and the right wingers want to take the pittance away?

And by your post I can see you are part of the "Lets give teh rich MORE MONIES nom nom nom" party, also known as the "we're so full of shit you can smell us before you see us party" so frankly I shouldn't be surprised. Whats a matter, can't get Faux Newz to come in? Lets see how your philosophy has worked...we had trickle upon (81-88), voodoo economics (88-92) Lets give free trade status to those with NO environmental or workers regulations (92-00) the "Hey the rich only control 80% of the wealth, lets give them all MASSIVE tax breaks while starting TWO wars!" plan (00-08) and finally bailout the rich baby, bailout the rich (08-present).

If your philosophy wasn't completely full of shit we should be living in paradise, yet here we all, falling apart. your next excuse will be we "didn't let the free market work" which ironically is the excuse the communists used when their shit didn't work either. contrary to your 40+ year plan of "let teh rich have MORE MONIES nom nom nom" studies and common sense shows that higher taxes on the wealthy lead to jobs and growth for the economy since if they'll get taxed if they keep it they invest it in businesses rather than hoard it which takes it OUT of the economy and makes it 'dead money".

Are the Dems saints, not by a looong shot and too many subscribe to your "MORE MONIES nom nom nom" plan for destroying the country, but at least they don't go out of their way to kick the shit out of the peasants. The symbol for the right wing should be changed from an elephant to the monopoly man lighting a cigar with a $100 bill while kicking a poor person down a flight of stairs. that would be closer to the reality of your party.

Well considering the fact that NEVER in our history have we been at war and NOT raised taxes and we are currently in THREE wars...I think I know what the problem is! I'm not rocket scientist but 800 MILLION a day blown down rat holes shooting at brown people could be a large part of the problem me thinks.

Add to that money sinks like the Gerald Ford Aircraft carrier (uneeded, Enterprise was recently refit and is in good shape, not to mention we already have 11, more than quadruple what anyone else has) and the F35 which is insanely over budget and still isn't ready? The teabaggers may want to blame this on the poor but if we got rid of the 700+ overseas bases (uneeded, we can get to anywhere on the planet and drop bombs with our long range bombers and aircraft carriers) along with the three wars pissing money down a rathole and use our troops at home to deal with the giant leaking sieve of a border I think they'd see significant savings.

Of course that wouldn't fit into the ultimate right wing fantasy, the mantra of "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom" which they've been pushing like trickle upon for 30+ years and ran the country into the shitter with. Sadly studies along with common sense shows higher taxes on the wealthy increases employment and growth since if they get taxed if they kep it they are more likely to INVEST it into business rather than hoard, which takes it out of the economy and is "dead money". But instead we'll hear it all blamed on those dirty peasants and their little checks putting food into their dirty little mouths. The cure? Why "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom" of course!

Oh friend you wouldn't even need instructions! Since the vast majority is on Windows and DNS settings can be changed by the registry all one would have to do is post a zipped reg files to mediafire and the like and voila! The majority can bypass the bullshit as easy as "clicky clicky reboot". I'm sure there are plenty of guys like me if they break DNS with this bullshit that will be happy to flood the download hosts with re files set up to switch the clueless to functionality again.

But what do we expect when the government has been whoring itself to big business without pretense for over a decade and a half now. The will of the people is no longer being heard or listened to, only the will and desires of the rich elites. Hell look at how the right wing's answer to everything is "give teh rich more MONIES nom nom nom" when data shows that higher taxes on the rich leads to lower unemployment and increased job growth yet those writing the checks don't want that, so we get the "give teh rich more MONIES nom nom nom" policy.

So it doesn't matter how many of you wrote, sign petitions, all the things one was taught to do to change the system, because all you got was the same form letter I did from my congress whores which was bullshitese for "I don't listen to peasants".

And the sad part? For over 30 years all we have heard from the Rs is "Give teh rich more MONIES" nom nom nom when the data clearly shows that higher taxes on the wealthy leads to lower unemployment and higher growth but all they can do is say "Its da poor with teh entitlements! You should give teh rich more MONIES nom nom, nom" because surprise, they are rich.

