I've Said It Before...

... and I'm sure I'll say it again. Anti-corporate personhood movements show a supreme lack of understanding of the underpinnings of corporate law. Also, they show a lack of understanding of the reasoning behind Constitutional protections for the individual.

I ran across this today. I know it isn't new. I know it isn't news. It is, however, noteworthy.

Why? Let's see if I can break down the problems with this proposal. Right off the bat, I have problems with the drafting of the proposal. The first section is designed to strip Constitutional protections from corporate entities. Just take a moment to consider what Constitutional protections companies currently enjoy. We have the controversial right to free speech-political or advertising, both have some significant restrictions. We have the famous freedom of the press (almost exclusively corporations, up until the advent of the blogosphere). We have the protections of the 4th Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure. We have the protections of the 5th Amendment, though only the takings clause really applies to companies.

Certainly, one could argue that corporate owners could protest things such as governmental seizures without just compensation. But the arguments to get there if the assets are in the corporate name get murky quickly. Absolutely, one could say that Freedom of the Press should apply when the corporation is a publishing company. The words are not its own, but rather those of the authors it publishes. But, it could just as easily be argued the other way. It could easily go the other way in the 4th Amendment context, given that amendment specifically says "person." Therefore, no company could complain if the police rifled through corporate documents without giving even enough reason to get a warrant. Oh, but don't worry, the information in corporate documents wouldn't violate private rights. Go ahead and look through the corporately held documents of that bank, or Facebook.

Furthermore, some problems would arise from this. First, federal judicial power is restricted to citizens. Currently, calling a corporation a fictional person also makes the corporation a citizen of a state. Strip that fictional status, you leave the corporation the ability to claim the federal judiciary has no jurisdiction over the corporation. It is, admittedly, a stretch to argue. However, get the right judge (perhaps one who disagrees with the amendment) and you can get the case tossed.

Lastly, a goodly portion of the Constitution is directed toward disallowing the various States from imposing laws that restrict or impair trade between the States. I'll end by asking: what do you think disparate corporate legal protection-especially given the words of the full faith and credit clause-would do to trade across state borders?

Affordable Care Act

As I'm sure most of you know, this morning, the Supreme Court upheld the healthcare bill (ACA). From a political philosophy perspective-and this may surprise some of you who know me-I do think the sovereign has the right regulate, even mandate, healthcare coverage. However, that gets very complicated in a dual sovereign system such as the one in the United States. So, you begin to see why I can say the sovereign has the power and right to do this, yet still say the federal government should not. The Constitution was designed to limit the federal power, and leave the rest to the states. (Yes, later the states were limited by the Amendments, etc.) In my opinion, if one of the sovereign States' peoples voted to institute a healthcare system for that State, and could fund it, then more power to them.

All that said, what do I think of the ACA? I (like most of Congress) have not read it. So what the actual changes will be, I can only speculate. But I will predict that it will not have a huge impact on the majority of Americans. I think it is safe to say that most citizens have very little knowledge of what laws are in place that keep things running in the manner we expect, or prevent things from running as well as they could. People just are too oblivious to notice. It will probably be the same with this.

There is one exception: I can expect to make some money off of it. A new bureaucracy will lead to more business for lawyers willing to take on administrative law cases.

Maverick Montana

Montana has, for as long as I can remember, been something of a maverick state. The reputation it holds conjures up images of people living off the grid and dodging the Federal government rules and regulations. They're at it again.

World Net Daily reports that the State of Montana has passed (and the governor has signed) a law stating that Federal regulations cannot apply to guns and ammunition manufactured in Montana for sale and use within the state. The state is citing the Commerce clause, correctly stating the Constitution only allows for Federal regulation of commerce in interstate commerce rather than completely self contained intrastate commerce. The WND article has a more in depth detail of why Montana says they have the power to enact this law, including detailing the "contract conditions" under which they became a State of the Union. Mainly, I'm interested to see how the Feds handle this sort of direct thumbing of the nose by a state which, as far as I can tell, is correctly using the 9th and 10th amendments to enforce its views of the 2nd.

For another blog on this, go here.

Equality by way of Corruption?

Define corruption in a political sense. What do you think it should mean? Is it the use of political power in favor of one group to the detriment of another? Or is that just politics.

I found an article over on Townhall that made me think about this. The article doesn't focus on the under the table dealings of politicians, though it does mention them. The main point Goldberg is trying to make is that political corruption can be blatant, pernicious, and there for all to see and still not be stopped. It can even be applauded when the people do not understand the implications.

As you know, I can't leave a post well enough alone until I have a quote or two in it. Here are today's gems:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to
govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 51

"Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1799

I chose these two for one simple reason: they both highlight the need to remember that our government was not founded to help people. It was founded to protect the people from interference and allow them to help themselves. People forget the mindset that built our economy. Henry Ford best summed it up on February 11, 1934 when he said, "Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again."

Edit: The Washington Post published something similar.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/13/AR2009051303014_pf.html

Happy Tax Day

Makes it sound like a holiday, right?

I doubt that most people would think of celebrating today. Even though we all "observe" Tax day, it is not a Federal holiday or a day we take off from work. It is, however, a day when most of us at least think about the amount of money we send to our government. We don't normally notice the withheld income from our paychecks or contemplate what is actually being done with the taxes collected (unless the wrangling about budgets is hitting the news) or even really think about the fact that it is our money being used. That's the whole point of withholding. Out of sight, out of mind. We never see the money in the first place so we never consider the fact that we had it coming.

I'm not going to used this space to rant about what the federal government is doing with your tax dollars, or talk about my opinions on government reaction to the economy, or even talk about "progressive" taxation rates. Ok, maybe a little, but I'll try really hard not to. I want to talk about why tax people? Simple question, right? Not so much.

