Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

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>post-hoc punishment is the only reasonable punishment.

Maybe a little charitable interpretation is warranted?

I clearly meant, post hoc rationalization for the punishment. Typically you punish when AN EXISTING law is broken. In this case, OP is arguing for new punishment based on new laws that were broken in the past.

>My guess, it was already illegal to poison the environment

No. The devil is in the definition of 'poison the environment'. We have coal plants that 'poison the environment'. We have solar panels, that through manufacturing, maintenance and decommissioning, 'poison the environment'.

>Corporations are not people. You can punish a corporation without any of that considerations.

Who owns corporations? This "corporations are not people" is such a cliché. All the rights that corporations have stem from the rights of the owners. Corporations have rights, because the owners have rights.

And who says the corporations are solely responsible? An unincorporated contractor may be responsible as well.

> All the rights that corporations have stem from the rights of the owners. Corporations have rights, because the owners have rights.

This is simply not true. All of the rights that corporations have stem from a public-interest grant by the state. If the rights of corporations came from the owners, we 1) could jail stockholders for the crimes of the corporation, and 2) wouldn't need corporations, because all they are is liability shields.

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

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

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.

>This is simply not true

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??????

The SCOTUS basically ruled that Corporations are people in the Citizens United case.

If you look at the case, I cannot imagine how SCOTUS could have ruled any other way. The government actually tried to argue that they had to power to censor a book, even if that book had one line that they deemed to be advocating for a candidate [1]. Worse, the FEC standard was arbitrary and capricious. They censored an anti-Hillary documentary put out by a conservative group (Citizens United) but did nothing against Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (which was expressly put out to advocate against Bush).

[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."

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