Justice Clarence Thomas has secretly accepted luxury trips from a major Republican donors

If I don't like what Target does, I can choose not to shop at Target. What do I do if I don't like what the FDA does? People that worry about the power of corporations and the influence of money on politics but don't want to reduce the power of the government are so adorable. I'm sure the Democrats will never do anything that negatively impacts you, just keep voting blue no matter who.

 

No, not good. Your idea of perfection is a MadMax hell hole for the overwhelming majority of people.

Going into stores where security is armed with guns to fight off the vandals isn’t something most people really relish.

If you want that, move to Libya.

 

Reducing the power of the federal government gets you to Mad Max how?

 

Haha, thank's for the laugh this morning.

So you are saying the Constitution is partisan then. Let's be clear, the GOP judges throw out originalism when it suits them. I don't think you have been paying attention to their rulings based on your comment above.

 

So if you don't like that the FDA after much science and investigate approved an abortion drug, you can have the courts try to over turn that using not science but political jihad to ban abortions and deny the entire country access to that drug?

I hate to tell you that, but the FDA isn't the issue here in terms of power, it's the courts doing it (which is part of the gov't). As a libertarian are you arguing then that the courts should have less impact on our lives?

Or are you arguing we don't need the FDA and companies can make whatever drugs they want and give them to people without interference from the gov't? Because that's not apparently what you want either.

So this is why the "libertarian" argument falls apart and just becomes a GOP'er in disguise of a libertarian. Thomas is a right wing fanatic, yet your praise him as a libertarian. To me, that shows you are more than likely hiding under the clock of a libertarian.

 

Anyone who thinks the overturning of the Chevron standard needs to look at the UK in the aftermath of Brexit. Whether or not the libertarians care to admit, we would be replacing the administrative law with either nothing or poorly considered congressional legislation. The end result won’t be freedom - it will be chaos. The economy will respond accordingly and you’ll see a lot of once clear-cut issues devolve into years of wasteful litigation and conflicting court decisions at the lower levels of the judiciary.

 

That is why we have democracy that if we don’t like what government is doing we can vote. Understand that major change in government can be difficult but as been pointed out several times corporations themselves can wield large amounts of power over especially when they control large amounts of market share.

In your Target example consider if in your community Target puts out of business several smaller stores that can’t compete on prices. At tht pint your choice is much more limited regarding where you want to shop. Now consider that because Target also becomes a major employer in your area because many smaller businesses have closed. At that point Target wields an inordinate amount of power over your community that you don’t even have a vote in the operations of.

And before you say this is unlikely such things have happened in many smaller communities and is frequently called the “crisis of main streeet”.

 

Reducing the federal gov't doesn't weaken the rich, it strengthens them. The rich have the power in any system. The only thing that stands in their way is how the gov't works.

Our gov't has been weakening, and the power of the rich increasing. You want to weaken is further to give the rich even more power? And that's actually what libertarianism is. It's about empowering the rich - which is why so many rich people are in fact libertarians.

 

This is why BREXIT has been such a mess. While yes many of the EU regulations are burdensome and probably unnecessary the E U provided a consistent framework of regulation that enabled wide scale trade. Further those regulations papered over political conflicts. For example the situation in Northern Ireland isn’t driven by beef inspections but need inspections and the ability to move beef from Sligo to Derry easily reduces the tensions in Derry.

What’s ironic about all of this is that the Framers themselves recognized the problem with having too weak of a central government and administrative state. That’s why the Articles of Confederation were abandoned for the Constitution.

 

Without the federal agencies enforcing standards such as around pollution, it's going to be a total cluster ****. Industry and lawyers will stand to gain. Consumers and taxpayers will lose bigtime.

But hey, libertarianism!!!!!!

 

Yup - for all the discussions about the Justice's having heated political and philosophical differences - at the end of the day, they care far more about being literally above the law, not ever being questioned and enjoying amazing creature comforts while doing whatever they want.

It doesn't matter if it is supposed family values champion Scalia on a Valentines day trip without his wife, without security and dying on a heart shaped pillow (adultry isn't a sin if it's done by a Justice), or any number of the Justice's profiting off of private business..... or questions about whether we have a rapist on the Court.

The Justices protect the Justices -

 

The problem I had with Roberts is that he loved to play simple lip service, but he never went beyond that.

It is easy to say things when you don't have to actually act.

 

When did I have the courts try to overturn anything? There is a judge in Texas that found the FDA didn't follow the correct procedure (and I have no idea if they did or not, I wasn't involved in the case). The Supreme Court has not heard the case on its merits yet.

Both the FDA and the Supreme Court have incredible power, as they are both part of the federal government. Both should have less power. The Supreme Court at least is limited in that it can really only restrain the power of the rest of the government.

Yes, we don't need the FDA and companies can make whatever drugs they want and give (or presumably sell) them to people, in my preference. That wouldn't change my views on killing people (or unborn children) but that isn't on the drug makers, any more than a cutlery store is responsible for a stabbing.

Where did it fall apart? You not liking the application? Thomas is the most faithful to the Constitution. He isn't perfect, just better than the rest of them. The Constitution is not perfectly libertarian, nor would the libertarian view always be to bear fidelity to the Constitution. None of the justices are abandoning constitutional principles in favor of libertarianism though, so it isn't really a relevant inquiry.

Chaos is freedom, or perhaps freedom begets chaos.

The rich have power under every system, even systems specifically designed to disempower the rich like communism. Reducing the federal government will strengthen the rich in some respects, but weaken them in others. Barriers to entry in some markets would be lowered, for example, without federal environmental regulations requiring burdensome ecological surveys prior to building. Libertarianism is about increasing freedom. It just doesn't care if that allows rich people more or less power, it allows everyone more freedom.

The Articles of Confederation were thought too weak to form an effective government to defeat the British in the revolution. America is no longer a fledgling country trying to throw of the yoke of our imperial masters.

 

@StupidMoniker - no libertarianism doesn't allow people more freedom, it allows the rich more freedom. Take away the federal gov't and people are beholden to the whims of corporations - that's not freedom. If companies can control your life and force where you live, what you can do or eat or monopolize your life in other ways - that's not freedom at all. That's simply a corporatocracy which really is what libertarianism is about in its modern form. There is no way it weakens the rich. It weakens the people.

Dismantling the FDA would allow companies to use people as guinea pigs. Companies could sell placebos as life saving drugs, and there would be no repercussions. With no EPA, companies would be free to dump in people's drinking water. We've already seen examples of this in Michigan, and we've seen it in all the superfund sites still being cleaned up and the countless cancer cases.

The libertarian utopia you seek would be the Grape of Wrath 100 years later.

And no Thomas is not an originalist - that's just how he rationalizes his political rulings.

 

Do u even know what's the purpose of the fda?

Look up upton's sinclair: the jungle. That's what the business situation was like that led to the fda being created.

If there was no fda folks would die by the thousands ingesting stuff that quacks flood the market with without any regulation.
Business owners would cut corners and give less of a fk about the workers bc they aren't regulated.

 

@StupidMoniker hasn't bought in to my theory that all American libertarianism essentially boils down to is just a bunch of Panglosses that want to sell to poor people that everything is the best it could be and that the current hierarchical system is fine.

 

@StupidMoniker is a very apt nickname for him. Maybe he can change his name to Dumbass Mother****er.