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The Magical World of Hypocrisy2/28/2021 ERIN SPELLMAN
Long gone are the days of simply producing classic cartoons and child-friendly adventure stories. The entertainment powerhouse known as Disney has self-declared its role in serving as the justice meter on many hot-button topics. The problem with Disney stepping forward in this capacity is the utter hypocrisy they display in manufacturing their outrage for topics of their choice. Disney swiftly fired popular actress Gina Carano from the Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian on the basis of her conservative views after she compared the political climate in the United States to that of Nazi Germany. According to Disney, Carano’s social media post stating “Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews” was so egregious that it warranted her immediate dismissal. Yet Carano’s comparison of Nazi Germany and the United States was a comparison also made by her co-star, Pedro Pascal; the difference being that Pascal used his comparison to attack the Trump administration’s policy towards illegal immigrants to the Holocaust. Pascal referenced the Holocaust to attack Trump was acceptable in Disney’s book, while Carano, well known for her conservative views, was summarily dismissed for suggesting that the political climate in the US today is showing shades of what could unfold, as it did in Nazi Germany. Given the horrors that occurred in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, there really is no place for comparison by either actor; however, it sure does beg the question about Disney’s motivation for accepting this comparison by a liberal actor while terminating that of a conservative one. And for Disney, this is just the tip of the proverbial hypocrisy iceberg. Disney’s live action remake of the original 1998 film Mulan was partly filmed in China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang, where it has been reported by human rights groups and foreign governments that an estimated one million Uyghur Muslim residents have been forced into internment camps under the title of “re-education.” Many of the women in these camps have allegedly been raped, tortured, sexually abused, and subject to forced sterilization, an act of genocide. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has captured satellite imaging of Xinjiang which has led many experts to believe that there are 380 internment camps, many of which are close to industrial parks, illustrating how Uyghur Muslims may be used for forced labor. The Chinese government continuously denies the mistreatment and genocide of Uyghur Muslims. In 2019, a senior official in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claimed that most people held in the internment camps had returned to society, although journalists, human rights groups, and diplomats have not been allowed to visit the camps. It appears as though Disney, in all their self-righteous desire to right the world’s wrongs, does turn a blind eye to what may, in fact, be a genocide. At the end of Mulan, Disney uses its credits to thank government organizations in Xinjiang, such as the Turpan Bureau of Public Security, which is rumored to be involved in the internment camps, as well as the publicity department of the CCP Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomy Region Committee, which is reported to be a propaganda group for the CCP. Although a major humanitarian crisis did not deter Disney from filming in Xinjiang, recent Georgia legislation banns abortion in cases with fetal heartbeat detection did. Disney has chosen to discontinue production in the state of Georgia over Governor Brian Kemp’s signing of this legislation. Once again, Disney’s hypocrisy is on display for choosing to cancel filming locations based upon their “high moral ground” on the hot-button issue of individual freedoms, yet again another question is begged: what greater loss of individual freedoms could there be than a genocide? If Disney is going to take a political stance that they are opposed to the comparison of Nazi Germany and the United States, or that they are opposed to governmental regulations that restrict individual freedoms, why do they pick and choose who is going to be punished? With Disney controlling much of the media Americans rely on, there is simply no way to reach a level of unity so desperately needed in this country when major corporations pick and choose what tone should be set on certain issues.
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We Have All Won the Historical Lottery2/28/2021 MORGAN HUNT
In the summer of 2017, I cycled through the fields of western Cambodia. A little over 40 years before, around 2 million native Cambodians were stripped away from these fields and killed in death camps by the Khmer Rouge. As I was cycling, I pictured parents being taken away from their children, knowing that in an hour they would be dead. I wondered how many people from each village I passed had been slaughtered by Pol Pot’s regime. It was a horrifying experience. I came back to America with one distinct conclusion: everyone living today in this country, or any other free country, has won the historical lottery. Whether one is rich or poor, white or black, male or female, everyone in this country is free to speak, interact, travel, and work without fear of going to jail or being killed. The vast majority of us have access to healthy food, a comfortable home to live in, a phone to communicate with friends and family, and a car to travel safely in. We neither fear execution from those in power, nor live in miserable poverty. Yet today, many take this all for granted. Instead of counting their many blessings, members of the public critique society with a vengeance. They say that America as a society is oppressive to everyone who isn’t a straight, white, wealthy, male. They maintain the social structures of America are comparable to that of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. According to them, our country is so terrible its independence day shouldn’t be celebrated. I would invite anyone who revels in this mindset to take a trip to the killing fields of Cambodia. I would invite them to travel to Auschwitz to see the remnants of the Holocaust, travel to rural Asia to see the atrocious living conditions people have to face daily, or read up about the Soviet gulags and the Holodomor. All in all, I would ask them to reconsider their level of appreciation for what America has given them. I would ask them whether the freedom and prosperity America’s citizens currently possess has been the norm throughout human history, or the notable exception. Perhaps then, progressive activists wouldn’t be so sanctimonious to burn buildings and yell out “no justice, no peace” in critique of a police force that is rarely discriminatory and unjust. Perhaps then, they would refrain from saying “all countries matter” on the Fourth of July in defiance of our country’s independence and exceptional founding values. Instead, they would focus on using their influence to prevent the ongoing genocide of Uighur Muslims by the Chinese Communist Party, or the near-complete subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. An honest study of the history of human living conditions and God-given rights around the world provides us with one important conclusion: the quality of life in the 21st century in a select few countries (the US included) is by far the best in human history. Therefore, rather than critique what current society has not done for you, reflect on, and give thanks for, what it has.