Taxes are, obviously, how the government pays for its activities. They exist because there are government activities which cannot be paid for in the same manner in which a business makes money, namely the sales of services or materials. We could pay for things like the mail service on a pay-per-use fashion (think stamps and postage) because that is a service provided to the people that the people use regularly and are happy to pay as they go. You don't expect the postal service to send your letter without paying for the stamp, just as you don't expect UPS to send your package without paying them for shipping. So some government services clearly don't need taxes to function. Some, however, clearly do need taxes in order to function. You wouldn't want to pay for police or military on a pay-per-use scale, would you? Of course not, since, by the time you need to use them, you don't want to need to worry about whether or not you can afford to call on them. Therefore, taxes are a necessary part of a functioning society. They are necessary to supply the basic functions of government. What those basic functions are is where we come to disagreements.

Addressing the question of basic function, in our society, must revolve around the confines of the Constitution, first and foremost. It outlined the duties of the government and should be what is followed, whether I believe it currently is being followed as a guideline I will keep to myself, for the moment. Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution starts with this sentence, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." It's that "general welfare" statement that gets us into trouble and arguments.

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It could reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."
-- Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:148

While I can find numerous other quotes regarding the use for taxes regarding providing for the general welfare, I think that sums up the original intent far better than most. With it, I begin my case, to be continued...

Oh, so I lied a little about not talking about my opinions on tax policy. Anyone heard about the Tax Tea Parties going on? Simon Jester talks a bit about them, and that's where I found these links. Apparently, there might be some conflicts of interest in demonstrating against government policy (taxation) and First Amendment rights in a few places. I say might, because it looks like changes in paperwork required is what's causing the problems, even if the paperwork was originally approved, like in Vermont and Philly. Then again, in Texas, calling the event "not in the public interest" looks like a political stooge trying to tell the people what should be thought. Though that might just be me.

Atlanta people who want to know more, go here.

Goodness, I seem to have tended more toward domestic policy with the blog than I ever intended. We'll see where I go from here.

Economic Policy or Economic Paradigm?

This article on Yahoo News was brought to my attention today. President Obama's desire for stable economic growth is understandable, laudable even. However, wanting economic growth in a free market without accepting the fact that free markets have downturns as well as growth is something of a pipe dream. As I have said before, one of the fundamental features of a free market is the unstable nature of growth. To change that would be to change the economic system which we live with and, as has been shown numerous times by the countries that try centralized economic planning and heavy price regulation, the chaotic nature of capitalism tends to promote growth best.

Now, I understand the President says he doesn't wish to supplant the private sector, merely to regulate it in such a manner as to prevent the “reckless speculation and spending beyond our means; on bad credit and inflated home prices and over leveraged banks.” He also said, “Such activity isn’t the creation of lasting wealth. It’s the illusion of prosperity, and it hurts us all in the end.” Which is, of course, why his spending plan calls for the US government to borrow heavily so that the government can spend beyond its means and create the illusion as economic growth.

However, is government action the correct answer to a market crisis (in this case a crisis precipitated by the financial markets)? Is the answer to regulate the market until it, supposedly, cannot fluctuate so drastically? Or is the answer to allow the fluctuation to amputate the non-functioning segments? To allow economic Darwinism (by which I mean profitability, aka, greed) streamline the market until it flows smoothly again seems like a painful alternative to the easy way out of letting the government handle our mistakes.

As a warning against a greater degree of government intervention, I present the findings of the Cato Institute relating to the relationship between financial deregulation and financial crises. According to the study, financial deregulation in itself does not lead to financial instability, as half of the countries in the study that deregulated their financial systems experienced market instability and half did not. The findings point to the size of the country's government as the pivotal factor in whether or not the country will experience a financial crisis: the larger the government, the more likely the market will not self adjust without crisis.

What does all of this mean? It means that continued government interference and "help" is more likely to maintain economic instability rather than promote economic growth. As further evidence of this claim I put forward the theory, increasingly popular as economists study it, that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. Also, there is the claim that the government's intervention in the financial market increased the market drop last year. As it is, I wonder how long it will be before the people of this country remember that economic trouble means a shift in the economy as well as economic opportunity to those brave enough to take personal risks. This economy became the world's largest through risk and perseverance rather than cowardice and government control.

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order - or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.' " -- Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964

A well done speech...

As I've said before, I am not a scholar of American politics but some events warrant comment.

Overall, I found the speech given last night to be very well done, hopeful, and humble. But President-elect Barack Obama said a few things that make me wonder how his vision will color his leadership. He said that he will be not only a president for those who voted for him, but attentive to the concerns of those who oppose him. A very hopeful sign for a president trying to unite a country. If he can stay away from the non-centrist record tailing along behind him, he can be a leader for all of this fine country.

However, one or two sections from the speech caught my attention.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

I have no problem with the idea of renewing the old American sense of helping our neighbor. It is something required of us as Christians. However, a government pushed sense of duty and sacrifice is a common thread among states that become more than the people wished. And worse. With our Constitution and the strength of our people, I don't see us slipped into that dark pool. That being said, what if our leaders consider the Constitution out of touch and out-dated? What if they decide that the ideals that shaped our founders are not applicable to the situation of today?

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

He has said before that our paradigm is flawed, this only reinforces my fear that the standard by which our laws and dreams are judges will become warped with time, even more than time has already done to the proud writings handed down to us to help guide our country when it needs the advice required to maintain our "more perfect union." Not our "perfect union," but a "more perfect union." Perfection is unattainable and we should not change that which has allowed us to flex and grow.