Reason Magazine: Bob Barr & Jacob Sullum on S.397 & Conoco

[carebear]

Yep, but just as we are free to remove our elected officials when they make policys we don't like, so too are the shareholders.

They may be behind the power curve, or they may agree, but the board of directors and the executive serve at their sufferance.

There's a consistency to this stuff if you look big picture.

 

[Fletchette]

Carebear,

I understand your aversion to government meddling with businessess; I do not support socialism either. But I think that it is inconsistant to give corporations so much legal standing that they have, in essense, more rights than citizens. The whole reason govenrment exists is to "secure these liberties" (individual citizens' liberties). It has long been held that allowing corporations too much power adversely affects individual liberty.

There was a time when corporations could pay wages in "corporate money" which was only redeemable in the "company store". According to your arguements, this should be allowed; people can always quit and work elsewhere.

However, a consensus developed that this was simply a scam to enslave workers such that they couldn't leave due to debt financing. The government outlawed the practice.

By the same token, the government has an obligation to step in here and protect the inalienable rights of the employees.

Corporations are legal entities that are suppossed to be subservient to the government, which is supposed to be subservient to the People.

 

[carebear]

I'm really torn on this one. My company, 3 months after I was hired, added a "no weapons" policy for employees to regs. Alaska just passed a state preemption to allow guns in public parking lots so I'm the beneficiary of the kind of law I don't necessarily think proper. It is crafted not for employees but to exempt the parking areas of buildings from bans. Bans can only start at the door.

The problem is if they own the building and they own the lot then, just as I am perfectly within my rights to bar you and your gun from not just my home but also my yard and driveway (though I wouldn't, I like shooters), they should be free to bar us from their private yards, parking and buildings. To preempt them as corporate individuals, is to also open it up for us private individuals to be forced to allow other people to do state ordered stuff on OUR yards and driveways.

So, big picture and for consistency, I have to tilt in the direction of private property rights, corporate or individual.

 

[Fletchette]

So, big picture and for consistency, I have to tilt in the direction of private property rights, corporate or individual.

It is a well-known postulate of legal theory that "reasonable men may differ". This may be just such a case. On your above statement, an effort to remain consistant, I would have to respond in kind:

...for consistency, I have to tilt in the direction of inalienable rights of citizens. So individuals should be able to excercise their rights AND protect their property rights. Recognizing that individual rights trumps corporate privilage solves the paradox.

 

[ChandlerM]

Our discussion seems to center over the idea that each amendment in the Bill of Rights have equal weight or bearing, which I think they should. But when two of the "equal" rights are in direct conflict with each other, what then?

Shouldn't perference be given towards the more basic of the conflicted rights, ie.: one has to be alive before they can own property, or tresspass on another's. One has to be alive before they can have freedom of speech. One has to have property before the government can invoke eminent domain....ect., ect.?

Does that make sense?

 

[carebear]

Flechette,

I think you nailed the dilemma. I view corporate entities, under the law, as equal in their own way with real physical people. To do otherwise on small matters opens the door to destroy the entire corporate legal position in all things, which would make a lot of how the world works economically not work at all. They had Corporations in the Founders day as well remember.

Chandler,

I would argue there is no conflict since property rights IN THIS CASE trump it all. A company can reserve the right to refuse service and can forbid you from entering their property. You have no "right" to be there other than at their sufference, thus they cannot, by definition, be "infringing" on your right to self-defense.

After all, if you don't voluntarily choose to go (or choose to seek or continue employment) where guns are forbidden by the private ownership (individual or corporate) there is no imposition on you whatsoever. Go elsewhere and carry to your hearts content.

That's why, in general, the enumerated rights are to protect us from imposition of government. We can protect ourselves from individuals by simply choosing not to associate with them. Convenience is not a right.

 

[ChandlerM]

For my situation, things are a bit more difficult regarding guns in my vehicle while in the parking lot of my employer. I work for a public school district and Michigan law allows it, but my employer might not per policy, but since it is a public school (read-government school) wouldn't state preemption laws prohibit the school's policy? Nobody seems to know for sure and I don't want to be a test case....

Anyway, I'm retiring in two weeks and will no longer care what the school's policy is.

Yipee!

 

[carebear]

Chandler,

Sure, couldn't have an easy job for an example could ya.

Congrats on the retirement and your new-found freedom.

 

[Fletchette]

After all, if you don't voluntarily choose to go (or choose to seek or continue employment) where guns are forbidden by the private ownership (individual or corporate) there is no imposition on you whatsoever. Go elsewhere and carry to your hearts content.

So, would you apply this to other individual rights? Should corporations be allowed to fire employees based on religion?

 

[Fletchette]

Well, whether you think that corporations' property rights trump a citizen's inalienable rights or not, I would think that most everyone here would have to agree that I do have the right to NOT shop at Conoco...

 

[carebear]

Fire based on religion? A truly private business?

Yep. They surely should. If it hurts their business, they'll change.

