TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

Further to my preceding post on speech and corporations, I highly recommend Lawrence Lessig`s insightful short piece, “The Principled and Pure Court? A Reply to Glenn Greenwald” (HuffPo, January 27).

For those who haven`t seen it yet, I take the liberty of quoting liberally (emphasis added):

Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald
is just about the most persistent and effective critic of money in
politics today. He is among the least starry-eyed reporters studying
Congress. But his essay defending the Court’s judgment in Citizens United would have been better had he sprinkled a bit of the skepticism he has for Congress on the words penned by the Court….

The First Amendment, Greenwald tells us, is an absolute. It applies
not to “persons”; it “simply bans Congress from making any laws
abridging freedom of speech.” This law plainly banned these entities —
whether persons or not — from a freedom of speech. Ergo, this law is,
and should have been found to be, unconstitutional.

Sounds good. Sounds principled. Sounds refreshingly different from
anything else that happens within the reach of DC (i.e., good and
principled).

But apply that same test to the following (not so hypothetical) free
speech case: A bunch of doctors practice in family planning clinics.
The government issues a rule that says certain doctors in certain
clinics are not allowed to discuss abortion as a method of family
planning. They can talk about abstinence. Or condoms. But they are not
allowed to advise their pregnant patients that they have the liberty to
abort their fetus.

Sounds like — under the First Amendment Greenwald describes — a
simple case. Whether or not doctors are persons (and at least some are
just mere mortals), they should have the freedom to speak. Advising
someone about a legal medical procedure is among the core freedoms one
would expect a Free Speech Clause to serve.

Yet in 1991, in an opinion by Chief Justice Robert’s former boss, Chief Justice Rehnquist, in the case of Rust v. Sullivan,
the Court found no First Amendment problem at all with the government’s
restriction on doctors’ speech. Indeed, it wasn’t even a difficult case
according to the Court (“no question but that the statutory prohibition
contained in § 1008 is constitutional.”)

Why? How? Well the doctors at issue worked in family planning
clinics that had received at least some of their funds from the
government. And in exchange for that benefit, the government was free
to gag the doctors however it wished. The doctors were free of course
to work in a family planning clinic not funded at all by the government
(for of course, there are plenty of those) (that’s a joke). But so long
as the doctors take this benefit from the government, they’ve got to
live by the rules of the government, at least so long as those rules
serve some legitimate state end.

So how is this case related to Citizens United? For the law wasn’t
applying exclusively to entities that had received something from the
government. It was applying to all corporations.

But of course, corporations do receive a gift from the government.
The government limits the legal liability of investors in that
corporation in exchange for their risking their capital to spur
innovation and growth. That benefit is significant. And the First
Amendment question is whether in granting that benefit, the state would
be free to limit the political advocacy that corporations engage in.

It seems astonishing to imagine the state couldn’t. State law has
historically had wide freedoms to condition the corporate form as they
wished. This fact has led some, including my colleague, Sina Kian, to
argue that Citizens United is less than people think. That the decision
notwithstanding, states could build this limit into their corporate
charters. Or that maybe even Congress could induce states to do the
same. The question then would be the reason the government had for
demanding the entity give up this liberty in exchange for the corporate
form. Traditionally, the burden of that question is the easiest for the
government to meet — is there any state interest at all? In Rust, the
interest was that that government didn’t like abortion.

But I agree with Greenwald that there is something unseemly in the
idea that the government could restrict the speech of a class because
it doesn’t like the speech of that class.

Yet this is the most confused part of the commentary (and reaction)
of most to this kind of regulation. If the government’s reason for
silencing corporations is that they don’t like what corporations would
say — if it thinks, for example, that it would be too Republican, or
too pro-business — then that’s got to be a terrible reason for the
regulation, and we all ought to support a decision that strikes a law
so inspired.

