Instead of reality shows , why are there no surreality shows ?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-16/it%E2%80%99s-law
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/16/2013 15:06 -0400
There is much casual talk about law and order among all classes of people. It is not considered awkward when discussing the peculiarities of life to declare something is “against the law.” It easily slides off the tongue and applies to all sorts of minor transgressions such as traveling above a posted speed limit and consuming a beverage on public transit. When pestered by some holy do-gooder to toss your cigarette butt in the trash rather than the street curb, the enthused reasoning is invariably “it’s the law!” No actual thought is given to the nature of jurisprudence. The mechanical understanding of most men places authority in the state, and nothing but the state. There is a widespread inability, or straight out refusal, to recognize justice independent of democracy, monarchy, socialism, or whatever flavor of compulsory government happens to reign.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-16/it%E2%80%99s-law
"It’s The Law"
Submitted by James Miller of The Ludwig von Mises Institute Of Canada
It’s The Law
There is much casual talk about law and order among all classes of people. It is not considered awkward when discussing the peculiarities of life to declare something is “against the law.” It easily slides off the tongue and applies to all sorts of minor transgressions such as traveling above a posted speed limit and consuming a beverage on public transit. When pestered by some holy do-gooder to toss your cigarette butt in the trash rather than the street curb, the enthused reasoning is invariably “it’s the law!” No actual thought is given to the nature of jurisprudence. The mechanical understanding of most men places authority in the state, and nothing but the state. There is a widespread inability, or straight out refusal, to recognize justice independent of democracy, monarchy, socialism, or whatever flavor of compulsory government happens to reign.
Blame can be placed partially on the fact that the concept of law has no universally accepted definition. The informally acknowledgeddescription is a system of rules that adjudicate behavior and are enforceable. A hallmark of Western civilization, the advent of law has acted as a means for encouraging cooperation amidst human society. The Thomistic view of these behavior rules, as described by Murray Rothbard, holds “that man’s reason” is necessary to “understand and arrive at the laws, physical and ethical, of the natural order.” The modern conception of law no longer holds true to this standard. The result has been societal impoverishment as well as moral decay. If law is not conducive to mankind’s nature, then flourishment becomes an impossible feat.
The ability to distinguish between “right” and “wrong,” both intuitively and by deduction, is what gives law legitimacy in the human realm. It follows that because man owns his body, and thus the fruits of his labor, that property can be defended – by force if necessary. The law, in Bastiat’s phrase, becomes “the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense” in practice. The orthodox view promulgated in public civic class is that the people – from commoners to the aristocracy – banded together to form a state so as to ensure communal harmony. This is no more than a fairy tale that still enchants the minds of even the most inflated of intellects.
With today’s nation-state, the monopoly on law enforcement has eroded the traditional notion of justice. Certainly various levels of government still prosecute those who commitmalum in se wrongs. But the granting of sole discretion over societal function to the state has brought about a litany of prohibitions on otherwise harmless actions. The most widespread and destructive example of this gross perversion of law has been the American drug war. In major metropolitan areas, large numbers of users of substances designated harmful to public tranquility are fined, detained, and imprisoned. The very act of ingesting mentally-altering narcotics constitutes no harm absent the self-imposed kind. The outlawing of drug use superimposes control of the individual, and makes him beholden to the political class. As Will Grigg posits, the malum prohibitum on narcotics is a subset of human slavery as the premise denies complete self-ownership.
In an act of supposed moral revelation, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced the federal government would begin relaxing indictments of low-level, nonviolent possessors of drugs. In a speech before the sleazebag of litigating opportunists known as the American Bar Association, the nation’s top mob enforcer declared “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason.” The mandatory minimum sentencing laws passed by Congress will simply go ignored.
The gullible reader might assume the odious basis for the war on drugs may finally be visible to the heavily armed buffoons who raid private homes and the sloth-resembling chief law enforcer, but that would be a naive supposition. The wind down has little to do with morality and everything to do with cost. Imprisoning thousands of junkies takes a great deal of resources. With a corpulent debt financing military adventurism and welfare pocket-padding, Holder and the rest of the federal government racket are feeling the squeeze.
