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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#290226: Sep 16th 2019 at 1:39:26 PM

This is actually WHY Elizabeth Warren wants to end corporate personage. On one hand, it means that you can't necessarily sue a tobacco company for a billion dollars. However, you could sue the people who actually made the decisions to ruin lives and take away their assets.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#290227: Sep 16th 2019 at 1:42:03 PM

My understanding is that in most cases where a person is hurt by a corporation, they'd actually rather sue the corporation.

With corporate personhood, I'd argue it makes sense, because corporations are groups of people. Corporate personhood exists to make sure that a group of people can be treated as one individual for legal purposes.

Leviticus 19:34
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#290228: Sep 16th 2019 at 1:52:00 PM

The problem is that the Sacklers didn't run their company like a standard corporation; they ran it like a personal enrichment platform. There needs to be a category of crime for this sort of grotesque, willful abuse of business ethics.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 16th 2019 at 4:53:32 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#290229: Sep 16th 2019 at 2:08:32 PM

Well, the problem with that is that you can’t really make seeking personal enrichment illegal. If you want to run your corporation like a personal enrichment platform you have the freedom to do so.

If you break the law in pursuit of personal enrichment that’s a different story, obviously.

They should have sent a poet.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#290230: Sep 16th 2019 at 2:14:22 PM

I mean corporate personhood is the foundation of corporate law. You’d literally have to rewrite shit tons of US Federal Law and Codes

New Survey coming this weekend!
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#290231: Sep 16th 2019 at 2:17:02 PM

What might is a law where in the event of the criminal conspiracy involving shareholders and the cooperation all liability (civil and criminal) falls onto both the company and the shareholders found to have been part of a conspiracy.

And that’s any one criminal conspiracy bringing the protection down, so if a shareholder is found guilty of a conspiracy to fix drug prices they can also be help guilty for any cooperate murders the company may have done.

The split between the company and the person shouldn’t exist for people who use the company as a criminal platform.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#290232: Sep 16th 2019 at 2:17:59 PM

I am 99% sure that Warren does not support ending corporate personhood.

Because otherwise her Accountability in Capitalism Act wouldn't make much sense, this bit in particular:

The Accountable Capitalism Act — real citizenship for corporate persons

The conceit tying together Warren’s ideas is that if corporations are going to have the legal rights of persons, they should be expected to act like decent citizens who uphold their fair share of the social contract and not act like sociopaths whose sole obligation is profitability — as is currently conventional in American business thinking.

Warren wants to create an Office of United States Corporations inside the Department of Commerce and require any corporation with revenue over $1 billion — only a few thousand companies, but a large share of overall employment and economic activity — to obtain a federal charter of corporate citizenship.

The charter tells company directors to consider the interests of all relevant stakeholders — shareholders, but also customers, employees, and the communities in which the company operates — when making decisions. That could concretely shift the outcome of some shareholder lawsuits but is aimed more broadly at shifting American business culture out of its current shareholders-first framework and back toward something more like the broad ethic of social responsibility that took hold during WWII and continued for several decades.

Business executives, like everyone else, want to have good reputations and be regarded as good people but, when pressed about topics of social concern, frequently fall back on the idea that their first obligation is to do what’s right for shareholders. A new charter would remove that crutch, and leave executives accountable as human beings for the rights and wrongs of their own decisions.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 16th 2019 at 2:20:34 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#290233: Sep 16th 2019 at 3:16:00 PM

Corporate personhood is a legal principle that means they can hold assets, be party to contracts, be named as either plaintiff or defendant in a lawsuit, etc. Basically rather than write out separate, unnecessarily complex legal frameworks for corporations doing all those things, the law just says "for the purposes of doing those things, corporates are people with all the rights and responsibilities that a person has."

Where that falls apart is when it's extended to things that it shouldn't be. For example: does a corporation have the right to free speech? If you restrict a corporation's speech, whose rights are being violated? The employees? The shareholders? Should corporations be allowed to make political donations? Hell, why not let corporations vote? People can vote, right? So why can't corporations, who are people for legal purposes?

Obviously a line needs to be drawn somewhere. The debate is over where the line should be, not whether or not legal personhood should be abolished entirely.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#290234: Sep 16th 2019 at 3:57:12 PM

I'd say it's pretty clear freedom of speech should apply to corporations. For example, if Disney makes a movie with a political message Trump doesn't like, the government could easily justify censoring it if Disney does not have some degree freedom of speech.

Voting is obviously taking corporate personhood too literally, as that's a right that's meant specifically to apply to individuals, not groups of individuals.

So, it exists somewhere between letting them have 1st amendment rights and letting them vote.

