Why are corporations people? Because otherwise, they couldn't own property, and could not be sued.
That's nonsense. It could easily be that a corporation could own property or be sued without being a person. We can see that from the fact that corporations are not actually people.
Instead of redefining corporations as people with constitutional rights, just redefine lawsuits as being something you could do to people OR corporations.
Indeed, it is possible. However, most countries seem to agree that it is more convenient to consider corporations as people, than to have to double refer to distinctions where necessary, just to exclude some rights from corporations and others from natural persons.
Namely, here were a possible original situation. Only people could own property or be sued. A bunch of people got together and enacted a corporation. That corporation breached a contract, and the aggrieved party brought a suit against the corporation. The corporation wanting obviously to shurk any attempt at liability in court (much like all people do), attempted to argue that as they are not legally people, they are not allowed to be sued. The courts agree, and thus the suit is thrown out. The aggrieved party being obviously upset with the results, looks at the ruling and takes the simplest reaction to get what he wants: he gets corporations declared people. Voila, now he can sue them for any further breaches of contracts. Huzzah!... centuries later, people find issue with this, because now corporations are demanding the same rights that all other persons are granted, and because the people passing the 14th amendment were not specific in the group that it was protecting, it guaranteed that states could not willy-nilly infringe upon the rights of the corporation.
Consider an alternate universe, where the US were exactly as it is now, but corporations were not people, but simply legal entities not entitled to the same rights as natural persons. The government of State-ania thought that a corporation had been violating a criminal statute. In order to collect evidence, they barged into the business offices and seize the corporation's servers, and books. The corporation would obviously object to this illegal search and seizure, but the courts would rule that corporations--not being subject to the Bill of Rights--has no 4th amendment rights protecting them. The corporation would then attempt to appeal, but the government would argue to the appeals court that the motion should be dismissed, because the corporation would have no right to appeal the decision. The corporation would object, but since the corporation were not guaranteed Due Process rights, the court would rule that indeed, the corporation does not have any right to appeal.
This is what I mean by it being a fundamental part of the Common Law tradition. Things could be rewritten so that legal persons by legal fiction were distinct from natural persons, but it's really difficult to properly extricate the rights that corporations should have, from those that corporations should not have. And by an in large, the vast majority of protects that a corporation deserves to have outweigh the rights that are improperly conferred to them.
Think about it. If the Rights constitutionally guaranteed to persons excluded legal persons who are not natural persons, then the government could just take their property without compensation. "Hi Microsoft, great work you're doing here. Nice building you have here. I think we'll take it." Corporations should have most rights, and the presumption should be that they should also have any right that is granted to a natural person.
All justices, judges, and magistrates accept that corporations are legal persons. This is neither surprising, nor debatable, and is a fundamental part of Common Law tradition.
No, it's not. Common law tradition said the exact OPPOSITE, that only actual persons could be sued, and thus limited liability corporations could NOT. It was only since the rise of large LLCs in the 19th century that specific laws were passed to prevent this abuse by defining a limited "legal personhood" for corporations.
No, Common law always held that only "persons" could be sued. As corporations were not originally people, they could not be sued. Common law then changed so that "persons" included a convenient legal fiction that a corporation was a person. From the Wikipedia article on legal personality: "The concept of a legal person is a fundamental legal fiction."
The SCOTUS in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) was already in total agreement that legal persons were persons. In fact, in order for Santa Clara County to even bring the suit against Southern Pacific Railroad Company the matter had to already be established. Even though it was not there from the start, does not mean that Common Law tradition as it exists now has it as a fundamental element.
Yes, they could own property and be sued. You can put it into law that they can do that.
Indeed, and Civil law traditions have covered codifying corporate personhood, what it means and how far it goes.
But to find a constitutional basis for that is absurd.
There's no constitutional basis for a lot of things in Common Law traditions. There are a number of things in the common law tradition that are not precisely codified, like say: contract interpretation. Or statute interpretation that are not written anywhere. The SCOTUS ruling that people say "made corporations into persons" did no such thing. The SCOTUS ruled at the outset that they would not hear any argument about whether corporations were people or not, because it was well established legal tradition, and thus inherent in the Common Law tradition that the United States inherited.
Other things that derive from British Common law court ruling: embezzlement is not theft (As the person is consensually giving the money to the other person, so there is no theft at all) companies can be held liable for their products even to those who are not their direct customer (companies have a general duty to ensure that their products are safe and fit for purpose) if two trains are on the same track at the same point in time, no negligence need be proven. (File under "duh", there are certain conditions that are clearly a result of negligent acts, and those suffering damage as a result of those conditions need not prove what negligent act actually happened. It doesn't matter who or what or why a flour barrel falls out of a warehouse onto the street, if it hurts someone it is a patently negligent act.)
Scalia and Thomas, of all people, who claim to divine oritinal intent should realize that the "founding fathers" (don't like that term) could have written in corporations explicitly but did not. So fine, pass a law allowing property rights. In ATT vs. FCC, ATT lost as corporations can't have feelings but the fact that this had to be ruled on is silly.
The constitution also doesn't have anything explicitly about executive orders from the president, how the Supreme Court selects cases to be heard or not heard, how the Legislature shall proceed in the process of passing a bill except for "a majority vote to pass the bill passes the bill to then be signed by the president". It does not explicitly say anything about "pocket vetos". The constitution is actually quite vague about a lot of things, because... surprise the US Constitution was written when most of Common Law was non-codified. They realized that they didn't need to explain every detail of everything, because they had an existing framework that they were working from.
Hell, the Constitution doesn't even have any explicit details about how real-estate will be handled, or how people vote (secret ballots were not actually the norm when the Constitution was originally passed).