That, however, is not the only, or the best, justification behind
the regulations at issue in Citizens United. Those rules not about
suppressing a point of view. They’re about avoiding a kind of
dependency that undermines trust in our government. The concentrated,
and tacitly, coordinated efforts by large and powerful economic
entities — made large and powerful in part because of the gift of
immunity given by the state — could certainly help lead many to
believe “money is buying results” in Congress. Avoiding that belief —
just like avoiding the belief that money bought results on the Supreme
Court — has got to be an important and valid interest of the state.

If the Court really means to say that entities that fund or create
other entities can’t limit the power of those entities to speak — so
the government can’t stop doctors from talking about abortion, or the
IRS can’t stop non-profits from talking about politics — then we
really have crossed a Bladerunner line. For that conclusion really does
mean that these entities were “created with certain unalienable
rights,” even though they were created by a pretty pathetic creator —
the state.

My point is not that the state’s power to condition should be
unlimited. The point instead is that it’s not so simple, or absolute,
as Greenwald would have it. And given the true complexity of these
evolving and complicated doctrines, it is certainly fair to be critical
in the extreme of this decision by the Court, favoring speech that most
believe it naturally likes (unlike abortion-speak), in a decision that
ignores the judgment of Congress about the conditions under which the
integrity of that body, or any election, proceeds.

It seems to me that Lessig doesn`t go far enough, in questioning as I have all of the negative consequences of the state grant of limited liability to the owners of corporations. Surely any libertarian worth his salt should do so.

But Lessig has understated his own case: the government has a valid interest in seeking to prevent not only the appearance that “money is buying results”, but actual corruption and sweet deals as well. Surely the Constitution was not intended to let wealthy individuals to get a leg up on everyone else by laundering their speech through a company and on a tax-deductible basis.

Further, Lessig fails to noted that the Supreme Court could easily have avoided overturning laws and decades of precedents and public understanding – and could have provided much-needed clarity – by concluding that the statements coming from corporations are NOT entitled to protection as First Amendment “speech”, because corporations are legal entities and not themselves actual individuals capable of “speaking” for purposes of the First Amendment. Such a decision would leave all corporate spokesmen and shareholders bearing, like the rest of us do, personal liability and moral sanction for false or offensive speech (though insurance or indemnification by others might of course be be available).

But via the growth of concentrated power enabled by the state establishment of the corporate form, we appear to be rapidly becoming a nation a county “of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation”.

Banning corporate political speech (and campaign contributions) would dampen the rent-seeking pressures that have fuelled to the growth of the state; such steps would also invigorate public discourse – and build greater national trust – by making it clear WHO is actually doing the talking (or letting the body politic discount whenever speech is anonymous).

Wouldn’t THAT be something?

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/rep-lawrence-le.html.

http://boingboing.hexten.net/2008/02/18/draft-larry-lessig-f.html

http://draftlessig.org/

I think this is worth talking about: Calling a nationwide Constitution convention on fixing broken government.

Here are some relevant materials:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTEFbbxMXyo&feature=youtu.be
http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan

http://my.firedoglake.com/…/
http://www.law.harvard.edu/…/Vol30_No3_Rogersonline.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/article-v-convention
http://www.conconcon.org/ (Harvard Law conference)
http://www.foavc.org/
http://www.foa5c.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=2
http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/342
http://www.foavc.org/reference/GOP_2012_Resolutions.pdf (GOP opposes; see p 6)

Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow in Political Economy and Editor at Large, The Independent Review, has a piece up at The Independent Institute (last Tuesday, April 9), “Libertarian Wishful Thinking,” that is worth a “gander”.

I’d like to focus on the paragraphs excerpted below, and then give Bob and other lovers of freedom a little “goose”.

Says Mr. Higgs: 

As a rule, libertarians incline toward wishful thinking. They constantly pluck little events, statements, and movies from the flow of life and cry out, “Eureka! Libertarianism is on the march!” With some of my friends, this tendency is so marked that I have become amused by its recurrent expression—well, there he goes again!