Oh God that sounds wonderful! We'll have true universal health care and maybe something like the WPA and...oh wait. You are just doing the standard bullshit of using words like communist because you think it is a big scary word, unlike say fascist which is what a lot of the actors in BOTH parties are..

Let me guess, another who subscribes to the "give the rich more monies!" theory? Well we had trickle down (1980-88) voodoo economics (89-92) free trade with those with no environmental or worker regulations (92-2000) lets give rich people lots of tax breaks! (2000-2008) and finally bailout baby bailout (2008 present) and this has made the USA a utopia...oh wait, it hasn't. In fact GE took their bailout and said "Gee Thanks America!" and then promptly sent a major factory to India with the money.

It is actually quite simple, do try to keep up. Huge profits sucked up by rich people? that money is dead money, it is out of the economy, they are gonna sock it away, it is gone..poof! If they get the living shit taxed out of them if they keep it? Well then they reinvest in their businesses so as to lower their taxes, duh! Also higher taxes mean higher growth and lower unemployment yet despite plenty of evidence of this the ring wing will STILL cling to their "give the rich more MONIES!" mantra, which after 30 years of gutting the middle class and slaughtering our manufacturing sector while tripping over themselves to give more monies to the rich ought to be obvious it is a giant can o' FAIL.

So please, keep hanging onto your communist boogeyman because you know what? to these unemployed masses out here, which outnumber you by more than 10,000 to 1? That whole communism thing is starting to sound pretty good. You can only say "let them eat cake" while stuffing your pockets for so long before the peasants rise up and ask for your head. The reason so many don't vote is because they no longer believe in the system of democracy and with so many of our youth going straight from college to the unemployment line you have the makings of another Arab spring right here in the USA.

So please, keep it up. Those of us who believe the entire system is corrupted and needs to be replaced are quite happy for you to keep kicking the poor and screaming "give teh rich more MONIES!" as it creates a huge teeming mass filled with hatred, the simmering resentment growing ever higher. keep it up.

Did our tax rates suddenly change from 2008 to 2011, or did our economy collapse?

The tax rates did not, but the tax laws have, in favor of the biggest earners.

Your "liberal source" graph is not nearly fine enough to prove or disprove my assertion. The data points are decades, for god's sake. Go look at one that shows the numbers by year and you'll see what I mean.

And Slate is every bit as corporate as CNN. They are not a "liberal source" unless you're from the Far Right. Here's an authentic liberal source that shows what I'm talking about. Drill down into the charts themselves.

By the way, you'll notice that even the source you cited doesn't claim that high taxes hurts GDP or that lowering taxes helps the economy. In fact, it shows the opposite, demolishing the most important "conservative" talking point of all: that we are "over-taxed" and that such "over-taxing" hurts the economy or stifles growth.

(note: I know the poster, so if you want to see the spreadsheet that created those graphs, along with the exact IRS, Census and Bureau of Economic Analysis sources that were used, I'd be willing to send them to you, as long as you're willing to admit you are wrong in a Slashdot Journal associated with your user ID.)

LOL, you must not have looked at my other posts. I'd be included in that liberal group.

I'm sorry for making the incorrect assumption, friend. I'm sometimes suspicious of demands for citations for readily available data when it comes to political discussion here. I can't tell you how often I've provided links only to be told it's insufficient because the source is a liberal-leaning website. It's a Catch-22 because no conservative or tea party site is going to post such data, and any site that does post it is assumed to be liberal which "makes it bogus" apparently.

I've seen this information and graphs in several places, including a very thorough article by Krugman, in (believe it or not) Fortune Magazine, if I remember correctly. That was the best source but I'm not finding it ATM. When I do, I'll post it here. But here's one place you can see a similar presentation. The raw data in spreadsheet form is available too at the same site if you want to play with the numbers yourself.

we still have quite a few other personal rights that have been given to corporations that shouldn't have

I'll be glad when this fad goes away. The whole reason for corporate personhood is to protect the rights of the people involved with the corporation.