Even people arguing for a strict or original interpretation of the Constitution still clearly understand that the tradition within which the Constitution was constructed is open-ended and most details were determined by tradition, and did not need to be explicitly codified.
I really don't think it's the men within the field who are driving women away, it's the women themselves who flee.
It's kind of a bit of both. There is a bunch of stereotype threat for women to not get into tech-fields, so the only women who end up in tech-fields tend to be those that have a strong natural interest in tech stuff. Thus, you mostly just see the kernel of interest. Unlike with non-Western women in tech-fields, where it is kind of more acceptable to know tech stuff. They don't get the same abrasive environment that sheds off those without a lot of natural interest.
As above, a stock market like example. If a company goes through a really bad PR incident that won't fundamentally affect its earning ability, the "fluff" of people who are invested in it just because it's an earner wears off in a form of social abrasion. Suddenly, people who are making superficial choices about where to invest stock will drop the stock for superficial reasons. Meanwhile, the people investing in the company because they see true value in the company, will stick around as long as the company is healthy, regardless of PR matters.
In the same way, in the western culture, boys are not discouraged from techie-stuff, while girls experience at least some discouragement. That causes a social abrasion, such that fewer people who are in it simply for relatively superficial reasons will be interested in it.
Oh so its a western thing. Women and girls are very much encouraged to be IT managers, computer geeks in Middle Eastern countries where they can be arrested for driving!
The statement does not apply necessarily specifically nor exclusively to western culture. I just can't make any definitive comments about other cultures, because I am generally unfamiliar with them.
Good gosh I guess the parents of the woman head of IT at my company fought and won and every other parent must have lost
So, the woman head of IT at your company doesn't wear any make up at all?... conforming to gender peers is a lot more than just job choice, etc. Choice of attire, personal grooming, and lots of other things get rolled into that. Try arguing for a woman who eschews the feminine, and you're likely to be arguing for a person who would better be described as a transsexual man.
According to you women are TOLD by their peers not to do something and then they readily give up their dreams for this all-powerful group standing over them, brainwashing them so easily into their way of thinking.
No, I did not say that... I said that women want to be like other women. No one is explicitly saying anything, and no one is brainwashing other people. Pokemon cards were popular, because kids wanted to be like other kids, and other kids liked pokemon. There was no masterful manipulative element involved. A bunch of kids liked pokemon because they actually liked it, and a large number of kids followed along, because it was popular. It's like stock in some ways. Some stocks are worth more because more people want them. There is a small amount of people who are investing in a stock portfolio because they think that the stock is worth it, meanwhile a varying amount of other people are invested in various stocks just because the stock is doing well. Why is it doing well? Because other people are investing in it as well.
The same "conspiracy" happens in social groups. Even if a person in a group of 20 people actually liked the Matrix Sequels, because of peer pressure and a desire to conform, they will feign hatred of the Matrix Sequels because their peers hate it, and they want to be like their peers.
It's called "social conformance", and no one is standing with any intelligent control over the details. Girls want to be like other girls, and if enough girls are into XY, then the chances increase that more girls will be interested in XY simply because other girls are interested in XY.
Gee, women sure cannot make decisions for themselves, they have to consult this group.
You conveniently read my text to refer only to girls, even though I specifically called out that boys are subject to the same pressures.... in fact, that seals the deal for me here. You're trolling, because you're totally ignoring that I'm speaking about the genders in a non-specific manner that applies to both girls and boys, but you seem to want to push the idea that feminists think women are brainless twits that have to be told what to do. That's not what I think, and it's not what we think. This is a GENERAL human characteristic that we apply labels to ourselves and seek out to conform to those we want to be associated with. "Stereotype threat" is interesting actually. If you suggest that a non-native American citizen is non-native, or foreign, then they are more likely to choose fast food, than a native American citizen when they are subject to the same suggestion. The former group having a strong desire to reassert that they are "American", will make a choice based on a desire to conform, rather than an individual choice. All of this happens silently behind the scenes of our conscious mind that controls our "choices".
You are aware that Interpol regularly handles arrest warrants issued to detain criminals who have committed a crime in only a single country.
Interpol is not an international police organization, it is a framework to allow national police organizations to work together across international boundaries.
If a person were to rob a bank in the US, and flee to Mexico, the US will put out an Interpol warrant (more accurately, the US will issue an arrest warrant, which is then passed on to Interpol, who communicates that warrant to all member nations), and when/if the person shows up in Mexico, Mexico will then arrest them under the Interpol warrant, in order to handle extradition processes. Mexico cannot simply arrest people on a US arrest warrant... that's why they then send it to Interpol who distributes the warrant in an internationally-aware manner that other countries recognize as valid.
So again: Country A cannot legitimately just issue an arrest warrant valid in Country B. Interpol allows Country A to get international recognition of their warrant in such a way that Country B will consider it valid in their borders. There is absolutely no requirement that the crime have occurred in multiple countries, nor that the purported criminal have committed crimes in anything more than just one country.
Good - class action lawsuits are bad for the individual consumers anyway, only make money for the law firms. I'd rather 200 people file small claims suits than someone file a class action.
... but filing in small claims court still costs a non-significant amount of money. Last I checked, $25 in the state of Washington. What happens when a company crosses the line and defrauds a million people of $20? The company just made $20,000,000 dollars, and no one is going to sue, because even in small claims, it's $25 to sue to get even a default judgement of $20, with a net loss of $5 for anyone who wants to sue. And even if everyone did sue in small claims court, the small claims court would be a) clogged with cases, and b) made out like a bandit with $25,000,000 in revenue.
Class action suits are less about benefiting individual consumers, because their damages are usually relatively low, and widely spread out. Class action suits are usually about collecting up a bunch of people who have been wronged a little and getting the company to pay for being dicks.