Some of this tendency springs, I believe, from their immersion in abstract thought and writing. …

One who maintains, as I do, that the existing system may crumble little by little, having heedlessly sowed thousands of poisonous seeds of its own destruction, but almost certainly will never just roll over and admit defeat, may seem to be a defeatist. But nothing is gained by entertaining an unrealistic view of what liberty lovers are up against. Even if one believes, as I do, that the existing system is not viable in the very long run, it may last in episodically patched-up forms for a long, long time. There are no magic bullets, such as abolishing the Fed. The state can use other means in the highly unlikely event that it should no longer have the Fed in its arsenal. The same can be said about most of the system’s other key elements. …

In truth, the time for liberty lovers to make a stand that had a fighting chance of success was a century ago. But that chance was squandered, if indeed it ever packed much punch. … Wishful thinking about the impending triumph of liberty may be uplifting for libertarians, but it avails neither them nor the world anything of real importance.

But it seems to me that while there is a great deal of truth here, simply acknowledging that vested interests are large and block change is not particularly productive and suffers from a failure to see the weak points in Goliath/Leviathan. Are there really no “magic bullets”? Are there no productive and achievable ways to “patch up” the system?? No leverage to apply to overthrow “this fascistic Rome”?

So I left the following comment; your further thoughts, here or at Bob’s post, are welcome:

While I think Bob is right that libertarians should lose their wishful thinking, I also feel that the real problem is that libertarians aren’t really putting on their thinking caps and thinking creatively.

“There are no magic bullets,” Bob says. But there ARE pressure points on which to focus.

Like attacking the corporate risk socialization that has fuelled upset citizens to act as Baptists in the charade so well played by the Bootleggers in building the Regulatory State.

Like using the states as experiments to create many agents of Creative Destruction against the Federal Govt and the crony capitalists.

Some thoughts here:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tokyotom/2012/05/07/note-to-larry-lessig-on-his-anti-corruption-pledge-limited-liability-corporations-are-the-taproot-of-both-growing-government-and-anonymous-rent-seeking/

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tokyotom/2013/03/22/as-bob-monks-says-corporate-governance-has-failed-and-its-time-to-move-on-so-whats-next-unleash-the-hounds/

http://mises.org/community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=limited+liability

I don’t think we need to throw our hands up at all, or to lose our optimism. Rather, we need to start finding ways to rein in risk socialization and the “Other People’s Money” game by requiring economic actors to have MORE personal “Skin In the Game.”

Hopefully,

Tom

TokyoTom | Apr 15, 2013 | Reply

It might be unfair to judge just from the short clip below (put together by Reason.tv) that’s making the rounds, but it appears to be the case that no one at Cato’s Novermber 15 conference (“Ending the Global War on Drugs“) – law enforcement, politicians, journalists, liberals, conservatives, libertarians and foreign officials, all presenting a litany of damning evidence about the tremendous costs of the “War on Drugs” –  little attention was paid to what should be a sad but very evident fact:

the War on Drugs has been a smash hit for our Federal government, in its 230+ year battle to wrest power from the states, fo the politicians who campaign and parade around on “Law and Order” issues, for a host of government agencies (not the least our CIA and Defense and State Departments) and for, of course, a deep pool of contractors.

How can anyone with any understanding of regulatory capture, moral hazard and “public choice” understandings of the workings of indivuduals’ incentives and institutional dynamics fail to see that, for those benefitting from the steady expansion of the War on Drugs that the need to ramp-up in response to its disastrous consequences are not failures or “bugs”, but “features”?

The erosion of civil liberties after 9/11 that has been justified as necessary to keep us safe during a long “War on Terror” were all already well-underway as a result of our War on Drugs.

But a Police State is not a simple necessity, but something that benefits certain groups of people, at the cost of others.

If we ever hope to rein in policies that are destructive to most of us, we need to focus on naming, blaming, shaming and otherwise standing up to and imposing costs on those who benefit from them.

We used to think that we needed a Constitutional Amendment in order to federally prohibit the use of and trade in alcohol – note that tobacco, pot, cocaine and heroin were all untouched at that time. That the Constitution now provides essentially NO check on the Federal government is a good indication of how far we’ve come from those days,  and leave one wondering — do we now need a Constitutional Amendment not only to overturn the ridiculous and radical Citizens United (states can create “corporations” but not limit their ability to finance elections) decision (Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced such an amendment; Larry Lessig thinks a state-convened amending process is needed), but also to prevent the Federal government from regulating certain parts of the economy?

