trulykiwi Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself! MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 trulykiwi: Your story assumes that everybody who has ever gotten into a bad financial situation did so of their own choosing. This is too obviously not true to argue here. And... retroactive laws are strictly prohibited by the Constitution, in case you forgot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john doe Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 And... retroactive laws are strictly prohibited by the Constitution, in case you forgot. But isn't that what Barry and Tim are doing to the AIG guys who got the bonuses? Now I see that the Connecticut AG is trying to get in on the action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 But isn't that what Barry and Tim are doing to the AIG guys who got the bonuses? Now I see that the Connecticut AG is trying to get in on the action.I'm assuming you mean the law Congress passed that put a tax on bonuses. This law can only go into effect after the law was signed, it cannot tax bonuses that were made before this law was signed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john doe Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 I assume that's going to be one of those "oh, didn't we tell you that? We thought you knew about that" moments then. Because the way the media is advertising it is that they are going to actively go after the bonuses already given out. Of course, I heard a little blip about the bonuses last fall, but the media wants us to forget that they reported it back then. They didn't think it would be newsworthy. Now they want to manipulate us into being all upset about it since Barry decided to make an issue of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Because the way the media is advertising it is that they are going to actively go after the bonuses already given out.Yeah, that's unconstitutional. Somebody would probably file a lawsuit and win very easily if somebody tried to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john doe Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Yeah, that's unconstitutional. Somebody would probably file a lawsuit and win very easily if somebody tried to do that. Eventually they might. I have a feeling that if it came to that Team Obama would find a friendly judge to rule in their favor, at least initially. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Eventually they might. I have a feeling that if it came to that Team Obama would find a friendly judge to rule in their favor, at least initially.Uh... not only does "Team Obama" not appoint judges, but they'd need corrupt more than one of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john doe Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Huh, that's funny. I could have sworn that presidents appointed judges. At least that's what I understood. Are you sure? Because I could have sworn that they do. And if you don't think activist judges can't be found that will twist or ignore the law to fit their view of reality, I've got a bridge to sell.Yeah, there's the link I was looking for: U.S. Courts | Frequently Asked Questions . Seems the president nominate judges and the senate confirms them. So I'm not crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Yeah, there's the link I was looking for: U.S. Courts | Frequently Asked Questions . Seems the president nominate judges and the senate confirms them. So I'm not crazy.There's a league of difference between nominating and appointing. The senate could always throw the nominations on the floor until they get a judge they like. And since senators are chosen by direct election, the people are closer to the bench than you think. Theoretically, if there's an "activist judge" it's because most of the senators liked whatever he/she wanted to try to do. The senators aren't stupid: they want to be reelected just as much as any political officer does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john doe Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 You haven't been around very long, have you? Politics has nothing to do with what people do or don't think is right, it's about power and money. And the reason senators have long terms is so that they can build warchests for the next election and be nearly unbeatable as long as they want to be there. There's a whole lot of deal-making in Washington, and very little of it is lawmakers concerned about doing what's right or nominating a good judge. It's about making the right deal so that your warchest gets filled so you get reelected again. The people back home barely register on the 'I care' list of a senator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 You haven't been around very long, have you? Politics has nothing to do with what people do or don't think is right, it's about power and money. And the reason senators have long terms is so that they can build warchests for the next election and be nearly unbeatable as long as they want to be there. There's a whole lot of deal-making in Washington, and very little of it is lawmakers concerned about doing what's right or nominating a good judge. It's about making the right deal so that your warchest gets filled so you get reelected again. The people back home barely register on the 'I care' list of a senator.You make it sound like the senators have put themselves into this position just to be all-powerful. Senators used to be appointed by the House. The Founders wanted more filters on senators than there are now. Now that the senators are elected directly, they are held directly responsible. Senators who don't care about their own citizens (and there seems to be many of them) and stomp all over their own state won't be reelected, no matter how much money they have. There are laws in place to prevent that sort of corruption. You're assuming the Senate is one big Tammany Hall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just_A_Guy Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Yeah, that's unconstitutional. Somebody would probably file a lawsuit and win very easily if somebody tried to do that.The plan is to tax the bonuses at 70 to 90%. Richard Epstein, one of the foremost contract scholars in America today, seems to think that attempts to challenge the law on constitutional grounds will ultimately fail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) The plan is to tax the bonuses at 70 to 90%. Richard Epstein, one of the foremost contract scholars in America today, seems to think that attempts to challenge the law on constitutional grounds will ultimately fail.The law itself may not be constitutional, but attempting to apply the law before it was law is.@john_doe: revvin' up that ol' laugh-mock button, eh? Might as well laugh at myself too. Start a party. Edited March 31, 2009 by LittleWyvern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just_A_Guy Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 The law itself may not be constitutional, but attempting to apply the law before it was law is.For some reason, I have this idea that the Constitutional prohibition on the retroactive application of laws has been held to apply only in a criminal context, and then only on substantive and not procedural matters.I could be wrong, though--it's been a while since I researched the topic, and frankly I have no interest in wading into it again at present. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Section 9 and Section 10 of Article 1 simply prohibits "ex post facto laws." Whether something is judged to be an ex post facto law or not is really up to the judiciary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just_A_Guy Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Section 9 and Section 10 of Article 1 simply prohibits "ex post facto laws." Whether something is judged to be an ex post facto law or not is really up to the judiciary.Forgive me; on further study it appears that I was thinking of administrative law and not statutory law. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john doe Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 @john_doe: revvin' up that ol' laugh-mock button, eh? Might as well laugh at myself too. Start a party. I laughed because of your naivete` on the subject of honest politicians. Come back in 20 years and we'll see if you hold the same opinions of lilly-white politics. While you may have a point on the ideas and theories of politics, those ideals are completely gone when it comes to putting them into practice today. Your profile says you are only 19. You have only been eligible to vote in one election. Many senators of the US were first elected before you were born. Heck, Orrin Hatch was elected before I was of voting age. That guy has no clue what I think, nor does he care. He knows that with his warchest and his political connections, he can stay there as long as he wants. Any legitimate contender can be bought off or destroyed long before they become a serious threat to him. It's politics. It's about power and money. If you don't have much of either, you're nothing in their world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted April 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 I laughed because of your naivete` on the subject of honest politicians. Come back in 20 years and we'll see if you hold the same opinions of lilly-white politics. While you may have a point on the ideas and theories of politics, those ideals are completely gone when it comes to putting them into practice today. Your profile says you are only 19. You have only been eligible to vote in one election. Many senators of the US were first elected before you were born. Heck, Orrin Hatch was elected before I was of voting age. That guy has no clue what I think, nor does he care. He knows that with his warchest and his political connections, he can stay there as long as he wants. Any legitimate contender can be bought off or destroyed long before they become a serious threat to him. It's politics. It's about power and money. If you don't have much of either, you're nothing in their world.I admit that my knowledge of politics is mostly theory and abstraction. I've never said politics is lily-white, but there are structures in place to prevent corruption and to prevent the workings of the senate to vary widely from the theory. If there is still Tammany Hall levels of corruption in the senate, that can be fixed like it has before. I'm not a politician, so I guess I don't have as much insider knowledge as you. Still, laughing at me isn't all that necessary. If you think I'm wrong, just tell me and don't bother mocking me for it, it wastes your time. I'm not mad, though... if I can't take one random stranger laughing at me because he thinks my eyes are glossed over, I have more serious problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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