Oh wait, he was one of the (ahem, so called) justices that ruled that corporations are people.
While this is accurate to say, it's like saying that he's one of the justices that is a human being. All justices, judges, and magistrates accept that corporations are legal persons. This is neither surprising, nor debatable, and is a fundamental part of Common Law tradition. Why are corporations people? Because otherwise, they couldn't own property, and could not be sued.
Let's have a hypothetical. Let's say that corporations are not people in our new world. Alice, Bob, and Charlie are working together in a Corporation, ACME. Now, ACME is not a person, so someone has to own all the assets that would otherwise belong communally to ACME, and the three decide that Alice should be the person of record for ownership of materials. Now, someone has to run the company and be on the line for any legal messes, and the three decide that Bob shall do the actual operations of the company, and direct Charlie in his work, while Alice just sits at home, and collects a paycheck just for not walking away with the money and property. Now, Bob tells Charlie to dump some toxic waste in Derick's yard. Derick is upset, and goes to sue ACME in court, however, since ACME is not a person, he cannot sue ACME. So, he has to sue the people responsible for the toxic waste dumping. Well, obviously, he'd like to go after Alice, with the deep pockets, but she had no hand in causing the harm. Bob would also be a nice choice, because as the director, he has a reasonable salary, and it was his policies that directed Charlie to dump the toxic waste. Except that Bob only ever told Charlie in verbal communication that was never recorded to dump the toxic waste in Derick's yard. Leaving the only person that Derick can sue as Charlie, who is really just a lowly employee with no salary, and no real power. Derick sues and throws Charlie into bankruptcy with the tort finding, while Alice continues to maintain all the company assets that have not been touched, and Bob continues to direct the company however he sees fit with no accountability for his actions.
...a bunch of women who aren't good at understanding men...
While it's true that the vast majority of men working in IT have little experience dealing with women, and are thus in poor practice of understanding women, I think you don't understand how life works for a woman in IT. When 90% of your peers are men, and going through school/training/college most of your peers are men... you understand men just fine.
Why aren't women fleeing the casinos and bars due to how they get treated on the job? Because they have the social skills to deal with it. Because they are not only capable of understanding that men react sexually to sexual triggers, they are fully aware and in control and use those triggers intentionally.
In those situations exploiting men's sexual triggers results in better pay, and better treatment. Whereas in the IT field, being a sexual object doesn't affect your pay, detracts from your job, and reduces how well you are treated. When I left the IT field, I tried to get into work where being feminine and sexy was a positive trait, and appreciated. Namely, cocktail waitress at a strip club... in the IT field, there was the situation where if I mentioned how annoying fingernail paint was people looked at me puzzled and confused with no concept of what I was talking about (happened).
I have met a number of people who were skilled in a particular area, but didn't apply themselves, because of various reasons.
I attended summer school for English one time. I test in about the 97th percentile in English... I'm just crazy lazy, which is why I had to make up the grade. I met another girl there, who sat next to me. I would have put her as extremely intelligent, like 99th percentile. Yet she was there because she didn't know how smart she was, or actively attempted to ignore it as much as possible.
All of my siblings, myself included, are extremely capable in learning languages (My best guess for this is that a mutation in my mother resulted in the language critical-period not ending properly.) I speak German fluently (C1 level) with an impeccable accent (started learning German at 14), and various other languages at various other levels, all with reasonably good accents; my older sister speaks Dutch fluently, and lives in the Netherlands, her accent is so good that often times the Dutch around her forget that she is a foreigner (started learning Dutch at 18); my eldest sister took the DLAB, and they all but forced her to learn Chinese... as in "Dear god, we will give you all this money to learn Chinese!" but she declined, my younger sister clearly has the same ability, but has exploited it even less. I heard her explain matter-of-factly why a Latin noun was the gender it was like it was stupidly obvious to another student. Yet, she's never actually developed or harnessed this ability.
All of us are also really strong at artistic skill, and math skill (all of us having taken Honors math courses), yet I never really applied myself to developing my artistic skill, while they focused less on the math. My older sister was even told directly that she is a woman, and so she should take easier math courses.
Yes, there is aptitude involved, and someone who is not well suited to being a techie will never do well as a techie. But this compulsion about fixing things being limited to primarily men? Bollocks. Think of all the stuff your girlfriend tries to fix in your habits, behavior, dress, etc. Women want to fix things, they're just generally discouraged from fixing things, because other people do it for them.
IT is one of the worst professions for gender split. Its a fixable problem, but we need to fix the men first. And I say that as a male. Because I'd not ask a mother/daughter/sister to work in a lot of the IT industry as it stands now. There are companies that are much better out there (and I work at one), but they are the exception not the rule.
I like how you put this. "The environment that exists in the treatment of females means that I would not put a woman that I care about in that field"... says a lot. Thanks for your appreciation.
Awesome post, and says everything I could say, and perhaps better than I would.
I've had to work on my own motorcycle from time to time, and my boyfriend kind of refused to help me, knowing that self-sufficiency is better than doing everything for me. However, from time to time, he would call me over with "hey, Japanese hands", because I had the tiny hands to get at/into something that his man hands were just too big to get at.
Boy loves it all and is very interested; girl does not want to know. Why is this? Maybe just natural tendencies - I don't know. Wish I did.
It's less so natural tendencies, and rather a "conspiracy" of culture. Children are subjected to more gender-stereotype influence than just what they get from their parents. Nearly everything about the western culture kind of discourages women and girls from being techies, and geeks. (Any girl interested in such things would likely readily be labeled a "tomboy", I know I was...) No matter how hard a parent fights against that trend, children naturally want to conform to the rest of their gender peers... so while the actual positions themselves are less so natural, the "conspiracy" that girls want to conform to other girls, and boys want to conform to other boys, results in them all picking up certain common interests which make it difficult to distinguish from "nature".