Clearly the Federal Government and those benefitting from it have no intention to relinquish policies that enhance its power.

Here’s the clip:

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1dG-80D-2E&feature=player_embedded:550:0]

Ron Paul, Ralph Nader and Andrew Napolitano are joining forces to emphasize common ground between right-libertarians and progressive Left.

This holds some promise of steering dissastifaction with government by the Tea Party Right into positive directions, possibly blunting efforts by Big-Government GOP to capture and emasculate the Tea Party movement. It may also lead some on the Left to question their reflexive hatred of Tea Partiers and re-examine their assumptions that what is needed is MORE government.

Here’s a clip of a joint appearance by Paul and Nader on Judge Napolitano’s Freedom Watch program on the Fox Business channel on January 19, 2011: 

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=kwIZ4syCFLc:550:0]

As noted by the liberal The Raw Story (‘Ron Paul, Ralph Nader agree on ‘progressive-libertarian alliance’) (emphasis added):

In this corner, a libertarian, tea party hero who ran several campaigns as a candidate for US president on the Republican ticket. And in that corner, a progressive icon of the left who also ran several campaigns for the US presidency but on the Green Party ticket.

One might think the two men, seemingly ideologically opposed to one another, would rather argue than help one another.

However, on Wednesday’s broadcast of Freedom Watch on the Fox Business channel, Judge Napolitano sat down for an amiable interview with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Ralph Nader to discuss a progressive-libertarian alliance in the 112th session of respective chambers in Congress.

Nader, who has recently called this coalition “the most exciting new political dynamic” in the US today, explained that it works well because both groups stand against corporatists who believe government should be run in the interests of corporations.

“I believe in coalitions,” Rep. Paul echoed. “They talk about we need more bipartisanship, and I say we have too much bipartisanship because the bipartisanship we have here in Washington endorses corporatism.”

Paul added that he agreed with Nader on a host of issues, such as cutting the US military’s budget, ending undeclared US wars overseas, restoring civil liberties and civil rights by dumping from the Patriot Act, and withdrawing from the NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements.

“I think we should come together and work together, and I think we can,” he said, noting that the coalition had previously worked on deficit financing solutions.

Rep. Paul and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the most conservative and most liberal members of their respective chambers, joined forces last session to fight for an audit of the Federal Reserve, a private institution that handles America’s monetary policy, which Nader explained is under no legal control of Congress.

 I would add:

• let’s not forget Larry Lessig, who is also at work building bridges at Harvard, prticularly in the wake of last year’s “corporations are people too!” Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.
• Ron Paul too seems to be falling in with those envirofascists who think that there’s something profoundly rotten with corporations — those state-created Heads We Win-Tails You Lose machines which embody Moral-Hazard, primarily as a result of the grant of limited liability to shareholders.

I encourage readers to take a look at the excellent essay by Thomas R. Eddlem, Down With the Presidency! A President’s Day Message, now up at LewRockwell.com.

I quote first a few key portions, and then note my further thoughts.

But the role of the president under the U.S. Constitution is not to make laws. It is simply to execute the laws passed by Congress. Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution begins: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Since the Constitution mandates that “all” law-making powers reside in the Congress, none are left for the president. The president’s job is that “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed” under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Constitutionally speaking, the president was designed by the founders to be nothing more than the errand-boy of Congress.

Obama won’t be the first to take us from the “rule of law” to “rule by one man.” The Bush and Clinton administrations paved the way for unconstitutional executive orders. Clinton advisor Paul Begala told the New York Times of Clinton’s executive orders: “Stroke of the pen. Law of the Land. Kinda cool.”

President Bush and his neo-conservative theoreticians were even worse, as they posited the idea that the president was above all law. Former Bush Assistant Attorney General John Yoo’s recent book Crisis and Command contends presidential powers are unlimited by any law: “The executive was, rather, the servant of necessity, bound to act in accordance with, in the absence of, or in extraordinary emergencies, in defense of the republic, even contrary to regularly constituted law.”