The very same penalty relaxation occurred at the height of the Great Depression. While Franklin Roosevelt busied himself with turning American business into a quasi-fascist state, he was intelligent enough to recognize the civil demolition wrought by alcohol prohibition. As the black market for booze paved the way for organized crime during the roaring 1920s, the stock market crash left state and local governments hamstrung by a lack of tax revenue. If action was not taken, thousands of wealth-sucking bureaucrats would be thrown to the streets. So the Democratic Party endorsed making America wet again, while nominating the craze-minded Roosevelt in 1932. After the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, excise taxes were levied on wine and spirits. As economists Mark Thornton and Chetley Weise document, the resulting tax receipts staved off what would have been shriveling bankruptcy.
Rarely does the state cede authority when it comes to corralling the citizenry. The only barrier that stands between government domineering is always the cost of its behemoth, sluggish operation. The relaxation of penalties for drug ingestion is demonstrative of this rule. At the same time, it is a mockery of the concept of reasoned law. If using narcotics were truly an affront to the natural order, there would be no leniency. The immoral act would be opposed root and branch, similar to rape or murder. Current legal prohibitions on various forms of opiates are not grounded in justice but are merely a form of societal control. In the classic bootleggers and baptists sense, these restrictions enrich those who profit from sale, distribution, and incarceration while satisfying the warped psyche of taskmaster puritans.
John Adams famously described the American government as being “of laws and not men.” The managerial state has wiped clean that wisdom in favor of countless and arbitrary dictates enforced by worthless bodies. The narcolepsy-inducing USA Today recently reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation granted informants immunity to break government law in certain circumstances. Newly disclosed documents reveal that thousands of so-dubbed “crimes” were committed in 2011 by the FBI’s pet players. The misdeeds include drug trafficking, plotting robberies, and bribery. Last year, the New York Times published a damning report on how the good-natured agents of Washington’s infamous law investigator work tirelessly at foiling terrorist plots they go to great lengths at concocting. These faux plots of destruction are used to beef up the reputation of the agency so as to solidify its monopoly of police power.
The selective enforcement of law negates the very purpose of social order. How can there be a universally recognized limits to mankind’s behavior if a minority are permitted to disregard governing laws? The result is a contradiction – either the law applies everywhere or it does not. State officials regularly turn superseding their own diktats into a duty. For a parasitical institution that thrives on plundered wealth, undermining natural ethics comes easy. But adherents to real, moral law understand the score. The paper decrees of the state are law in name only.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/How_the_Pending_Trans-Pacific_Partnership_and_EU-US_Trade_Deals_Will_Gut_National_Regulations%2C_Hurt_Budgets%2C_and_Undermine_Sovereignity/28141/0/0/0/Y/M.html
How the Pending Trans-Pacific Partnership and EU-US Trade Deals Will Gut National Regulations, Hurt Budgets, and Undermine Sovereignity
August 16, 2013
Source: Naked Capitalism
Yves here. We’ve written from time time about the latest plans underway to further degrade the lives of ordinary citizens in order to fatten the bottom lines of major multinationals, namely, two major US-led international trade pacts. Even though the US media has given these pending deals scant attention, they represent a far-reaching effort to restructure basic legal and regulatory frameworks. As we wrote earlier this year:
By Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, Geneva. Cross posted fromTripleCrisis
In the recent public debate surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), an issue that seems to stands out is the investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS).
It enables foreign investors of TPPA countries to directly sue the host government in an international tribunal.
In most US free trade agreements, the tribunal most mentioned is ICSID, an arbitration court hosted by the World Bank in Washington.
The ISDS is a powerful system for enforcing the TPPA’s rules. Any foreign investor from TPPA countries can take up a case claiming that the government has not met its relevant TPPA obligations.
If the claim succeeds, the tribunal could award the investor financial compensation for the claimed losses. If the payment is not made, the award can potentially be enforced through the seizure of assets of the government that has been sued, or through tariffs raised on the country’s exports.
The ISDS is related to relevant parts of the TPPA’s investment chapter. One of the provisions is a broad definition of “investment” which includes credit; contracts; intellectual property rights (IPRs); and expectations of future gains and profits. Investors can make claims on losses to these assets.
Under the national treatment provision, foreign investor can claim to be discriminated against if the local is given preference or other advantage.
Under the clause on fair and equitable treatment, investors have sued on the ground of non-renewal or change in terms of license or contract; and changes in policies or regulations that the investor claims will reduce its future profits.
Finally, investors can sue on the ground of “indirect expropriation”. Tribunals have ruled in favour of investors that claimed losses due to government policies or regulations, such as tighter health and environmental regulations.