Crap, the last telemarketer that called me was female. Incidentally, did you know that sexual harassment is not a crime outside the workplace? At least, that's what two cops told me...
It's not a crime in the workplace either... however it is a civil offense, that can be sued for in the workplace. Outside of the workplace, indeed it is entirely unactionable.
I had a collection agency just recently call both my parents suggesting that they were going to be serving process to them for a debt that I owe. I immediately suspected something was up, because that just sounded inconsistent with legal process as I understood it, and my mom was just like "whatever, my daughter will deal with it, I'll just pass the information on." My dad however freaked out suggested that I was going to go to jail and other things, and that if they accept the process for me that they'll be entangled into the suit somehow.
I called them up, and talked to them for a bit. They implied that there was already legal action pending, but then I let them know that I was uncollectable (even if they sued, and had a valid debt, and a judgement, there would be nothing to collect), and then they seemed to imply that there was no pending legal action. They also suggested that they were a law office, but admitted when I pressed that they didn't have any lawyers on staff, but hired them on as needed. The whole thing sounded fishy, and having a good idea of my rights, I played it heavy handed, and threatened them back and stuff. ("I'll fight this in court, just to raise the cost for you, and you still won't collect anything, because I'm uncollectable.") Overall, it was a fairly enjoyable phone call for me... being able to bludgeon debt collectors back is cathartic...
Later, I talked to a lawyer friend who commented that yeah, the whole deal was illegal, and if we could identify them that I could sue them for $1,000, and also get the debt cleared. The people were fly-by-night though, and seemed to be using Google Voice or something and when we tried to call back, got no response.
I spent nearly 15 minutes on the line to one guy who tried to talk me through pressing the Windows button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
Do you run into Hebrew or Arabic Windows more than anything else? Because most localizations have the Windows button in the bottom LEFT hand corner...
And if you don't defend yourself in a civil case (at a cost of many thousand dollars you may not have ), you will get a judgement against you by default. Then the tort manifests as money.
I noted that this is basically accurate, but it is a weird phrasing that seems like a person just wanted to use the word "tort" but didn't actually properly understand what it was.
This phrasing bugs me. It's like saying "the crimes from the criminal complaint will send him to jail". A "tort" is the same as "crime", it is an action performed. If the MPAA used torts to bankrupt the guy, he could sue. However, the judgements from the lawsuits could easily bankrupt him.
I mean, it's reasonably accurate, but comes across as the language that would be used in a movie. Torts are the standing for a civil lawsuit, rather than what actually bankrupts people. As with anything, a crime isn't punished unless someone is convicted, and a tort doesn't manifest as money or equity unless someone has a judgement levied against them.
You don't actually know that, since there have never been any hearings into the issue. Another strike for the "most transparent administration in history". If it was truly an accident, lets an investigation, some hearings, and let the truth come out. The fact that there are none speaks a lot louder than whatever propaganda you're buying into.
And neither are you certain that he was intentionally targeted. However, since there were a number of adult high-level Al Qaeda leaders also killed in the same strike, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the adult high-level level Al Qaeda leaders were the intentional target, and the 16-year-old boy was an unintentional casualty.
Believe it or not, there is not a good reason to launch an investigation into every missile strike that kills an innocent person, even if they're only 16-years-old, or an American citizen. The strike was intended to take out Al Qaeda leaders, collateral damage may and often does occur. This is not a surprising result.
Oh, I understand that. I just don't think the difference is whether the violation of the constitution is "trivial" or not. There are no trivial violations of the constitution. There are only violations of the constitution that powerful allow, and other violations that the powerful do not allow. All violations of the constitution are equally unconstitutional and invalid.
I think there is a misunderstanding in the usage of "trivial" here. I intend the term to mean that the unconstitutionality can be demonstrated trivially. A better word her would have been "patently". As in "The right to indefinite detention of American citizens was patently unconstitutional." I agree that all violations of the constitution are equally unconstitutional and invalid, however some are easier to show than others.
Fair enough. Would it be more accurate if I said "So what you're saying is that Obama claims he can detain you indefinitely without any specific statutory authority so you must recognize he is nothing more than a thug with no respect for the rule of law."?
Except that Obama never claimed this. Bush II did.
I think you missed my point. My point was that we don't even need the Ex-PATRIOT Act, we already have the Reed Amendment of a law from 1996...
The government is so clueless about what is already the legal state that they're actively attempting to promote something that is already the law... (but then, to be fair, no one knows all the laws... that's why you should always talk to a lawyer. It's illegal to care some species of lobster across state borders for example... Key point is, no one has ever been able to hold all laws in their head... don't talk to the police.)
I'm standing even more corrected. Apparently, a US Citizen can properly renounce their citizenship while residing in the USA, and become stateless. The government of course warns people about the dangers of doing so, because being stateless means you have no government that will stand up for you...
Looking up Renunciation of Citizenship, apparently what these people want is already in law (emphasis added):
In 1996, the U.S. changed its immigration law to include a provision to "name and shame" renunciants.[19] The Department of the Treasury became obligated to publish quarterly in the Federal Register the names of those citizens who renounce their citizenship. Only the names are published, but by counting the number of names in each list, media organizations are able to infer the number of renunciants each quarter. The 1996 law included a provision to bar entry to any individual "who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States."[19] There is no known case of this provision, known as the Reed Amendment, having ever been enforced.
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Why are corporations people? Because otherwise, they couldn't own property, and could not be sued.
That's nonsense. It could easily be that a corporation could own property or be sued without being a person. We can see that from the fact that corporations are not actually people.