This is the authoritarian personality long championed by both much of the Democratic leadership on the “left” and all of the neo-conservative Republicans on the “right.” Neo-conservatives like John Yoo explicitly endorse the idea of an omnipotent presidency that erases all the rights of the people. In his wordy and overpriced book, Crisis and Command, John Yoo claims the Constitution created a president with unlimited powers. The Constitution of the founders, Yoo wrote, “did not carefully limit the executive power, as [it] did with the legislative, because they understood that they could not see the future.”  …

This is what the modern presidency has become, a new Caesar whose powers are without limit.

Unfortunately the national leadership of the Republican Party has bought wholly into Yoo’s argument that government gives out rights instead of God, and that government ought not to “give” rights to people we don’t like. … 

It’s true that the average American Fox-servative remains ignorant of these facts, because we won’t hear the details of tortured innocents like Maher Arar, Khalid el-Masri, Omar Deghayes or the Tipton Three on the Fox News Channel. Nor will the Fox News Network tell its audience that the Obama administration has openly ratified all of these Bush-era attacks on the Bill of Rights except for the torture. Fox-servatives love the dictatorial state; they just wish it were run by the party of Pompey instead of the party of Caesar.

All of the really bad ideas that the federal government initiated throughout our nation’s history originated with the office of president: This includes most of the wars as well as warrantless surveillance, detention without trial, torture and all of the socialist legislation since the New Deal. Each was only adopted by the president pushing Congress, or more recently, by a president ignoring Congress altogether.

The presidency itself needs to be knocked down from its perch. The only thing that will save the American republic is a renewed focus upon the Congress and cutting down the presidency to size. The founding fathers designed the legislature – Congress – to be the dominant branch of a very small federal government.

My additional thoughts? I copy them from an email that I sent to Tom Eddlem (links added and typos fixed, nacherly):

Tom, great, perceptive piece at LewRockwell.
 
However, you missed that officially it’s still “Washington’s Birthday”, a focus that would help further illustrate how the Unitary President/CIC role has run out of control. Washington – who could have had much more power and refused – would certainly shudder at the “liberties taken” by later presidents (double entendre intended).
 
Also, why no mention of the obvious need to breathe more life into our federal system? One way to limit the power of the President (and Congress & Supreme Court) is to restore it to the states.

Those now pushing for a Constitutional Convention – from Larry Lessig seeking to limit corporate influence on elections and on legislation, to those who want to ensure that only people (not corporations) have Constitutional rights [and fix the glaring legislative error by the Supreme Court in granting Constitutional “free speech” rights to corporation (which are THINGS, not people)], and to those seeking to limit Commerce Clause and restore the 9th and 10th Amendments – could use more cheerleaders!

Not criticism, but food for thought.

“Whhhaaat the heck is TT up NOW?” I can hear some of you asking yourselves. Bill Gates, Roger Pielke, the movie Avatar and climate?

Just what elusive illusions am I alluding to here? (Stop playing, you say.) Well, brace yourself, and bear with me.

Roger Pielke, Jr. has a post up regarding a interesting recent piece by Bill Gates on how to address climate issues (I will address Gates’ piece separately). The comment section at Roger’s predictably fell into into the usual patterns of questioning climate science, and a mutual questioning of motives and rationality. I just happened to run into it, and was moved to try to post a few thoughts there.

Libertarians ought to understand why suspicions run rampant on climate issues – even as they can’t seem to get past it (despite my annoying, incessant and level-headed ravings). But many others are so wrapped up in Climate KombatTM that they never think to even to question WHY – why all of the hostility, why all of the circling of wagons, and why the lack of interest in examining root problems and possible win-win approaches?