The arbitration system has come under heavy criticism, including that the tribunal decisions are arbitrary and can contradict decisions of other tribunals in similar cases.
There is often a conflict of interest situation. A few lawyers monopolise the international investment arbitration business; they act as lawyers in one case and as arbitrators in other cases. In a few cases, an arbitrator was on the Board of Directors of the parent company of the investor that took up the case.
There is a pro-investor bias in many cases, with decisions or arguments that are quite clearly unfair to the governments being sued. However there is no appeal possible.
Another issue is the high awards and the strong enforcement, including seizure of assets.
The claims have tended to be very high in recent years, running to billions of US dollars.
Awards are usually lower, but recent ones can also be very high, for example the US$2.3 billion award granted to an American oil company against Ecuador.
The ability to enforce these awards through seizure of assets owned and located abroad by the government makes the ISDS a very powerful instrument.
Among recent cases was an award by ICSID to a US oil company against Ecuador for US$2.3 billion; a case taken against South Africa by a European mining company claiming losses from the government’s black empowerment programme and a US$2 billion claim against Indonesia by a UK-based oil company, after its contract was cancelled because it was not in line with the law.
Australia has also been sued for billions of dollars by the tobacco company Philip Morris because of its regulation that the cigarette boxes cannot promote the logo and brand names.
An American company Renco sued Peru for $800 million because its contract was not extended after the company’s operations caused massive environmental and health damage.
There are several implications of the ISDS. Not conforming to TPPA rules can carry a heavy penalty, since government can be sued in an international court, and thus government will be constrained when formulating future policies or implementing existing ones.
It is difficult for government to make new policies, as it cannot predict whether certain policies it wishes to introduce or change is allowable, since it is uncertain or unpredictable how a tribunal will view this, i.e. the view of a particular tribunal can differ from that of another tribunal.
The country’s judicial sovereignty will be affected. Investors will choose to take up cases in the international tribunal where their chances of success and the pay-out are higher than in local courts.
The country will become vulnerable to multi million-dollar and billion-dollar legal suits taken by foreign investors. Potentially this may cost government a lot of financial resources.
The TPPA negotiations are still going on, and thus the ISDS component can still be negotiated. However, there is probably limited room for negotiation on the key aspects, since the USA is unlikely to deviate from the main points in its FTAs.
If the ISDS is deemed to contain too many problems, one option is to ask for an exception, i.e. that it does not apply to the country, similar to what Australia has requested. It is doubtful however whether such a request will be granted by other TPPA countries.
This Piece First Appeared on the Third World Network
Yves here. We’ve written from time time about the latest plans underway to further degrade the lives of ordinary citizens in order to fatten the bottom lines of major multinationals, namely, two major US-led international trade pacts. Even though the US media has given these pending deals scant attention, they represent a far-reaching effort to restructure basic legal and regulatory frameworks. As we wrote earlier this year:
By way of background, the Administration is taking the unusual step of trying to negotiate two major trade deals in the same timeframe. Apparently Obama wants to make sure his corporate masters get as many goodies as possible before he leaves office. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the US-European Union “Free Trade” Agreement are both inaccurately depicted as being helpful to ordinary Americans by virtue of liberalizing trade. Instead, the have perilous little to do with trade. They are both intended to make the world more lucrative for major corporations by weakening regulations and by strengthening intellectual property laws. The TPP has an additional wrinkle of being an “everybody but China” deal, intended to strengthen ties among nations who will then be presumed allies of America in its efforts to contain China…Back to the current post. The article below describes the likely mechanism by which international investors will be able to vitiate national laws and regulations. Notice also that Australia has managed to get an exception to the Trans-Pacific Partnership on this issue. Who there has the 5×7 glossies on Obama? Will he share?
Baker describes in scathing terms why these types of deals are bad policy:
…these deals are about securing regulatory gains for major corporate interests. In some cases, such as increased patent and copyright protection, these deals are 180 degrees at odds with free trade. They are about increasing protectionist barriers..If that isn’t bad enough, there’s another side of these planned pacts that is often simply ignored. These “trade” deals are Trojan horses to erode or eliminate national regulations. Baker anticipates that these deals will include sections that would limit government regulation (including at the state and local level) on fracking and could revive much of the internet surveillance that reared its ugly head in the failed SOPA [notice this was written in the innocent pre-Snowden era].