Instead of redefining corporations as people with constitutional rights, just redefine lawsuits as being something you could do to people OR corporations.
Indeed, it is possible. However, most countries seem to agree that it is more convenient to consider corporations as people, than to have to double refer to distinctions where necessary, just to exclude some rights from corporations and others from natural persons.
Namely, here were a possible original situation. Only people could own property or be sued. A bunch of people got together and enacted a corporation. That corporation breached a contract, and the aggrieved party brought a suit against the corporation. The corporation wanting obviously to shurk any attempt at liability in court (much like all people do), attempted to argue that as they are not legally people, they are not allowed to be sued. The courts agree, and thus the suit is thrown out. The aggrieved party being obviously upset with the results, looks at the ruling and takes the simplest reaction to get what he wants: he gets corporations declared people. Voila, now he can sue them for any further breaches of contracts. Huzzah! ... centuries later, people find issue with this, because now corporations are demanding the same rights that all other persons are granted, and because the people passing the 14th amendment were not specific in the group that it was protecting, it guaranteed that states could not willy-nilly infringe upon the rights of the corporation.
Consider an alternate universe, where the US were exactly as it is now, but corporations were not people, but simply legal entities not entitled to the same rights as natural persons. The government of State-ania thought that a corporation had been violating a criminal statute. In order to collect evidence, they barged into the business offices and seize the corporation's servers, and books. The corporation would obviously object to this illegal search and seizure, but the courts would rule that corporations--not being subject to the Bill of Rights--has no 4th amendment rights protecting them. The corporation would then attempt to appeal, but the government would argue to the appeals court that the motion should be dismissed, because the corporation would have no right to appeal the decision. The corporation would object, but since the corporation were not guaranteed Due Process rights, the court would rule that indeed, the corporation does not have any right to appeal.
This is what I mean by it being a fundamental part of the Common Law tradition. Things could be rewritten so that legal persons by legal fiction were distinct from natural persons, but it's really difficult to properly extricate the rights that corporations should have, from those that corporations should not have. And by an in large, the vast majority of protects that a corporation deserves to have outweigh the rights that are improperly conferred to them.
Think about it. If the Rights constitutionally guaranteed to persons excluded legal persons who are not natural persons, then the government could just take their property without compensation. "Hi Microsoft, great work you're doing here. Nice building you have here. I think we'll take it." Corporations should have most rights, and the presumption should be that they should also have any right that is granted to a natural person.
All justices, judges, and magistrates accept that corporations are legal persons. This is neither surprising, nor debatable, and is a fundamental part of Common Law tradition.
No, it's not. Common law tradition said the exact OPPOSITE, that only actual persons could be sued, and thus limited liability corporations could NOT. It was only since the rise of large LLCs in the 19th century that specific laws were passed to prevent this abuse by defining a limited "legal personhood" for corporations.
No, Common law always held that only "persons" could be sued. As corporations were not originally people, they could not be sued. Common law then changed so that "persons" included a convenient legal fiction that a corporation was a person. From the Wikipedia article on legal personality: "The concept of a legal person is a fundamental legal fiction."
The SCOTUS in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) was already in total agreement that legal persons were persons. In fact, in order for Santa Clara County to even bring the suit against Southern Pacific Railroad Company the matter had to already be established. Even though it was not there from the start, does not mean that Common Law tradition as it exists now has it as a fundamental element.
Yes, they could own property and be sued. You can put it into law that they can do that.
Indeed, and Civil law traditions have covered codifying corporate personhood, what it means and how far it goes.
But to find a constitutional basis for that is absurd.
There's no constitutional basis for a lot of things in Common Law traditions. There are a number of things in the common law tradition that are not precisely codified, like say: contract interpretation. Or statute interpretation that are not written anywhere. The SCOTUS ruling that people say "made corporations into persons" did no such thing. The SCOTUS ruled at the outset that they would not hear any argument about whether corporations were people or not, because it was well established legal tradition, and thus inherent in the Common Law tradition that the United States inherited.
Other things that derive from British Common law court ruling: embezzlement is not theft (As the person is consensually giving the money to the other person, so there is no theft at all) companies can be held liable for their products even to those who are not their direct customer (companies have a general duty to ensure that their products are safe and fit for purpose) if two trains are on the same track at the same point in time, no negligence need be proven. (File under "duh", there are certain conditions that are clearly a result of negligent acts, and those suffering damage as a result of those conditions need not prove what negligent act actually happened. It doesn't matter who or what or why a flour barrel falls out of a warehouse onto the street, if it hurts someone it is a patently negligent act.)
Scalia and Thomas, of all people, who claim to divine oritinal intent should realize that the "founding fathers" (don't like that term) could have written in corporations explicitly but did not. So fine, pass a law allowing property rights. In ATT vs. FCC, ATT lost as corporations can't have feelings but the fact that this had to be ruled on is silly.
The constitution also doesn't have anything explicitly about executive orders from the president, how the Supreme Court selects cases to be heard or not heard, how the Legislature shall proceed in the process of passing a bill except for "a majority vote to pass the bill passes the bill to then be signed by the president". It does not explicitly say anything about "pocket vetos". The constitution is actually quite vague about a lot of things, because... surprise the US Constitution was written when most of Common Law was non-codified. They realized that they didn't need to explain every detail of everything, because they had an existing framework that they were working from.
Hell, the Constitution doesn't even have any explicit details about how real-estate will be handled, or how people vote (secret ballots were not actually the norm when the Constitution was originally passed).
Even people arguing for a strict or original interpretation of the Constitution still clearly understand that the tradition within which the Constitution was constructed is open-ended and most details were determined by tradition, and did not need to be explicitly codified.
I really don't think it's the men within the field who are driving women away, it's the women themselves who flee.