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THOMAS K. SARROUF JR.
Jordan Klepper is a comedian from The Daily Show (TDS), a political satire show that airs on Comedy Central. He was hired by the former host of TDS, the left-leaning Jon Stewart, and now works side-by-side with the new host Trevor Noah, who shirks traditional American political titles, though is certainly a man of the Left. Klepper himself has hosted two of his own shows on Comedy Central, but is most famous for “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse,” a segment on TDS that sees him attend Trump rallies and ask questions of some of Trump’s most ill-informed supporters. As one might expect, they give the dumbest answers, which makes for great comedy. I hate to throw my ideological kin under the bus and laugh at their expense, but Klepper’s segment is simply funny, no matter where one stands politically. I often watch with my family, all of whom are liberals of various sorts, but we all roar with laughter as we watch Jordan confound members of Trump’s base. In spite of the fact that his comedy is at the expense of the conservative movement, a movement to which I proudly claim membership, it is good comedy; Klepper, who was part of his high school’s national champion mock trial team, has a lightning-quick wit, which can be seen on display with his spontaneous retorts to the worst right-wing talking points. Some of his comedy is pre-thought and pre-written, but Klepper shines most when he thinks on his feet and ad-libs his jokes, which is one of the hallmarks of a talented comedian. Klepper’s brand of comedy, funny as it is, has serious implications for genuine politics. And I am not talking about the fact that he is a liberal; that hardly matters. Art is an invitation to expand the mind, and let the worldview of another enter into our own limited sphere through symbol, metaphor, and imagery. Comedy is an artform, and is an effective tool for explaining oneself, revealing the absurdity of things, and delivering arguments. I would not suggest that all art that is liberal or leftist is garbage that should be removed or insulated from any praise, as that would defeat the purpose of art. Likewise, comedy could take on any political content and be considered funny, and if it is funny, we should all laugh, whether it stands for our political worldview or against it. As conservatives especially, we can laugh at ourselves. And besides, it’s just comedy; it is not meant to be taken seriously. As Klepper himself noted in an interview with Stephen Colbert, “we [Comedy Central] are literally the fake news.” His actual shows, such as Jordan Klepper Solves Guns, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and Klepper, are still political satire, but are more serious and raise some legitimate political issues. By comparison, this segment is only meant to make the mostly-liberal audience of TDS laugh at the excesses of the political right-wing. Well….maybe. There are a couple problems raised in Klepper’s work in “Fingers the Pulse.” For one, and this is the lowest hanging fruit, his work breeds animosity and resentment for “the other.” His work makes the Right look like clowns, and if one does not put the segments into context, questions can easily arise. For the liberal, “this is my fellow American? This nasty, uninformed, unintelligent, racist, xenophobic, sexist bigot has the same rights and freedoms as me? They have the right to vote? Really??” By capturing the fringe, it reminds liberals what they hate about conservatives, and what they are fighting against. Also, keep in mind that the people interviewed actually are overtly racist and sexist. Just take this humorous yet cringeworthy exchange about feminism between Klepper and a portly Trumper: Trump Supporter (TS): These extreme nations, they don’t treat women with respect. Jordan Klepper (JK): We treat women with respect here. TS: Yes we do. JK: That’s an American ideal. TS: Yep. JK: Tell me about your shirt. What’s it say? TS: It says, uh, “Hillary sucks….but not like Monica.” JK: Hilarious. So we were talking about treating women with respect. TS: It’s an American ideal that we treat women with respect. JK: You’ve got to give me the back of that shirt one more time, that’s too much fun. TS: TRUMP THAT BITCH! JK: Haha, we don’t even see the irony in it, I love it! It is quite clearly sexist. And the interviewee is far from being the only one. When Klepper puts these clips back-to-back-to-back, it paints a picture that Trump country is sexist, racist, and xenophobic. Quite simply put, Klepper’s comedy is confirmation bias for the caricature of conservatives that most American cultural institutions paint of us. The conservative asks a different set of questions: “this is what Klepper is showing? These stupid people that make me look bad? Why does the media hate our president and hate hard-working Americans who love the country? Do they not realize that Republican policies actually help women? This is a ploy by the fake news media to malign conservatives and shut the Overton window on our ideas!” If taken seriously, “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse” serves to make the conservative more cynical and resentful of false pictures and caricatures that make our lives more difficult. These ideas about conservatives spread like any other group of people. It is clear and obvious that Klepper is exaggerating the segments, only showing the worst of the worst for comedic effect. His purpose is not to give a