That isn't true at all. The purpose of a corporation is to create a separate legal entity for the purpose of protecting the shareholders of the corporation from liability if the business fails or is sued. This encourages people to band together and try to start a business. In general, it is a good thing.

Corporate personhood, on the other hand, was never considered real personhood. It was a fake way of granting the charter to a single name, instead of all the shareholders. From wikipedia:
"The process is called “incorporation,” referring to the abstract concept of clothing the entity with a "veil" of artificial personhood"

Now, over time, corporations have gained many other privileges, to the point where many in the media (most notably people like Thom Hartman, read his book on corporations), basically consider corporate rights equal to, and in some cases greater than, a real person's rights.

And way way back, those extra rights were given to corporations with the understanding that the corporation was to benefit society in some way. Make money, sure. Destroy the environment, no. And corporate charters were reviewed, and revoked from time to time.

I have to point out the flaws in that one. Part of the reason we don't make nearly as much stuff anymore is because of the lack of tariffs, which have been taken away in the last few decades. A return to higher tariffs would be just fine in my book, because it would mean that more of our stuff would be produced *here*, in the US. Which would mean more jobs.

The idea of a "service" economy is a joke. Betty pays John for fixing her car, John pays Betty for his dental work... until someone buys an item, and the money goes out of the country, and doesn't come back. We have to *produce* things here, and tariffs help "protect" that, and have done so for the last couple centuries. It's what helped bring us into superpower status.

Add to the equation the fact that the dollar is dropping. Everything that comes from outside the US is going to go up in price. And right now, pretty much everything we buy comes from outside the US.

Read more.

(Of course, a falling dollar does have its benefits. It makes the US more "protectionist" in that it makes the products we do make, seem cheaper in the world economy.

what you're not taking into account is that your ability to study and work and make money is tied very strongly to the wealth of your parents. The primary determining factor for wealth is not how hard you work, but how wealthy your parents were.

And what you're not accounting for, at least in the US, is everyone has the opportunity. Opportunity is what counts for equality not outcome. What they do with that opportunity has a big impact on how their lives will turn out.

The main problem with extreme capitalism is "it takes money to make money."

And where does this "extreme capitalism" exist? And what is it?

The main problem is wealth is also power and so laws are changed and rewritten primarily by the wealthy, who tend to favor their own interests and constantly undermine said process without regard for the economic and societal collapse it eventually brings about.

Now this, with one change, I agree. Change "wealthy" to "corporate aristocracy".

Thomas Jefferson, 1812:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

A company is expected to be profit-oriented, and 'by any means necessary' is the American Way.

Actually "by any means" isn't part of the American way. A good introduction to the American Way is Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America". Thomas Jefferson warned about a corporate aristocracy saying "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."

Yahoo's in trouble. On the Mac they just don't cut it.

I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro and I have no problem with displaying Yahoo! in Firefox, I hadn't tried Safari though. I'm a member of some Yahoo! Groups and have my homepage set as the Groups homepage.

if you see an announcement that Google is splitting 2 or 3 for 1, call your broker with market orders to sell

That's a bad move. Sometimes when a stock splits the value actually goes up, if a stock is listed for $100 and there's a 2 for 1 split afterwards each stock may be worth $60. I'd be more worried if a corporation said it were going to do a reverse split, combining 2 or more stocks into one.

Or that he died broke and alone because people like Edison stole his ideas and robbed him blind. Tesla was a genius and could have done so much more for the world if only things weren't controlled by rich people with no vision further than how much money they can make, right away, off an idea. Tesla's failure is a perfect example of capitalism at work.

No, that's an example of the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned against.

Yeap, Thomas Jefferson warned of corporate challenges to government: "I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Great quote. Sucks I don't have mod points today. Can you source it for me?

Corporate Accountability Project. Thomas Jefferson: On Central Banking.

