Republicans Seek to Destroy Environment

[The Grand Nudger]

In all fairness, the extreme left has nut jubs that would screw the world over a few times over. Specifically ourselves. It's always surprising to me that people will go to great lengths to damage, or stonewall progress on part of our floating life support system in the name of profit or protection. How many wheelbarrows full of 100 dollar bills would potatoes go for on a ruined planet, and exactly how would abandoning technologies better our lives, or the impact of our lives? A little to the side I suppose, again, just soaking this in, it's unbelievable. No matter which side of the aisle it comes from.

[Minimalist]

In all fairness, the extreme left has nut jubs that would screw the world over a few times over.

Yeah but they are not members of congress voting to put arsenic back in the water because mining interests want it.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is true.

[Jaysyn]

They need to go back to the old way of doing things, when a company pollutes and damages the property and health of the community the people can launch a class action suit with their evidence, toxicity reports etc, bleed the fuckers dry and then use the revenues gained to help the community.

Has this ever actually happened in the USA prior to 1970?

[Minimalist]

The corporate cocksuckers - and the judges they own - have dealt a serious blow to that manner of recourse.

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/s...ow-Dioxin/

SAGINAW, Mich. — A judge in Saginaw says property owners who claim Dow Chemical Co. has spoiled their land cannot sue the company through a class-action lawsuit.

The decision means property owners will have to pursue the company on their own. As many as 2,000 believe they've been harmed by dioxin in the Tittabawassee River floodplain.

The Saginaw News says Judge Leopold Borrello on Monday cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited class-action lawsuits against corporations. The judge says anyone claiming harm from Dow pollution must undergo "highly individualized factual inquiries."

Dow attorney Kathleen Lang says the company is pleased with decision.

I'll bet the motherfuckers are pleased.

This is why I laugh when Void comes here and explains why his libertarian pals will be kept in line by laws. They have already subverted the laws, Void. They spent a lot of money to do so.

It used to be called corruption but the fuckers changed the definition of that, too.

[theVOID]

In all fairness, the extreme left has nut jubs that would screw the world over a few times over.

Yeah but they are not members of congress voting to put arsenic back in the water because mining interests want it.

Yeah, they're in other countries where the people on the right are the lesser assholes, but you'd hardly care about any of that.

---

Normally when someone is accused of murder, they aren't immediately thrown in prison. I fail to see why anything should be different.

Which is what I said.

Either you have no idea about jurisdiction shopping in the US and/or know nothing about lawyers, especially the high profile ones. If you think trying to stop the RIAA/MPAA from extorting money from people by their frivolous and often ridiculously high damage claim lawsuits is hard, what the hell do you think can occur in Citizen VRS Entity accused of Murder (as opposed to Entity trying to get 50k$ from you whether you can afford it or not).

The same thing that happens to any person accused of murder, via the police. If a crime can be committed via the environment then whatever that crime should be it is a criminal matter and thus the jurisdiction of the police to investigate and prosecute if sufficient evidence is found. As well as this, the people should not be refused the right to sue for damages as part of this process as they often are, the function is often like I said usurped by the regulators meaning the people loose their right to seek damages in many circumstances.

And I never said the legal system was perfect in any country so why you raise absurd lawsuits on a completely different subject is beyond me, the issue of fair punishments for crimes is an entirely different matter, letting companies sue for absurd amount in damages is bullshit I agree, getting a $10 grand fine per movie is NOT a fair punishment, the fine should be determined by the judge given the evidence he has for the actual financial damages to the company. What I spoke of, contrary entirely to that subject, was making it easy for communities and individuals to seek damages for crimes, letting them to pursue whatever they like in defence of their rights.

Look at the Koch brothers and their industrial practices. Seems illegal, right? Well then Mr. Consumers Always Know What's Best, why don't we see hideous lawsuits practically wiping them from the face of the Earth?

Because they aren't allowed to. Seriously, if your town was polluted by a Koch brothers factors and you all wanted to seek damages do you think you would have a case if the Koch brothers are operating within regulation? No, they'd tell you to take a hike, give you some reassuring speech that they'll investigate, but you can't prosecute. Would the police have any authority to investigate the plant? No, because that's the regulators job.