Leviticus 19:34
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#290235: Sep 16th 2019 at 4:04:15 PM

I don't think you even need to give corporations the right to freedom of speech to protect movies with political messages from government censorship. IINM said right is already applicable to movies that are made by non-corporate studios.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#290236: Sep 16th 2019 at 4:08:17 PM

Is there a (good) satire out there that has ran with the corporate suffrage idea? Because that sounds like it has potential.

Imca (Veteran)
#290237: Sep 16th 2019 at 4:11:18 PM

How much would coperations voting even affect things? There can't like be enough of them to even compete wth one city.

If your going to go part way, might as well go all the way so we can hold them acountable for manslaughter and homicides.

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#290238: Sep 16th 2019 at 4:21:38 PM

How would a corporation go about suing its board for bad management and abusive malpractice?

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#290239: Sep 16th 2019 at 4:22:27 PM

One Shareholders sues the rest of the board I imagine

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#290240: Sep 16th 2019 at 4:43:59 PM

Picture this: the company is in its mid-teens, and has been hopelessly let down. The board has become, at best, neglectful and distant when it hasn't been over-critical and abusive towards its human resources. Yet, the shareholders have been no better, egging the board on to dangerously understaffed and under-researched organisational practices in the name of profit. The two fight each other, while the poor thing tries to arrange for a divorce from both of them, since the very goals it came into existence to achieve are under threat due to growing beyond its original business model...

Will it find hope in the arms of governmental regulation? Will the workers themselves manage a takeover and do the unthinkable — help it convert to a more cooperative, unionised model? Or, will it just face the cold stares of a public that cares little for corporate entities of a moderately large size and fairly young age...?

Corporate entities... the daytime soap. Especially as, you know, a company doesn't have a voice or opinion of its own. Which makes it, you know... not an individual.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 16th 2019 at 12:52:25 PM

MrHellboy The Shadow from A world of my own Since: Dec, 2017 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
The Shadow
#290241: Sep 16th 2019 at 9:25:58 PM

So, after what just happened in Saudi Arabia, what are the odds we're gonna go to war just to make sure Trump gets re-elected? Worked for Bush Jr. after all

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#290242: Sep 16th 2019 at 9:32:08 PM

Not gonna happen. Even Trump voters aren't too keen on another war in the Middle East.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#290243: Sep 16th 2019 at 10:34:32 PM

So just to make a point, there are parts of the world where cooperations can vote, including one tiny bit of the UK, I briefly worked for a company that could vote and we got canvassed multiple times as an election was happening.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#290244: Sep 16th 2019 at 10:47:14 PM

There are places where corporations can vote?

Team Four Star joked in Hellsing Ultimate Abridged about the U.S. deciding that since corporations were legally considered people, then they can technically run for President. "President Walt Disney-Pepsi-Comcast is doing wonders for the economy, being that it now is the economy."

That joke is beginning to feel uncomfortably prophetic.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#290245: Sep 16th 2019 at 10:53:40 PM

@Kazuya The USA is already committing genocide. One of the literal definitions of genocide is "forcibly transferring children out of [a national, ethnic, racial or religious group] to another group."

That is LITERALLY genocide, just ask the Native Americans.

Imca (Veteran)
#290246: Sep 16th 2019 at 11:51:35 PM

[up][up] Well we still have faith in that that name is too long to catchily brand, so we are safe for now.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#290247: Sep 17th 2019 at 12:21:26 AM

Yeah, I feel like we're already at war in the Middle East. What Saudi Arabia would want from us is more assistance but Trump can get most of what he wants by making sure they're backed up.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#290248: Sep 17th 2019 at 12:35:10 AM

@Tobias, yep, I believe they get votes in Hong Kong and I know they do for local elections for The City of London (not the same as the UK region of Greater London).

I can explain the process behind it for The City either via PM or in the UK politics thread, it actually kinda makes sense.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#290249: Sep 17th 2019 at 5:08:54 AM

Well, technically corporations don't vote in HK. What does happen is that if you're the owner/CEO of some big company or a big name elite in the business community and you toe the CCP party line, you get invited to be a member of the electoral collage that votes for the Chief Executive.

Edited by nightwyrm_zero on Sep 17th 2019 at 5:10:17 AM

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#290250: Sep 17th 2019 at 8:40:34 AM

So, after what just happened in Saudi Arabia, what are the odds we're gonna go to war just to make sure Trump gets re-elected? Worked for Bush Jr. after all

Since we have not had a war and Trump has been in power for almost three years I would say the odds are not good, at this point Trump has clearly shown himself to be disinterested in serious international commitment. which is bad when we're talking about alienating our allies but good when it comes to not going to war against Iran.

Also, the idea that he can start a war and just win re-election is dumb. Bush Jr could start those wars because of 9/11, that is what allowed him to be re-elected. Trump has no such pretext and thus if he starts a war with Iran he would see his re-election chances plummet as the American public starts feeling the cost.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

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