I also found these on where TJ denounces corporate power:
Thomas Jefferson: Against Corporate Power, Thomas Jefferson's Dream. Ask.com has more.

Actually, it's Fascist America. Or Corporatist America.

This guy's book goes into quite a bit of detail.

Yes, that is exactly right, all things being equal and fair. That is hardly the case, often large companies maintain their market share not through capitalism but through good old fashion organized crime (Enron), or through good old fashion communism (state enforced monopolies, such as telcoms). What US is becoming is a Corporatocracy, which is just soviet style communism with a better marketing department.

Instead of Corporatocracy I think "Corporate Aristocracy", which Thomas Jefferson warned of, works better. He saw corporations as one of three threats to natural rights, the other two being government and organized religion.

Yes, by all means, get politically aware. Something we who live in "free" and "democratic" societies often seem to forget is that freedom comes with responsibility. That responsibility is not just to exercise our freedoms in a "responsible" manner, it also includes active participation in the workings of government. Voting is just the most obvious "responsibility" we have in this regard. Far more important is the habitual awareness and involvement with current events and politics... Not only will your vote be more "informed," you'll also be better equipped to influence the "debate" at the dinner table, the pub, the church, etc..

Here are the five most fundamental and important changes, which I think provide the best leverage to make American democracy work better:

1. End "personhood" for corporations.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtm l

2. End the War On Drugs.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

3. Open the televised debates to 3rd party candidates.
http://debatethis.org/

4. Ensure transparent ballot counting and elections.
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

5. Require proportional delegation in the Electoral College (ie: no more winner-takes-all)
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/reform.htm#propo rtional

These issues are not in the news much, but they have a common-sense appeal to most people, regardless of their political orientation. These are "systemic" issues, with the potential to have broad effects throughout the society. There are many other things I'd wish for as well, but these five are a good starting point, for beating back the encroachment of Big-Brother government.

--jrd

Free trade is dead. Welcome to the world of ... well, what exactly? In Communism, The Party decided what's good for you. What do you call a market where the producer, and him alone, dictates what you can and may buy?

What it's called is the Corporate Aristocracy, the very same thing both Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson were against. Writing to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy. On the question, what is the best provision, you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason, and mutually indulging its errors. You think it best to put the pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation [the Senate], where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where, also, they may be a protection to wealth against the agrarian and plundering enterprises of the majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil."

The problem is that we don't live in a capital, what we live under is the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of and James Madison wrote about. Adam Smith, writer of "Wealth of Nations" also disliked corporations believing they'd have too much power.

I've a better idea: trash the legal fiction that corporations are persons. Which is actually based on a misreading of a Supreme Court decision.

A nice followup to this might be banning political contributions from anyone other than private individuals, and limiting them to something easily affordable by the majority of citizens - say, $50.

Discuss.

However, living in the 18th Century, they never would have actually used the word "privacy" out loud or in writing. A search, for example, of all 16,000 of Thomas Jefferson's letters and writings produces not a single use of the word "privacy." Nor does Adams use the word in his writings, so far as I can find.

The reason is simple: "privacy" in 1776 was a code word for toilet functions. A person would say, "I need a moment of privacy" as a way of excusing themselves to go use the "privy" or outhouse. The chamberpots around the house, into which people relieved themselves during the evening and which were emptied in the morning, were referred to as "the privates," a phrase also used to describe genitals. Privacy, in short, was a word that wasn't generally used in political discourse or polite company during an era when women were expected to cover their arms and legs and discussion of bedroom behavior was unthinkable.

It wasn't until 1898 that Thomas Crapper began marketing the flush toilet and discussion of toilet functions became relatively acceptable. Prior to then, saying somebody had a "right to privacy" would have meant "a right to excrete." This was, of course, a right that was taken for granted and thus the Framers felt no need to specify it in the Constitution.

Actually, corporations are legal persons and as such have some of the same independent rights that people ('natural persons') have.

