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Comment by Buttons840 | Hacker News Reader

While the courts, supposedly, focus on what the law actually says, remember that Wickard v Filburn (1942) established that growing a plant on your own property for your own personal use is "interstate commerce".

I don't know a lot about law, but I at least know that ruling on what the "actual law is" is selective, and usually selective in a way that is beneficial for the rich and powerful.

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> ruling on what the "actual law is" is selective

US judges are not fact-checked and may rely on whatever selection of information presented in amicus briefs (as-filtered by 20-something year old law clerks trying their best) seems applicable.[1]

This seems relevant here because the mentioned figure seems to be "compliance costs" (cost to implement), not the cost on the bottom line of each org. It's very possible that that cost still exceeds $100,000,000, but it does leave more discretion in the hands of the judges than the GP would seem to imply, and more room for judges to listen to inflated estimates of cost.

Acknowledging that there's still something to be said about erring side of caution, but also that there's something to be said about what a ridiculous limit $100Mil is in 2025.

[1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-...

So we have some cases where the courts follow the rule of law, and others where the stretch reality to come to insane but convenient conclusions, like in your example.

You're right, it's absolutely applied selectively. But, while it would be nice to have an insane, illegal, but convenient conclusion in our favor, that does not mean we should criticize the courts for following the rule of law rather than coming to an insane, illegal conclusion.

The problem is that if the courts only follow the rule of law some of the time then one must consider the possibility that these selective applications of the law are in service of some extra-legal agenda, in which case the fact that this agenda occasionally aligns with the law doesn't change the fact that the judges are in fact operating with compete disregard for the law except as it occasionally offers the opportunity to cover up their real motives.

Sure, I don't disagree, my point is just that the solution is not to transition from "ignore the law most of the time" to "ignore the law all of the time".

Frankly I'd prefer the latter because that would take away their plausible deniability and make it obvious that the court has gone rogue.

I've seen this attitude an increasing amount over the past few years. I think it's the same thing that's responsible for the current US presidential administration.

There's this attitude of, "this thing is partly broken sometimes. We should make it all broken, all the time, and that will be better".

Is there this faith that some higher power will swoop in afterwards and replace the now completely broken system with something that's good?

I think the result will be, things will simply be much worse than they were before.

I don't want to make it all broken. I would much prefer it not to be broken at all. I would much prefer if the courts just followed the law all the time. But if it's going to be broke, if the courts are not going to follow the law, I'd much prefer they do it all the time so that it is obvious that they are not following the law, and then maybe people will notice and do something about it.

The real problem I think is that no one seems to actually want the courts to follow the law. Everyone wants the courts to bend the law to their own desires, and so everyone gives them a pass when they do this. And that's how we end up in situations like we are in now.

Doesn't mean much when "rule of law" is just a polite way of stating "for my friends everything, for my enemies the law"

It sort of does mean that. If the courts selectively rule in favor of one class, and we can’t do anything about it, then the best thing to do may absolutely be to encourage selective rulings against them.

I see why you say that, but I prefer the long term results of fighting against insane rulings when they're bad, rather than the long term effects of fighting for insane rulings on the occasions that I find them convenient.

I don’t think we can successfully fight insane rulings in the near future. It’s on the same order as getting money out of politics; disagrees completely with the current incentives of the system and would require a massive political push. It seems to me that the system is working as intended in allowing insane rulings, and that we should attempt to use that to our advantage, since the powerful absolutely will continue to do so and there’s basically jack shit we can do about it right now.

From wikipedia:

In July 1940, pursuant to the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1938, Filburn's 1941 allotment was established at 11.1 acres (4.5 ha) and a normal yield of 20.1 bushels of wheat per acre (1.4 metric tons per hectare). Filburn was given notice of the allotment in July 1940, before the fall planting of his 1941 crop of wheat, and again in July 1941, before it was harvested. Despite the notices, Filburn planted 23 acres (9.3 ha) and harvested 239 more bushels (6,500 kg) than was allowed from his 11.9 acres (4.8 ha) of excess area.

I don’t agree with the ruling or implications of this case, that said it was a clear ruling of technicalities.

The decision is not about whether Filburn violated the AAA, it's about if production quotas under the AAA are even constitutional.

Congress has limited powers, and one of those is to regular interstate commerce (The "Commerce Clause"). SCOTUS decided that production quotas counted as regulating interstate commerce, and was therefore constitutional.

Good point. Also note that Interstate Commerce is a bit of a special case. It's sort of the exception that swallows the rule. The Supreme court went for decades without ruling against the feds on the interstate commerce issue. US v. Lopez (1995)(possessing a gun in a school zone) was a rare case where the Supremes said something was not within the bounds of interstate commerce.

And corporations are people...

Do you not think that corporations are composed of people who have rights?

Is a corporation without any employees still a person?

It never is a person. The Citizens United ruling determined that the people in the corporation have the right to free (political) speech, regardless of the coalition they are part of.

Everyone pretty much agrees with this, The Democratic party liked to push the meme you're repeating because it helped them beat Romney. They intentionally misinterpreted his and the court's words to win an election and people have been repeating the lie ever since.

The answer to your question is no, a corporation without people isn't a person and neither is a corporation with people. The "people" in the phrase "corporations are people" are the ones with rights.

The singular if the phrase is "a corporation is people" not "a corporation is a person", as you were misled into thinking.

> It never is a person. The Citizens United ruling determined that the people in the corporation have the right to free (political) speech, regardless of the coalition they are part of.

Oh that's right, this was part of the whole "money equals speech" plan to get around donation limits. I had forgotten how convoluted the thinking gets if you take every link in the chain at face value.

I find that I'll need to break most political arguments down to the "Who, what, where, why, and how" level if I want to get a grip on what's happening around me and how I'll be impacted. With Citizens United I started by trying to determine what rights I didn't have before the ruling.

> money equals speech

Another great and misleading quote.

> With Citizens United I started by trying to determine what rights I didn't have before the ruling.

That's an easy answer. You didn't have the right to make a movie about a politician with your friends while also forming a corporation so that, when the camera man you hired breaks his leg and sues you, you don't personally go broke.

Before Citizens United, a single (wealthy) individual could have funded a movie like that to try and turn an election. After Citizens United, collective political speech got easier.

After Citizens United, the amount if money spent on political campaigns (outside of the campaign, wink wink) has skyrocketed, that's true. However, the source of that money isn't billionaires, they were already able to use their wealth to influence politics (think Fox News/Murdoch). All that new.money is coming from smaller donations from more people.

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