RE: Roberts. I am now lighting my hair on fire to draw attention ...

[Deep13]

... to a serious issue that no one here or in the media, including a parade of experts on NPR, seems to give a shit about.

100 years ago, SCOTUS saddled this county with NY v. Lochner. That decision held that the state had no power to regular labor standards because it interfered with the worker's right to enter into contracts. That horrible decision stood in the way of labor reform for three decades until it was reversed in the 1930s.

Recently, neocon lawyers have been expressing admiration for Lochner approving of its harsh by pure (from a capitalist point of view) logic. Many have suggested reinstating this draconian rule and even extending it to the Federal government's ability to regulate labor or protect the environment. I understand that Roberts has suggested that he does not see how protecting a toad in CA can possibly have anything to do with interstate commerce.

My point is that with all the attention being given to the abortion issue, none is being given to this real threat to ordinary people and to the environment. Lochner is the worst case of judicial activism in U.S. history except maybe for Dredd Scott and its reinstatement would be catastrophic.

[SCDem]

1. Roberts past is as corporate attorney

(I'll keep quiet the irony that trial lawyers (aka John Edwards) are bad and are the reason for high health care premiums but corporate lawyers are honerable men)

He is friendly to business but wasn't O'Connor also friendly to business. I think the focus is on Roe v Wade because that is a fundamental difference between the two.

[Deep13]

3. O'Conner was friendly to business, ...

but was conservative in that she wanted the law to be stable and consistent. She never would have considered reinstating Lochner. She also had a record of protecting the individual from state intrusion.

[sui generis]

2. is this you?

There are few things that would cause as much widespread revolt as repealing minimum wages or employee protections. Not that it couldn't happen, but it couldn't happen and stay that way, especially with a recent past to compare it to. There aren't enough gated communities in the world to keep employers and legislators safe from a starving, abused population, but I certainly welcome the republican party to attempt this or even back it publicly.

I really want republican senators on camera and on record stating their support of Lochner - nothing like hanging yourself with lots of rope in a big messy political suicide.

[wli]

5. sadly you're wrong

"Gated communities," bodyguards, and mercenaries are precisely how things are done in other parts of the world and it very successfully does keep extremely unhappy lower classes at bay.

It wouldn't be surprising if their model were Dubai (c.f. Mother Jones' "Sinister Paradise" article).

[sui generis]

7. totally disagree

and in other parts where they carry their goods to market on the back of a donkey or subsist on garden crops and bushmeat that might be possible. Those populations do not have access to education, television, computers, etc., nor the daily resources we purchase that keep the economy going. You cannot put toothpaste back in the tube. You cannot have an economy if it's suddenly okay to pay your employees in company scrip, work them to death, sexually abuse them, etc., etc.

Quaking in our boots over non existent science fiction scenarios that will never happen and can never happen in America for a hundred dozen reasons does not serve us well, any more than wondering if the tsunami was caused by global warming or gay married terrorists.

[wli]

8. it's already happening

Witness offshoring, militarization of police, Pier 57 and other mini-Guantanamos, hours worked, education stats, prison stats, etc.

Education? Television? Computers? They're less universal than you might think.

[sui generis]

9. Well, between the "Us" and "Them" I am

one of the "Them". I know that having happy employees at home means productive employees at work, and that paying my employees what they're worth retains knowledge, skill, and experience here. I know that going out of my way to be good to the people who work for me means they will go out of their way, voluntarily, to do a good job for me. I don't need to force that issue by turning them into indentured servants just because someone thinks we should change the law to make us less American.

There are larger economic forces than just whether or not you can turn people into modern day slave equivalents, and while we may just barely put up with Pier 57 during a party convention, you can be darn sure that nobody would put up with it for very long - and not just because the "enforcers" (police, national guard, military) are storm trooper analogues. They are people like you and me. They are people whose sibs or kids or parents may be in danger from bad public policy. Similarly, the judges, and lawyers, and lawmakers who have the second tier enforcement of the law are not mindless stormtroopers either.

We're all in this together. Some of us who could be painted as the Evil Empire are not at all evil specifically because we know that turning America into a third world ghetto is wrong (first) and economically unproductive (second) in the long run.

[wli]

10. as far as stormtroopers go

The police at the 2004 RNC had no qualms about gassing and pepperspraying nonviolent protesters, and shooting first and asking questions later. Why are they going along with it? Why are our soldiers going along with Abu Ghraib etc. war crimes? As far as judges and lawyers go, they're going along with plea bargaining and mandatory sentencing and doping defendants unconscious during their own trials. Why are they going along with it to the ridiculously overinflated tune of 2 million prisoners and 6 million probationers?

And Pier 57 isn't an isolated incident. Every WTO protest has had similar.

I don't have an explanation as to why the stormtroopers are going along with it, but I do have evidence that they are going along with it, and none that they'll stop of their own accord.

[Nite Owl]

4. That's what I was thinking too

His nomination may have something to do with Roe vs Wade but it's his corporate cronies that really matter. He uses the fundies, where else are they going to go anyway? It's those damned workers and their rights that they want to eliminate. The big corporate donors want this gift.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. from second 1 that "Roberts will be a FUCKING ENVIRONMENTAL NIGHTMARE!"