Why didn't BP practically get hamstrung for poisoning the gulf and ruining a great many people's bank accounts and livelihoods?

Because your government settled for them! BP and the USA made a deal.

It's not just "regulatory bodies". It's the people. If they truly felt the way you've outlined, then the laws would be different. There would be a push to change and punish them. But there isn't, wasn't and probably won't be.

The idea is NOT to wait for the masses to catch up, there are many practical steps that can be taken to help people seek damages for wrongdoing much easier, if people know they can nave their case heard without it costing them money (it shouldn't cost them a cent, considering the people own the courts in principle) then more people will be willing to seek damages.

And like I said, the police have a role to prosecute the criminal aspect, environmental crime should not be an exception.

And that's why we have "regulatory bodies" -- an entity that originally was used by political movements (usually composed of a very vocal minority) as a hammer.

Most other people don't fucking care ™.

Sure, and absolving their responsibilities on the matter makes it even worse. If people felt like they had a real responsibility and power to stand up for wrong done to them they would care MORE.

Whoah there pardner! Maybe you haven't paid attention to US legislation, but AGW is considered a political debate. And the people who have a vested interest in it being kept 'unproven' can easily dig up expert witness after expert witness to muddy up the waters enough for escaping beyond a 'reasonable doubt'.

Which is why your regulators aren't doing shit, but a judge should be able to examine the evidence as if it was a normal procedure and then pass judgement, maybe it would even set precedent, it's better than waiting for the old grey to deal with it while your politically motivated leaders desperately seeking their re-election oppose action because they're catering specifically to the interests who don't want to be held accountable for the harm they do to the rights of others.

Also debatable. And also extremely unlikely to ever pass in any court, given who they could hire, who they can present and whatever hush money they could, in event of everything going wrong, offer.

You'll get no justice there.

The main reason it won't stand up in court is because they could just say "we followed regulation" and as long as they can show that there is nothing than can be done. There is plenty that can be done to fix the situation, making courts completely free to the public, as they should be, would eliminate some of the hurdles of the special interest having more money and there are dozens of other suggestions out there for solving just those issues. The fact that politicians haven't done shit isn't a reason to dismiss the principle.

Quoted for not making sense. Since when was it "easy" to demonstrate any but the most bloodfucking obvious malfeasance (Oil spills, I'm looking at yoooooou)?

Look at Bhopal, there is a ton of evidence showing criminal activities that would pass the critiques of essentially any scientist or judge on it's empirical merits. Why couldn't the people do anything about it? Because the government had deals with UCC had owned 49% of their Indian subsidy. When they finally manage to get convictions in 2010 in the USA suing the parent company directly, the former Chairman got a mere 2 years in prison and a $2000 fine! And that was the maximum sentence! All because some douchebags with too much authority somewhere decided these blanket statements of law that removed the consideration of the real cost of damages from the role of the court! It should be one of the jobs of the judge, not the politicians, to decide damages!

Got to run, i'll respond to the rest later.

---

The corporate cocksuckers - and the judges they own - have dealt a serious blow to that manner of recourse.

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/s...ow-Dioxin/

SAGINAW, Mich. — A judge in Saginaw says property owners who claim Dow Chemical Co. has spoiled their land cannot sue the company through a class-action lawsuit.

The decision means property owners will have to pursue the company on their own. As many as 2,000 believe they've been harmed by dioxin in the Tittabawassee River floodplain.

The Saginaw News says Judge Leopold Borrello on Monday cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited class-action lawsuits against corporations. The judge says anyone claiming harm from Dow pollution must undergo "highly individualized factual inquiries."

Dow attorney Kathleen Lang says the company is pleased with decision.

I'll bet the motherfuckers are pleased.

This is why I laugh when Void comes here and explains why his libertarian pals will be kept in line by laws. They have already subverted the laws, Void. They spent a lot of money to do so.

It used to be called corruption but the fuckers changed the definition of that, too.

Well no shit Min, they have been fucked up by the people that bullshit the public with lines about how they're going to help us! The legal system would need to be FIXED first - nobody advocates your straw man of "cut regulations, keep legal system as is", that would never work. There is a shit load of work done by more libertarian thinkers on how to transition from the current type of system to one of free markets and the rule of law, such as Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom", but had you actually bothered to read anything of the sort you would already know that.