Well, that’s what my “Avatar” reference is intended to shorthand (pardon an archaic expression; maybe I shouldn’t telegraph my antiquity like this!): that movie was all about theft – theft that we can see all around us even today as I have noted in a number of posts (even as we may be blind to those that advantage us) –  group advantage, and communal responses to threats. Communal responses involve perceiving threats and banding together with brothers to defend all that is good, sacred, holy and OURS. This, I posit, is not only instinctive and reflexive, but EXACTLY what the climate discussion is about, on many levels.

It’s just that the disputants have entirely different views on who is trying to steal what from whom, and what or who is the threat, on who is an enemy, who is a brother, what is to be defended, and on strategy and tactics (as well as how to be advance personal interests).

I penned a few thoughts at Roger’s (I note that both Roger and his father. climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr. , are in the thick of the climate wars, their own positions frequently being misunderstood in the fog of war). Being a bit inspired and prolix, the Muses ran a bit long. Roger is pretty good at letting comments through but I thought I post a copy here; perhaps you will be amused.

Here is what I tried to post (cleaned up slightly and with additional links and emphasis), in response to several who said to the effect, “Why should we agree to anything, until it is established to our satisfaction that CO2 reduction is important?“, and to others who questioned the motivations of Roger and others:

Those who do not agree now – with either the AGW thesis/science or the good faith, motives, intelligence or rationality of those who profess concern about a clearly changing climate and about whether man’s activities pose serious threats to human welfare and to things
that we value – still have lots to gain from plenty of win-win policies, policies that
would advance the interests of those who profess to love free markets but that are now just sitting about unused because practically everyone is too busy fighting, vilifying and mistrusting to actually step back from the emotional rush of partisan battle, sit back and to
exchange their armor and weapons for thinking caps (more on
these policies at end of this comment).

Nobel-prizewinner
political economist Elinor Ostrom reminds us that one sine qua non for solving
any commons problem is TRUST [see my post here].

Sadly,
that lack of that trust – nay, distrust and active hostility – are what
characterize our “discussions” on modern-day politics, and especially
climate change (the “our” in this case being a complex one at many
levels).

This
DISTRUST is the natural product of many factors:

– the
lack of property rights in the atmosphere & of any legal recourse by
individuals against GHG emitters/albedo changers, which together mean that –
unlike for other resources that can be bought, sold and husbanded – the
voluntary actions of individuals and firms via market exchanges simply are not
functioning, thus forcing climate concerns – and scientists and this discussion
– into the political realm;

 – in
the US, both parties have grossly MIS-governed and abused the public trust, via
political pandering, grasping for power at all costs (cynically sowing division
and cheapening discourse by selling war, hatred and suspicion, corruptly
selling favors to the highest bidders, and simply managing resources
incompetently). As a result, I think many people rightly feel that the US
government generally DOES NOT DESERVE our trust (this sentiment can be seen not
only in the TeaParty movement, but in calls by the likes of Larry Lessig for a
Constitutional Convention to fix our corrupt, broken political system);

 – as
has been the case since corporations were created as the faceless profit-making
machines of wealthy investors whose liability for the damage they do and risks
that they shift to others is limited by statute (http://bit.ly/4CKFPh), those corporations that have
licenses to pollute under current law and whose climate-risk generating
activities are now FREE and unregulated work hard to protect their favored status
(via behind-the-scenes influence-buying of politicians and
“free-market” pundit/voice-pieces, and deliberate PR
smokescreen/mis-direction campaigns designed to GENERATE mistrust);

 –
likewise, other corporations/investors have been busy working to buy climate
legislation that will help to put money in their pockets – while those who act
as spokesmen have not been voluntarily taking actions that show they put their
money (and life-style) where their mouth is;

 – most
of the science has been funded by governments, which makes it easier for
skeptics to dismiss it – and to ignore all of the sophisticated private
institutions and corporations that now strongly agree with the
“warmers” (viz., notably virtually all oil & gas majors and
virtually all insurers);