It's kind of a bit of both. There is a bunch of stereotype threat for women to not get into tech-fields, so the only women who end up in tech-fields tend to be those that have a strong natural interest in tech stuff. Thus, you mostly just see the kernel of interest. Unlike with non-Western women in tech-fields, where it is kind of more acceptable to know tech stuff. They don't get the same abrasive environment that sheds off those without a lot of natural interest.
As above, a stock market like example. If a company goes through a really bad PR incident that won't fundamentally affect its earning ability, the "fluff" of people who are invested in it just because it's an earner wears off in a form of social abrasion. Suddenly, people who are making superficial choices about where to invest stock will drop the stock for superficial reasons. Meanwhile, the people investing in the company because they see true value in the company, will stick around as long as the company is healthy, regardless of PR matters.
In the same way, in the western culture, boys are not discouraged from techie-stuff, while girls experience at least some discouragement. That causes a social abrasion, such that fewer people who are in it simply for relatively superficial reasons will be interested in it.
Oh so its a western thing. Women and girls are very much encouraged to be IT managers, computer geeks in Middle Eastern countries where they can be arrested for driving!
The statement does not apply necessarily specifically nor exclusively to western culture. I just can't make any definitive comments about other cultures, because I am generally unfamiliar with them.
Good gosh I guess the parents of the woman head of IT at my company fought and won and every other parent must have lost
So, the woman head of IT at your company doesn't wear any make up at all? ... conforming to gender peers is a lot more than just job choice, etc. Choice of attire, personal grooming, and lots of other things get rolled into that. Try arguing for a woman who eschews the feminine, and you're likely to be arguing for a person who would better be described as a transsexual man.
According to you women are TOLD by their peers not to do something and then they readily give up their dreams for this all-powerful group standing over them, brainwashing them so easily into their way of thinking.
No, I did not say that... I said that women want to be like other women. No one is explicitly saying anything, and no one is brainwashing other people. Pokemon cards were popular, because kids wanted to be like other kids, and other kids liked pokemon. There was no masterful manipulative element involved. A bunch of kids liked pokemon because they actually liked it, and a large number of kids followed along, because it was popular. It's like stock in some ways. Some stocks are worth more because more people want them. There is a small amount of people who are investing in a stock portfolio because they think that the stock is worth it, meanwhile a varying amount of other people are invested in various stocks just because the stock is doing well. Why is it doing well? Because other people are investing in it as well.
The same "conspiracy" happens in social groups. Even if a person in a group of 20 people actually liked the Matrix Sequels, because of peer pressure and a desire to conform, they will feign hatred of the Matrix Sequels because their peers hate it, and they want to be like their peers.
It's called "social conformance", and no one is standing with any intelligent control over the details. Girls want to be like other girls, and if enough girls are into XY, then the chances increase that more girls will be interested in XY simply because other girls are interested in XY.
Gee, women sure cannot make decisions for themselves, they have to consult this group.
You conveniently read my text to refer only to girls, even though I specifically called out that boys are subject to the same pressures. ... in fact, that seals the deal for me here. You're trolling, because you're totally ignoring that I'm speaking about the genders in a non-specific manner that applies to both girls and boys, but you seem to want to push the idea that feminists think women are brainless twits that have to be told what to do. That's not what I think, and it's not what we think. This is a GENERAL human characteristic that we apply labels to ourselves and seek out to conform to those we want to be associated with. "Stereotype threat" is interesting actually. If you suggest that a non-native American citizen is non-native, or foreign, then they are more likely to choose fast food, than a native American citizen when they are subject to the same suggestion. The former group having a strong desire to reassert that they are "American", will make a choice based on a desire to conform, rather than an individual choice. All of this happens silently behind the scenes of our conscious mind that controls our "choices".
...it only happened in a single country
You are aware that Interpol regularly handles arrest warrants issued to detain criminals who have committed a crime in only a single country.
Interpol is not an international police organization, it is a framework to allow national police organizations to work together across international boundaries.
If a person were to rob a bank in the US, and flee to Mexico, the US will put out an Interpol warrant (more accurately, the US will issue an arrest warrant, which is then passed on to Interpol, who communicates that warrant to all member nations), and when/if the person shows up in Mexico, Mexico will then arrest them under the Interpol warrant, in order to handle extradition processes. Mexico cannot simply arrest people on a US arrest warrant... that's why they then send it to Interpol who distributes the warrant in an internationally-aware manner that other countries recognize as valid.
So again: Country A cannot legitimately just issue an arrest warrant valid in Country B. Interpol allows Country A to get international recognition of their warrant in such a way that Country B will consider it valid in their borders. There is absolutely no requirement that the crime have occurred in multiple countries, nor that the purported criminal have committed crimes in anything more than just one country.
Good - class action lawsuits are bad for the individual consumers anyway, only make money for the law firms. I'd rather 200 people file small claims suits than someone file a class action.
... but filing in small claims court still costs a non-significant amount of money. Last I checked, $25 in the state of Washington. What happens when a company crosses the line and defrauds a million people of $20? The company just made $20,000,000 dollars, and no one is going to sue, because even in small claims, it's $25 to sue to get even a default judgement of $20, with a net loss of $5 for anyone who wants to sue. And even if everyone did sue in small claims court, the small claims court would be a) clogged with cases, and b) made out like a bandit with $25,000,000 in revenue.
Class action suits are less about benefiting individual consumers, because their damages are usually relatively low, and widely spread out. Class action suits are usually about collecting up a bunch of people who have been wronged a little and getting the company to pay for being dicks.
Oh wait, he was one of the (ahem, so called) justices that ruled that corporations are people.