No, in fact they are not. They have been treated as "persons" for many years based on a mistaken reading of a 19th century court rulling that did not in fact decide the issue.

Of course, they're not going to tell you that, are they?

--MarkusQ

Then came a legal event that would not be understood for decades (and remains baffling even today), an event that would change the course of American history. In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a railbed route, the US Supreme Court deemed that a private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights. Suddenly, corporations enjoyed all the rights and sovereignty previously enjoyed only by the people, including the right to free speech.

This 1886 decision ostensibly gave corporations the same powers as private citizens. But considering their vast financial resources, corporations thereafter actually had far more power than any private citizen. They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more vigorously than any individual and therefore they were more free. In a single legal stroke, the whole intent of the American Constitution -- that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public debates -- had been undermined. Sixty years after it was inked, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara that it "could not be supported by history, logic or reason." One of the great legal blunders of the nineteenth century changed the whole idea of democratic government.

Thom Hartmann, host of a nationally syndicated progressive daily radio talk show, claims that evidence is mounting that the 2004 U.S. election results were hacked. 'When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how.' Hartmann offers more details in this article, saying '...I agree with Fox's Dick Morris on this one, at least in large part. Wrapping up his story for The Hill, Morris wrote in his final paragraph, "This was no mere mistake. Exit polls cannot be as wrong across the board as they were on election night. I suspect foul play.'

it's not a person.

Actually, that's part of the problem. Legally, corporations *are* treated just like a person in many respects, meaning that they are given the same rights and priveleges that a human being has. In Unequal Protection , Thom Hartmann argues that this legal standing in fact has no real legal basis, and that it has had a negative effect overall:

It's an earlier adaptation.
coolgeek pointed to Thom Hartmann's books, which make the analogy of ADHD as being a useful trait for hunter-gatherers, as opposed to farmers for whom it's not so useful. And then in between there were factory workers, which is a lot of what the "everybody sit in rows and do the same things at the same time" style of schools are really good for. Offices, TVs, and Cars are a couple of social revolutions after that :-) (But hey, some video games work well for ADHD kids.)

My other suggestion is to get a Digital Voice Recorder. Make notes to self and listen to them while walking around. This helps me crunch the more mundane tasks by making it into a challenge: how to do x more efficiently because I'm on my way to this or that place.

Your Vote is Now the Property of a Private Corporation

Now recounts and audits are being barred so as not to violate the "privacy and trade secrets" of the the company whose software is used to count the votes. Check out some of the excellent commentary on this issue by "Thom Hartmann" at:

"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

"Now Your Vote Is The Property Of A Private Corporation"

An excerpt: (credit to Thomm Hartmann)

"Chuck Hagel was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska. What Hagel's website fails to disclose is that about 80 percent of those votes were counted by computer-controlled voting machines put in place by the company affiliated with Hagel. Built by that company. Programmed by that company.

"When Charlie Matulka (the opponent) requested a hand count of the vote in the election he lost to Hagel, his request was denied because Nebraska has a just-passed law that prohibits government-employee election workers from looking at the ballots, even in a recount. The only machines permitted to count votes in Nebraska, he said, are those made and programmed by the corporation formerly run by Hagel.

Scary?

-Scott

Which was a hack.

Corporate personhood

Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights

Like most things legal (and otherwise) things aren't as clear as people think. Slashdot BTW already covered this subject.

1, 2, 3

I'm combining them below, for your convenience:

-----

Zathrus wrote:
>
> Now if you go turn that meter on, are you
> just "using the emissions already on your
> property" or are you illegally using service?

This is a bad analogy. Because by turning that meter back on and using the electricity the Electric Company now has less electricity to sell to their other customers.

This is the difference between theft, and the absolutely harmless action that the corporations have made in to a crime.

When you decrypt sattelite transmitions you are not depriving the sattelite television companies of anything. Thus it is not theft. Therefore it should not be criminal.

If, after decrypting sattelite transmitions you were depriving someone else of these very same transmitions (if it were like electricity), then they'd have a point. But they don't. And neither do you.