 – the
fact that the chief “solutions” proposed by our Western governments
are coercive and ham-handed, would serve to further drive basic manufacturing
to developing countries that care even less than we do about respecting
human/property rights, would give further give domestic industry rights to
behave in ways that are seen as harmful, would provide benefits to a host of
favorite insiders while shifting costs to middle and lower income classes, is being agreed behind closed doors (and written up drafted by lobbyists in mind-mumbingly long and opaque legislation) and our leaders lack the moral and political courage to be straight-forward and transparent about the need and purposes of the legislative/regulatory actions;

 –
Mistrust is not only NATURAL, it’s something that we LOVE to do; there is an
undeniable human penchant for viewing issues in a tribal, “us against
them” manner, which reflects a natural cognitive conservatism that means
we subconsciously ignore information that contradicts our pre-existing mental
map of reality, and to a strong tendency to reflexively support our tribal
brothers and “comrades” and to defend our pre-existing views against
what we tend to see as “attacks” by “enemies”;

– this
leads to group-think, black & white views, hostility, self-justification and to strawmen that
ignores the real issues: you know, “they have a religion”, we are
right and act in good faith, they are stupid, irrational, are evil and want to
destroy all we hold dear, versus capitalism is evil, those against cap and trade are
all pawns, of Big Oil and a host of other mantras regarding “truths” that respective group-thinks requires its members to hold as “self-evident”;

– while our moral senses are essential for managing our in-group interactions, unfortunately that lends itself both to moral outrage and to intolerance of the moral preachings and inconsistencies of others;

 – the
“climate” is enormously complex, will never be fully understood or
predictable,  the changes that we
are  forcing in it cannot be simply and
convincing demonstrated or understood by anyone, the system has many
inputs/outputs and displays tremendous variability, has great inertia that is
played out on scales of centuries, 
millennia and eons, and we have NO OTHER EARTHS to run ANY independently
verifiable “TESTS” on … just a number of computer models – again,
funded by governments, and with innards none of us has any real ability to
verify, much less understand;

 –
finally, as climate change is a global issue, it cannot be solved unilaterally
by ANY single individual, group, community, corporation or government/polity;
the “community” that must address it is the community of nations, the leaders and citizens of which all having a welter of differing interests and priorities.

To be flip – Trust
me; it’s natural for you NOT to trust me! Don’t we ALL understand this? (Roger,
I’m pretty sure you – and Joe Romm – know what I mean.)

But the high we get from self-righteousness and group struggle is such an easy
evil, such an addictive self-drug.

Sadly,
it is a clear political tactic by many on the climate issue to treat it as a war, and
to deliberately sow mistrust and misinformation, with the intention either to
defend turf previously purchased from government or to use government to cram
down preferred solutions. But I repeat myself.

Let me
end by noting that

 –
those who are concerned about climate change risks would do well by
fostering not anger but trust, and by seeking to use hammers only to build
bridges;

 –
those who are concerned chiefly with the mis-use of government might do well to
re-examine how government has already been misused, and explore whether there
are ways to harness the passionate “delusions” of evil/stoopid
enviro-fascists to actually achieve goals that self-professed market cultists
(I’m one!) ought to desire;

 – I
have humbly picked up my own hammer and started an exploratory
“task-force” of one, to look at the ways that corporate interests
have already mis-used government to lot in economic rigidity and market share,
and stand in the way of economic freedom and the massive wave of innovation,
investment and wealth-creation that would surely result if existing blockages
were removed. My
chief thoughts are here, intended initially as a plea to fellow libertarians
(who are deeply distrusting of enviro-facists like me who hope to disguise
their nefarious goals by falsely putting on libertarian clothing):

 http://bit.ly/ax3JB

A few
related thoughts at http://bit.ly/aUOcWC (libertarians/climate) and http://bit.ly/bLX25X  (delusion).

Readers, thanks for your indulgence!

Further to my preceding posts on corporations and free speech, I invite others to read this semi-serious piece in Truthout that examines the implications of the United Citizens vs. FEC decision:

“Personal Corporatehood: Coping With the Reason Divided of Citizens United”

The author, Randall Amster suggests that in the wake of the latest Supreme Court case, ALL citizens ought to abandon personal responsibility and liability and incorporate themselves. Amster is a J.D., Ph.D., teaches peace studies at Prescott College, and is executive director of the Peace & Justice Studies
Association.