While this is accurate to say, it's like saying that he's one of the justices that is a human being. All justices, judges, and magistrates accept that corporations are legal persons. This is neither surprising, nor debatable, and is a fundamental part of Common Law tradition. Why are corporations people? Because otherwise, they couldn't own property, and could not be sued.
Let's have a hypothetical. Let's say that corporations are not people in our new world. Alice, Bob, and Charlie are working together in a Corporation, ACME. Now, ACME is not a person, so someone has to own all the assets that would otherwise belong communally to ACME, and the three decide that Alice should be the person of record for ownership of materials. Now, someone has to run the company and be on the line for any legal messes, and the three decide that Bob shall do the actual operations of the company, and direct Charlie in his work, while Alice just sits at home, and collects a paycheck just for not walking away with the money and property. Now, Bob tells Charlie to dump some toxic waste in Derick's yard. Derick is upset, and goes to sue ACME in court, however, since ACME is not a person, he cannot sue ACME. So, he has to sue the people responsible for the toxic waste dumping. Well, obviously, he'd like to go after Alice, with the deep pockets, but she had no hand in causing the harm. Bob would also be a nice choice, because as the director, he has a reasonable salary, and it was his policies that directed Charlie to dump the toxic waste. Except that Bob only ever told Charlie in verbal communication that was never recorded to dump the toxic waste in Derick's yard. Leaving the only person that Derick can sue as Charlie, who is really just a lowly employee with no salary, and no real power. Derick sues and throws Charlie into bankruptcy with the tort finding, while Alice continues to maintain all the company assets that have not been touched, and Bob continues to direct the company however he sees fit with no accountability for his actions.
...a bunch of women who aren't good at understanding men...
While it's true that the vast majority of men working in IT have little experience dealing with women, and are thus in poor practice of understanding women, I think you don't understand how life works for a woman in IT. When 90% of your peers are men, and going through school/training/college most of your peers are men... you understand men just fine.
Why aren't women fleeing the casinos and bars due to how they get treated on the job? Because they have the social skills to deal with it. Because they are not only capable of understanding that men react sexually to sexual triggers, they are fully aware and in control and use those triggers intentionally.
In those situations exploiting men's sexual triggers results in better pay, and better treatment. Whereas in the IT field, being a sexual object doesn't affect your pay, detracts from your job, and reduces how well you are treated. When I left the IT field, I tried to get into work where being feminine and sexy was a positive trait, and appreciated. Namely, cocktail waitress at a strip club... in the IT field, there was the situation where if I mentioned how annoying fingernail paint was people looked at me puzzled and confused with no concept of what I was talking about (happened).
I have met a number of people who were skilled in a particular area, but didn't apply themselves, because of various reasons.
I attended summer school for English one time. I test in about the 97th percentile in English... I'm just crazy lazy, which is why I had to make up the grade. I met another girl there, who sat next to me. I would have put her as extremely intelligent, like 99th percentile. Yet she was there because she didn't know how smart she was, or actively attempted to ignore it as much as possible.
All of my siblings, myself included, are extremely capable in learning languages (My best guess for this is that a mutation in my mother resulted in the language critical-period not ending properly.) I speak German fluently (C1 level) with an impeccable accent (started learning German at 14), and various other languages at various other levels, all with reasonably good accents; my older sister speaks Dutch fluently, and lives in the Netherlands, her accent is so good that often times the Dutch around her forget that she is a foreigner (started learning Dutch at 18); my eldest sister took the DLAB, and they all but forced her to learn Chinese... as in "Dear god, we will give you all this money to learn Chinese!" but she declined, my younger sister clearly has the same ability, but has exploited it even less. I heard her explain matter-of-factly why a Latin noun was the gender it was like it was stupidly obvious to another student. Yet, she's never actually developed or harnessed this ability.
All of us are also really strong at artistic skill, and math skill (all of us having taken Honors math courses), yet I never really applied myself to developing my artistic skill, while they focused less on the math. My older sister was even told directly that she is a woman, and so she should take easier math courses.
Yes, there is aptitude involved, and someone who is not well suited to being a techie will never do well as a techie. But this compulsion about fixing things being limited to primarily men? Bollocks. Think of all the stuff your girlfriend tries to fix in your habits, behavior, dress, etc. Women want to fix things, they're just generally discouraged from fixing things, because other people do it for them.
Anyone thinking to post here should first go read http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki
IT is one of the worst professions for gender split. Its a fixable problem, but we need to fix the men first. And I say that as a male. Because I'd not ask a mother/daughter/sister to work in a lot of the IT industry as it stands now. There are companies that are much better out there (and I work at one), but they are the exception not the rule.
I like how you put this. "The environment that exists in the treatment of females means that I would not put a woman that I care about in that field"... says a lot. Thanks for your appreciation.
Awesome post, and says everything I could say, and perhaps better than I would.
I've had to work on my own motorcycle from time to time, and my boyfriend kind of refused to help me, knowing that self-sufficiency is better than doing everything for me. However, from time to time, he would call me over with "hey, Japanese hands", because I had the tiny hands to get at/into something that his man hands were just too big to get at.
Boy loves it all and is very interested; girl does not want to know. Why is this? Maybe just natural tendencies - I don't know. Wish I did.
It's less so natural tendencies, and rather a "conspiracy" of culture. Children are subjected to more gender-stereotype influence than just what they get from their parents. Nearly everything about the western culture kind of discourages women and girls from being techies, and geeks. (Any girl interested in such things would likely readily be labeled a "tomboy", I know I was...) No matter how hard a parent fights against that trend, children naturally want to conform to the rest of their gender peers... so while the actual positions themselves are less so natural, the "conspiracy" that girls want to conform to other girls, and boys want to conform to other boys, results in them all picking up certain common interests which make it difficult to distinguish from "nature".
haha - yes you're right, he must have said left hand side. My feeble excuse is that it's been a while since I've used Windows...