> You most certainly cannot receive and decode
> any transmission you wish. Doing so to
> cellular telephones is illegal, as are
> military channels. Beamed sat transmission
> isn't either one of these, obviously, but
> there's precedent against "don't broadcast
> into my house!".

Precedents they may be, but they're just as unfair, for the exact same reasons. The HAM (Amateur Radio) communities were outraged when recieving cellular transmitions was made illegal. (You'll recall some Congressman was caught making clear how much of a sleazebag he was on a cell phone, and other Congressmen probably didn't want to face the similar embarrasement so they passed the cell-phone laws right quick) So just as there are legal precedents to this case, there are precedents of community outrage at unfair legislation being passed thanks to the $$$$$$$ of big corporations and corrupt politicians.

> The Supreme Court ruled against police using
> passive detection methods such as heat
> radiation without a search warrant. By your
> logic, they should have been able to - since
> if you didn't want them to use such a method
> you should've prevented the heat from
> irradiating out from your walls.

You'll note that the US Consitution says "We the people", NOT "We the corporations", or "We the government". The _people's_ right to be free from warrantless search and siezure is guaranteed by the constitution. No such rights exist for corporations or the government. In fact, we must insist in the strongest terms that they be made more transparent, not less, as the recent spate of despicable Homeland Security legislation is making them.

See Unequal Protection l for more information on the injustices foistered on Americans by corporations.

osgeek wrote:
> > Why should people go to jail if they help
> > me decrypt the information?
>
> Because it's not their content either...
> It's still stealing.

No it's not. Not in the least. In order for theft to occur the person who's property is getting stolen has to be deprived of it. If you have a horse and I steal it, you can't ride the horse any longer.

This is not the case with digital information. When someone makes a copy of it or views it the owner of that information still has the information. They still have the horse, as it were. They are deprived of nothing but a profit, which they are not entitled to anyway.

> Why should we ditch the wonderful benefits of
> satellite dish reception of various types of
> signals because a few people feel they have
> the misguided right to everything in the
> universe that's within their reach.

People do have a right to everything within their reach, as long as taking those things harms no one else, or deprives anyone else of that very same thing.

By looking at DirectTV broadcasts I am not inhibiting your ability to look at the same broadcast, nor am I depriving DirectTV of their content (they still have it in their offices or vaults, or wherever they keep it). I am just looking, and just looking should not be a crime, as it hurts absolutely no one.

Now, DirectTV may claim that they have a right to profit from their actions. But, first of all, corporations do not have rights (only people do) despite misguided legislation to this effect. Second, no one, not even a person, has a right to a profit. They are welcome to try to make a profit, but if they can't it's tough shit, and no ammount of legislation should be able to get their grubby paws in to my pocket if I've taken nothing from them, or punish others for the corporation's lack of business or technical acumen.

Ah, the variety on the Internet! There's a site just for you. (Thanks, Google.) More here. And even more here.

Many do consider corporate personhood a blunder, though to be picky the law technically sees them as quasi-persons with some, not all, of the rights of citizens, and those that they do have are often reduced in scope and strength.

I don't know of any stirring defenses of corporate personhood. However, when the 1st A. says "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" is talks of the speech, not the person. The right might be argued to belong to society as well as the individual, and is the right not to have government filter what we are allowed to hear. Also, though corporation are not real persons, neither are they independent automatons. They are collections of human beings who act through the corporation form; just as the corporation has the right to sue and be sued, and in a number of other ways act as a proxy for its constituents, it should "speak."

I don't have any great love of corporations, but can see some evil in the government manipulating what they can say, perhaps doing so out of selfish self-interest. Oh wait, I'm anthropomorphizing again.... :) Surely we do not need to apply the same rules to Nike's denying it uses sweatshops as we do to regulating precisely what "low fat" on packaging must mean -- yet that is what California would do.

Amendments to return corps back to unnatural persons.

Amendments to return corps back to unnatural persons.