Corporate Interests & Democracy's Death Knell

No. In each issue the actions were taken within our democratic institutions.No fine lines, Jon. Both the fracking and the labeling are the result of moneyed corporate-interests’ undue influence on politics. Both seek to quell opposition to enhance their bottom lines.You oppose the Texas moves as un-democratic even though these moves are instituted into law by a democratically elected legislature. You support the labeling actions for the same reason; instituted into law by a democratically elected congress. Both are the results of the twisted politics that is, and always has been, democracy in this country. And both are bad.There is another parallel that pops up in the labeling situation in that it parallels Faith’s problems for her Christian bakers. She is upset that US society is changing and that her beloved TrueChristians are seeing their longstanding undue privilege in the society erode away. You are upset because in the label issue global society is changing and you are seeing longstanding undue US privilege erode away.The questions become, do the TrueChristians resist the changes in our domestic society to their own detriment on the national stage, and, do Americans resist the changes in our global society to our own detriment on the international stage? The TrueChristians in the one case and the US Congress in the other are members of these greater societies and these societies, as is the right of every society, large or small, determine the rules within which its members are expected to act.Edited by AZPaul3, : title

Naive.Texas is self-governed. Local self-rule is a state-determined (read legislature) issue. You don't like it? Move to Texas and have a voice in changing it. I assure you SCOTUS won't touch it. Naive.Two countries cried "foul" when corporate interests bought the US Congress and passed a labeling law specifically designed to unbalance world trade in their favor.Rather than shoot at each other, first GATT, now its progeny, WTO, was brought into existence to solve such complaints.WE, the United States, not just helped, but had a lion's share of influence in determining and codifying exactly what/where WTO can and cannot be involved. WE, The United States, signed on agreeing to the terms, stipulations, conflict resolution panels, the whole set up, Jon. WE, the United States agreed to abide by WTO conflict resolution rulings. WE, the United States use those same panels to air our complaints against Korea and China among others.WE, the United States accepted the WTO as a legally binding treaty under the terms of our Constitution. (Though it can be argued the WTO agreement is not a "treaty" in the strict legal formal sense we use in the US. Still it is considered a binding international agreement like a treaty, just with an escape clause.)In our Constitution, Jon, such officially approved treaties have as equal a force as "supreme law of the land" as does the Constitution.So the question you find so naively "stupid" is whether WE, the United Sates, honor our obligations to the global society we helped, in very large measure, to create or if we take Faith's route and refuse, crying about how unfair this society has treated us for not just accepting us throwing our weight around the way we want.I think, Jon, you really should think about these things before you jerk your knees out of place.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Nothing is ever perfect. I'll not argue your statement except to say, the reason we have adopted a government and a judiciary ruled by law and technicalities is because the alternatives show themselves to be even more destructively abusive.To paraphrase Churchill, the rule of law is the worst way to run a society except for all the others.

Does the State of Texas have a sovereign right to limit local initiatives on fracking? If not then, by that same precedent in law, they have no sovereign right to limit local initiatives on the state’s water rights plan. They have no sovereign right to limit local initiatives on the state’s education funding plan, or worker safety, or road construction, on a hundred different areas where the state has an interest in setting a coordinated state-wide plan. Any legal precedent you can find that will force Texas to give-up its sovereignty on one issue can, and will, be used to wrest control of other issues from the state. If local democracy is supreme, Jon, then if Plano loses its football game to Richardson can they go to war?Well, there have to be limits, of course, or the state will, in fact, have lost all sovereignty and been dissolved. So who sets those limits, Jon? Does Dallas go to SCOTUS for fracking rights, followed by San Antonio seeking its own water rights plan, followed by Austin wanting school funding control, followed by my once little hometown of Flower Mound wanting to control whether the quickly becoming defunct state can put a road between FM1171 and State Road 2499? SCOTUS is not going to have every county, municipality, city, town and village running into federal court to determine if this or that locality has this or that local right. So, who makes these decisions, Jon?I know! How about the democratically elected Texas State Legislature? That’s what Home Rule Charters are all about, Jon. The State gets to tell you what limits it is placing on your local rights to decide things. If Texas decides to not give a home rule charter to Denton or Abilene or Del Rio, no one outside of Texas gives a rat’s ass. If Texas decides to give no local initiative rights to anyone pertaining to fracking? Again, Jon, no rat’s ass.Do you want to know how democracy works, Jon? If you don’t like what the legislature does then you write blog posts, write letters to the editor, form citizens’ groups, hand out flyers, canvass neighborhoods, put up candidates and boot the bastards out of Austin.You want to know the other how that works in democracies, Jon? You can’t do it alone. If not enough other people hear, care or agree with your complaint you lose. No running to SCOTUS with a pout on your face crying that your rights to local democracy have been abused.Even in a democracy, Jon, sovereignty flows up, not down or we would all be little fiefdom's constantly at each other's throats. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.