A totally valid excuse. :)
Crap, the last telemarketer that called me was female. Incidentally, did you know that sexual harassment is not a crime outside the workplace? At least, that's what two cops told me...
It's not a crime in the workplace either... however it is a civil offense, that can be sued for in the workplace. Outside of the workplace, indeed it is entirely unactionable.
I had a collection agency just recently call both my parents suggesting that they were going to be serving process to them for a debt that I owe. I immediately suspected something was up, because that just sounded inconsistent with legal process as I understood it, and my mom was just like "whatever, my daughter will deal with it, I'll just pass the information on." My dad however freaked out suggested that I was going to go to jail and other things, and that if they accept the process for me that they'll be entangled into the suit somehow.
I called them up, and talked to them for a bit. They implied that there was already legal action pending, but then I let them know that I was uncollectable (even if they sued, and had a valid debt, and a judgement, there would be nothing to collect), and then they seemed to imply that there was no pending legal action. They also suggested that they were a law office, but admitted when I pressed that they didn't have any lawyers on staff, but hired them on as needed. The whole thing sounded fishy, and having a good idea of my rights, I played it heavy handed, and threatened them back and stuff. ("I'll fight this in court, just to raise the cost for you, and you still won't collect anything, because I'm uncollectable.") Overall, it was a fairly enjoyable phone call for me... being able to bludgeon debt collectors back is cathartic...
Later, I talked to a lawyer friend who commented that yeah, the whole deal was illegal, and if we could identify them that I could sue them for $1,000, and also get the debt cleared. The people were fly-by-night though, and seemed to be using Google Voice or something and when we tried to call back, got no response.
I spent nearly 15 minutes on the line to one guy who tried to talk me through pressing the Windows button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
Do you run into Hebrew or Arabic Windows more than anything else? Because most localizations have the Windows button in the bottom LEFT hand corner...
And if you don't defend yourself in a civil case (at a cost of many thousand dollars you may not have ), you will get a judgement against you by default. Then the tort manifests as money.
I noted that this is basically accurate, but it is a weird phrasing that seems like a person just wanted to use the word "tort" but didn't actually properly understand what it was.
I correct, a tort is a similar to a crime, and is the civil court equivalent to a criminal court's crime.
... the torts from the lawsuit will bankrupt him.
This phrasing bugs me. It's like saying "the crimes from the criminal complaint will send him to jail". A "tort" is the same as "crime", it is an action performed. If the MPAA used torts to bankrupt the guy, he could sue. However, the judgements from the lawsuits could easily bankrupt him.
I mean, it's reasonably accurate, but comes across as the language that would be used in a movie. Torts are the standing for a civil lawsuit, rather than what actually bankrupts people. As with anything, a crime isn't punished unless someone is convicted, and a tort doesn't manifest as money or equity unless someone has a judgement levied against them.
You don't actually know that, since there have never been any hearings into the issue. Another strike for the "most transparent administration in history". If it was truly an accident, lets an investigation, some hearings, and let the truth come out. The fact that there are none speaks a lot louder than whatever propaganda you're buying into.
And neither are you certain that he was intentionally targeted. However, since there were a number of adult high-level Al Qaeda leaders also killed in the same strike, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the adult high-level level Al Qaeda leaders were the intentional target, and the 16-year-old boy was an unintentional casualty.
Believe it or not, there is not a good reason to launch an investigation into every missile strike that kills an innocent person, even if they're only 16-years-old, or an American citizen. The strike was intended to take out Al Qaeda leaders, collateral damage may and often does occur. This is not a surprising result.
Oh, I understand that. I just don't think the difference is whether the violation of the constitution is "trivial" or not. There are no trivial violations of the constitution. There are only violations of the constitution that powerful allow, and other violations that the powerful do not allow. All violations of the constitution are equally unconstitutional and invalid.
I think there is a misunderstanding in the usage of "trivial" here. I intend the term to mean that the unconstitutionality can be demonstrated trivially. A better word her would have been "patently". As in "The right to indefinite detention of American citizens was patently unconstitutional." I agree that all violations of the constitution are equally unconstitutional and invalid, however some are easier to show than others.
Fair enough. Would it be more accurate if I said "So what you're saying is that Obama claims he can detain you indefinitely without any specific statutory authority so you must recognize he is nothing more than a thug with no respect for the rule of law."?
Except that Obama never claimed this. Bush II did.
I think you missed my point. My point was that we don't even need the Ex-PATRIOT Act, we already have the Reed Amendment of a law from 1996...
The government is so clueless about what is already the legal state that they're actively attempting to promote something that is already the law... (but then, to be fair, no one knows all the laws... that's why you should always talk to a lawyer. It's illegal to care some species of lobster across state borders for example... Key point is, no one has ever been able to hold all laws in their head... don't talk to the police.)
I'm standing even more corrected. Apparently, a US Citizen can properly renounce their citizenship while residing in the USA, and become stateless. The government of course warns people about the dangers of doing so, because being stateless means you have no government that will stand up for you...
The US if fairly unique in that we tax...
Looking up Renunciation of Citizenship, apparently what these people want is already in law (emphasis added):
In 1996, the U.S. changed its immigration law to include a provision to "name and shame" renunciants.[19] The Department of the Treasury became obligated to publish quarterly in the Federal Register the names of those citizens who renounce their citizenship. Only the names are published, but by counting the number of names in each list, media organizations are able to infer the number of renunciants each quarter. The 1996 law included a provision to bar entry to any individual "who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States."[19] There is no known case of this provision, known as the Reed Amendment, having ever been enforced.