L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

My father had his own earning, creating, and saving abilities.

I don't see how you could have a criminal trail against a dead person in the US, without violating the sixth amendment. It would be impossible to inform the deceased of the charges, etc.

Every law, no matter how small and well-meaning, has implicit threat of prison behind it. You can't be so naïve as to believe that this enforcement action won't result in prison for some, destroyed lives for others, and because laws and enforcement are man-made, there's also a guarantee that your dragnet will punish some innocents, and let some guilty go (maybe because they can afford great lawyers and/or bribes). And of course, because this would be a very controversial measure, it would be highly politicized.

Moreover, where do you draw the line? Should all the decedents of german families who got their wealth off the back of slave labor by jews also be forced to forfeit their wealth? What about the decedents of families of plantation owners? How do you go about handling that with the institutions provided? What would they be charged with?

Actual facts show that at this moment in time in the U.S. it's white supremacists and related extreme-right ideologies which are producing most domestic terrorism (i.e. actual violence).

https://www.csis.org/analysis/war-comes-home-evolution-domes...

And yes, punishing a family member for a crime perpetrated by another is, by definition, collective punishment.

The people who lived out their days without going broke lose because their property rights are being violated. Their property and their dollars that they have already paid taxes on should be theirs to give away as they see fit.

It punishes those who would have had the assets otherwise. Especially when the stated reason is to punish them.

I do not understand this sentiment one bit. To think that we should implement equality by pulling people down to the mean is, frankly, insane. That does nothing to help anyone - its a stance based solely on anger and jealousy. Your policy would literally decrease the average quality of life.

Would you be happy if everyone was destitute? At what point do you realize that actual quality of life matters more than perfect equality?

We achieve equality by bringing people up, not tearing them down. If you think we need more tax money to accomplish that goal, I would argue that we have much more of a budgeting problem than a tax income problem, but I understand the sentiment. But to think that the appropriate tax vehicle is to explicitly destroy lives is not an American ideal.

https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_...

(That was for 2011; it's a reasonably safe bet that as a group they're no poorer now.)

It was political will that created the loopholes in the first place. Getting rid of them unfortunately requires more political will than creating them did. This probably has something to do with loss-aversion.

My children are not entitled to my estate. My wealth is my private property, not theirs; I am free to direct its disposition as (my spouse and) I see fit. That's the essence of private property rights for the net-positive case.

For the net-negative case, it's a matter of practicality. Your personal debts die with you (they are settled as part of the estate settlement process and if the estate runs out of money, some creditors go without).

If you think inter-generational wealth continuity is a problem now, just imagine how much worse it would be if debt were passed along via negative inheritance.

That is exactly true.

>All of the rights that corporations have stem from a public-interest grant by the state.

That's right. But that's missing half the equation. If property rights weren't enshrined to corporations, and corporations could be arbitrarily raided by any two-bit socialist politician, nobody would incorporate. And those property rights come from the property rights of the owners because if the owners own the corporations, and if the corporations property rights are violated, then it follows the owners property rights are violated. If I own a corporation, that owns a local business (maybe a grocery store, or a autobody shop), and a looter steals from the store, I, the owner lose. Remember those videos of store owners in tears when looters and rioters destroyed their stores - some (all?) of those business owners are incorporated, so why are they in tears if it's just corporate property that was affected??????

Go on...

"Corporations aren't actual people, they're statutory people. Little branches of the government."

Oh.

I'd be ecstatic if we resumed chartering of corporations. If corporations are "people", we should be able to "unpeople" (terminate) them.

I've long hoped that progressives and libertarians could find common ground over the need to reign in corporations.

I've always found it weird that "freedom from oppression" minded people prefer Big Corp over Big Govt. As you point out, corporations are just more government, but without all that troublesome accountability, transparency, and democratic oversight.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Argumen...

"During the original oral argument, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart (representing the FEC) argued that under Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the government would have the power to ban books if those books contained even one sentence expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and were published or distributed by a corporation or labor union. In response to this line of questioning, Stewart further argued that under Austin the government could ban the digital distribution of political books over the Amazon Kindle or prevent a union from hiring an author to write a political book."

"Equality under the law" is a pretty strong argument. Corporations are legal people, and the law treats all people the same. Setting up classes of people with different laws that apply differently is absolutely not something that would fly.