These deals will also lead to more upward redistribution of income. The more money that people in the developing world pay to Pfizer for drugs and Microsoft for software, the less money they will pay for the products that we export, as opposed to “intellectual property rights”….
This is yet another case where the government is working for a tiny elite against the interests of the bulk of the population.
And this sort of erosion of the right to regulate will most assuredly extend to financial services. Dodd Frank? The Brown-Vitter bill that some see as a great new hope for tougher financial regulation? They are already unworkable underexisting trade agreements.
By Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, Geneva. Cross posted fromTripleCrisis
In the recent public debate surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), an issue that seems to stands out is the investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS).
It enables foreign investors of TPPA countries to directly sue the host government in an international tribunal.
In most US free trade agreements, the tribunal most mentioned is ICSID, an arbitration court hosted by the World Bank in Washington.
The ISDS is a powerful system for enforcing the TPPA’s rules. Any foreign investor from TPPA countries can take up a case claiming that the government has not met its relevant TPPA obligations.
If the claim succeeds, the tribunal could award the investor financial compensation for the claimed losses. If the payment is not made, the award can potentially be enforced through the seizure of assets of the government that has been sued, or through tariffs raised on the country’s exports.
The ISDS is related to relevant parts of the TPPA’s investment chapter. One of the provisions is a broad definition of “investment” which includes credit; contracts; intellectual property rights (IPRs); and expectations of future gains and profits. Investors can make claims on losses to these assets.
Under the national treatment provision, foreign investor can claim to be discriminated against if the local is given preference or other advantage.
Under the clause on fair and equitable treatment, investors have sued on the ground of non-renewal or change in terms of license or contract; and changes in policies or regulations that the investor claims will reduce its future profits.
Finally, investors can sue on the ground of “indirect expropriation”. Tribunals have ruled in favour of investors that claimed losses due to government policies or regulations, such as tighter health and environmental regulations.
The arbitration system has come under heavy criticism, including that the tribunal decisions are arbitrary and can contradict decisions of other tribunals in similar cases.
There is often a conflict of interest situation. A few lawyers monopolise the international investment arbitration business; they act as lawyers in one case and as arbitrators in other cases. In a few cases, an arbitrator was on the Board of Directors of the parent company of the investor that took up the case.
There is a pro-investor bias in many cases, with decisions or arguments that are quite clearly unfair to the governments being sued. However there is no appeal possible.
Another issue is the high awards and the strong enforcement, including seizure of assets.
The claims have tended to be very high in recent years, running to billions of US dollars.
Awards are usually lower, but recent ones can also be very high, for example the US$2.3 billion award granted to an American oil company against Ecuador.
The ability to enforce these awards through seizure of assets owned and located abroad by the government makes the ISDS a very powerful instrument.
Among recent cases was an award by ICSID to a US oil company against Ecuador for US$2.3 billion; a case taken against South Africa by a European mining company claiming losses from the government’s black empowerment programme and a US$2 billion claim against Indonesia by a UK-based oil company, after its contract was cancelled because it was not in line with the law.
Australia has also been sued for billions of dollars by the tobacco company Philip Morris because of its regulation that the cigarette boxes cannot promote the logo and brand names.
An American company Renco sued Peru for $800 million because its contract was not extended after the company’s operations caused massive environmental and health damage.
There are several implications of the ISDS. Not conforming to TPPA rules can carry a heavy penalty, since government can be sued in an international court, and thus government will be constrained when formulating future policies or implementing existing ones.
It is difficult for government to make new policies, as it cannot predict whether certain policies it wishes to introduce or change is allowable, since it is uncertain or unpredictable how a tribunal will view this, i.e. the view of a particular tribunal can differ from that of another tribunal.
The country’s judicial sovereignty will be affected. Investors will choose to take up cases in the international tribunal where their chances of success and the pay-out are higher than in local courts.
The country will become vulnerable to multi million-dollar and billion-dollar legal suits taken by foreign investors. Potentially this may cost government a lot of financial resources.
The TPPA negotiations are still going on, and thus the ISDS component can still be negotiated. However, there is probably limited room for negotiation on the key aspects, since the USA is unlikely to deviate from the main points in its FTAs.
If the ISDS is deemed to contain too many problems, one option is to ask for an exception, i.e. that it does not apply to the country, similar to what Australia has requested. It is doubtful however whether such a request will be granted by other TPPA countries.
This Piece First Appeared on the Third World Network
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