I quote liberally (emphasis added):

There’s great consternation brewing over the recent Supreme Court
decision that cements and extends the misbegotten logic of “corporate
personhood,” and rightly so. Surely, one of the most farcical and
tortuous doctrines ever established in our system of jurisprudence,
this conflated concept has drawn the ire of (small-d) democrats at
least as far back as Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in 1816, “I hope we
shall … crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed
corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial
of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” …

Still, the notion of “corporate personhood” remains
something of a misnomer. In our system, as now expanded by the Supreme
Court, corporations actually enjoy more rights than individuals do in
many ways. To wit: liability shields, rights of transfer, political
access and influence, subsidies, laissez-faire regulation, freedom of
movement, self-determination, self-governance, tax breaks etc. In
particular, when it comes to political speech, corporations are now
essentially unfettered in their freedom, something that we mere mortals
have yet to fully secure. Consider the language of the court’s recent
ruling: “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress
from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for
simply engaging in political speech.” …

President Obama called the decision “a major victory
for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the
other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in
Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” What wasn’t
immediately clear is whether he intended this as a lamentation or a
mere observation of political reality. Either way, he was in essence
stating a working fact, namely that whatever shards of democracy and
the “will of the people” had existed up to now, the pretense is all but
gone and corporations will openly run the show. I suppose this has the
virtue, in any event, of being a more honest representation of how
things actually transpire. The question is where things will go now
that this critical threshold has been crossed.

Most likely, this ruling is a harbinger of further
extensions of corporate rights and powers. A broad mandate and a
willing court will impel corporations to take on even more of the
qualities ordinarily associated with individuals, as noted in the
SCOTUS blog’s analysis of the decision: “It is not too much to expect
that lawyers for corporate America may well be looking to explore the
outer possibilities of their clients’ ‘personhood’ and new-found
constitutional equality.”[link added] There previously had existed a founding
principle that “natural persons” and “artificial persons” were separate
and distinct entities under the law, with the former holding historical
priority in our constitutional framework. By now, that distinction has
been blurred to such an extent as to be effectively meaningless, as
evidenced by a 2008 Federal District Court ruling in which it was
proclaimed by the judge that “Blackwater is a person….”

If Blackwater is a person, I want out. Indeed, this
suggests a strategy that “natural persons” might take in embracing the
implications of this unrestricted corporate world. If a corporation can
become a person, then by implication a person can become a corporation.
I am thus advocating a new doctrine of “personal corporatehood,” in
which we should all avail ourselves of the enhanced rights granted to
“artificial persons” in our system. People should begin taking steps to
incorporate themselves immediately. …

Just imagine the benefits. When someone asks you for
a favor, you can off-puttingly reply, “I have to check with my board of
directors at next month’s meeting; someone will get back to you then.”
When you want to meet with your Congressperson on matters you feel
strongly about, the receptionist will announce, “Senator, a corporation
is here to see you,” which will likely get you instant access. If you
go public, you can sell shares in yourself and make a tidy sum (just be
sure to retain a controlling interest). If someone irritates you or has
something you want, you can likely get the Marines sent in to deal with
them. You can avoid having to appear personally at court hearings,
sending your hired-gun attorney instead. And you can’t be thrown in
jail, since a corporation itself cannot be imprisoned. See?

At the end of the day, we “natural persons” can try
and fight city hall on this one, or we can get in the game and embrace
the benefits of artificiality. In a world of surfaces, where
profiteering masks as politics and gerrymandering as justice, this may
well be the best of all strategies for survival.

Amster is pretty much right in his discussion of the now rather superior rights that corporations have over individuals. While we can`t really abandon our individual identities, by incorporating we can shield assets by limiting liability and maybe, even double or triple our vote, if courts follow their logic and acknowledge that voting is simply a form of speech.

Or we could find ways to step back from the Alice in Wonderland nonsense that creeping corporatism and “conservative” Supreme Court justices have led us to.