There's other jobs, other places. The individual is always free to go elsewhere. They are free to worship as they choose, companies/corporations are not (and shouldn't be) required to employ any particular individual.

As my buddy/former employer says to the laborers when they whine, "You were lookin' for work when you took this job."


And yep, you are speakin' truth about not buying Conoco gas.

 

[carebear]

Flechette,

As I know you know (I don't want to sound all lecture-y).

The distinction I am making is that governments should not be allowed to interfere with an individual's exercise of their inalienable rights.

However, private persons, corporate or otherwise, do not possess the coercive power to interfere with another private persons exercise when it comes to voluntary associations. If your town is actually a corporate village owned by US Steel, you can quit your job, walk to another real town and attempt to get another job.

No private individual should be obligated by law to provide you with anything but the ability to be left alone. If they are, then their rights are being interfered with by the same government you expect to respect yours. Which is, to a point, hypocrisy.

The problem we are in is that the two worlds have become so intermingled by well-meaning types who want the benefits of coercion selectively applied to others due to their differences. If it involves race, creed or color it's wrong yet, because it is "just" a faceless corporate entity, it's ok to trample that particular private individual's rights to freedom of association, private property and such.

 

[Fletchette]

Carebear,

I take no offence at our dueling lectures

I also understand your argument, and its distinction between government and private interference of individual rights. On a purely philosophical level, I'd have to agree with you; the government cannot force private property owners to allow others to exercise their rights on their private property without the government violating the property owner's rights.

So again, on a purely philosophical level, I would oppose all the restrictions on employers to hire without regard to "race, creed or color". Part of my argument is that, "if we allow laws that prohibit the firing of people based on religion (First Amendment), we should be able to prohibit the firing of people who carry guns (Second Amendment). I acknowledge that two wrongs don't make a right, but if allow the former we should allow the latter in order to remain consistent.

The problem with the purely philosophical ideal of the government not forbidding the firing of employees based on religion, etc, is that it simply isn't practical. We have created a society with mega-corporations with little control by their stockholders, enabling significant power to be wielded by few, non-government officials (executives). The "owners" of the company (stockholders) have very little say.

That is why I make the distinction between "sole-proprietor" businesses (where the entire company is owned by one person and there is no legal distinction between that individual and the business' assets or liabilities), and a "public" corporation (one in which the CEO is not the sole owner, but the majority of the ownership belongs to the stockholders). Because the thousands of stockholders cannot be expected to come to a consensus on specific decisions necessary to running the company, they are allowed to hire someone (the CEO) to do that for them. The stockholders are ALSO relieved of their liability if the CEO violates the law. As part of the privilege to be relieved of this liability, public corporations must abide by certain practices. Not firing people based on religion is one of them. So for consistency, we should include not firing people for exercising their Second Amendment rights.

The basis of this argument is that public corporations are not "people" like a sole-proprietor is a person. Public corporations are legal entities created with a government charter, and that charter can be revoked if the government decides that the company is not operating in the public interest. This is why "trust-busting" of monopolies is legal.

The Declaration of Independence states that the only reason governments exist at all is to protect individual rights:

--We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

With this in mind, I think it is entirely consistent for the government to step in and prevent Conoco for prohibiting the lawful exercising of individual rights such as those mentioned in the First and Second Amendments.

 

[benEzra]

However, private persons, corporate or otherwise, do not possess the coercive power to interfere with another private persons exercise when it comes to voluntary associations. If your town is actually a corporate village owned by US Steel, you can quit your job, walk to another real town and attempt to get another job.

Please read that again from the standpoint of the average American who will lose EVERYTHING he has worked to create over the years if he loses his job.

The definition of "extortion" under the law does not require that a gun be placed to your head. Threatening someone with the loss of their material possessions, their house, etc. etc. is enough to convict someone of extortion.

It is one thing to voluntarily take a job knowing that there are onerous requirements involved. It is entirely another to work in good faith for years for a company with no such policy, having predicated your entire livelihood on working for them, and then have that company turn around and give you the ultimatum of Surrender These Rights Or Else. It is extortion in spirit if not in letter.

Personal extortion is NOT consistent with libertarian ideals. Neither should corporate extortion be. One of the proper roles of government is to prevent people with leverage over others from using that leverage to violate others' fundamental rights.

 

[carebear]

ben,

Alternately, at the last it is the responsibility of the individual to plan and prepare for the future, through savings, investment and even frugal living (a horror in our society) if necessary to ensure that you are not tying your future to something you cannot control. If you want to trade your time for another's wages that's fine, but it does not absolve you from taking care of your own future survival.

Social security and the whole "entitlement society" is partly to blame for this wrong-headed mindset but at any time and in any place, to trust others to invest your future (pension plans) was and is naive.

We should be monitoring the future of our trades and training for new ones if necessary, never stop educating ourselves and don't live beyond our means.

It's a tough row to hoe but it isn't anyone elses job.

 

[NMshooter]

If any business wants to restrict the right of any employee or customer to carry weapons they should also be required to accept full responsibility for their safety.

Bet you would see a lot more acceptance for ccw then.