well-balanced showing of Trump supporters and conservatives; he is not objective, nor is he purporting to be. Surely not every person he asked delivered a laughably absurd response; the intelligent conservative does not garner laughs required to make the cut. And besides, conservatives also caricature the Left by pointing out their least coherent constituents. Will Witt from PragerU goes around college campuses and records college students saying that Trump is “literally worse than Hitler,” which is hilarious. Or who could forget the famous clip of Jesse Watters eating meat in front of a vegan sociology professor as she explained why eating meat perpetuated “toxic masculinity?” Both sides make jokes at the expense of their political opponents for laughs. The real problem with Jordan Klepper’s political comedy is that it is purely personal. Some are simply exposing the ridiculousness of some parts of the Trump base, and have no deeper content. Other times his segments seek to couple his street interviews with a political point, and it is in these moments that the problem arises. His digs at Trump are all based on Trump’s character, and the implicit critiques are based solely on Trump's hypocrisy, rhetoric, and the inconsistencies of his supporters. For instance, after the Access Hollywood tape scandal, Klepper went around and asked Trump supporters what they thought of Trump’s contemptible comments, which his supporters defended. In another segment, Klepper asked Trumpers about the “lock her up” chants, and then told them that Trump had switched his tune about Clinton. He also questioned them about whether they approved of Trump “draining the swamp,” and then subsequently asked them if they liked Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Treasury, former Goldman Sachs CIO and hedge fund manager, Steven Mnuchin. He went to the boat rally, where he concluded that Trump supporters were privileged to have a rally and support the President in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide racial protests and riots. While attending one of Trump’s campaign rallies during the pandemic, one man said that Trump was our first “rock star, super hero president” and that “we should call him ‘President Iron Man,’” to which Klepper replied, “Tony Stark actually gave a shit about science.” When asking people about mail-in voting, Klepper snidely remarked that Trump uses mail-in voting, as if that were a refutation of Trump’s claim that they were more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting or excused absentee balloting. It is evident that the issues themselves are not being considered. Klepper’s retorts reflect the eccentricity of President Trump, some of the outlandish and shocking things he says, and his hypocrisy and self-contradiction. If the best Jordan can do to refute Trump’s presidency is to attack what he says, then that refutation falls far short of the mark. For example, Klepper claims that Trump does not care about science; President Trump has famously called climate change a hoax engineered by China; he suggested in the 2016 Republican primaries that vaccines should be administered to infants in smaller doses based on his own personal experiences; and on COVID he said some things that were quite mind-boggling and patently untrue. Based on what President Trump himself has said, one could be led to the conclusion that he is an anti-science radical. However, when one evaluates his policies on issues of “science,” one grasps a different picture of Trump’s view of science. Despite leaving the Paris Climate Accords, the United States has reduced carbon emissions, while simultaneously becoming energy independent by hydrofracking American shale oil and natural gas reserves. In spite of his concerns about vaccines, which is both a highly debated and highly debatable issue, he has funded the fastest vaccine production regime in human history, while still holding to the same safety standards as other vaccine production processes. And for all of the media’s speculation that Trump was going to “fire Fauci,” and that Trump was not “listening to the science,” Dr. Fauci testified that the President did listen to him and Dr. Deborah Birx about the dangers of the pandemic, and that his response saved lives. So in the final analysis, what exactly does Klepper have on Trump to lead him to such a conclusion? Klepper has Trump’s words; no policy analysis necessary. Jordan Klepper can muster nothing more against Trump and his supporters than Trump’s own words, personal actions that have no bearing on political policy, and idiosyncrasies. This is the heart of the issue. By watching Klepper’s “refutation,” one buys into the implicit frame that politics is only about refuting the hypocrisy and lies of the opponent. Klepper’s argument ultimately boils down to “Trump is a horrible president because all of his supporters are clowns, and he says a bunch of ridiculous and untrue things, and likes to brag about himself.” If you think that’s a ridiculous argument against the former president, and an illegitimate political argument, you would be correct. To be fair, there are issues to be had with Trump’s rhetoric, especially in light of the Capitol riots, which many, myself included, say Trump incited. The populist rhetoric of Trump vs. the establishment, calling the Press the “enemy of the American people,” and not coming out strongly against political violence are all real issues with Donald Trump. But Klepper does not even go after these issues; instead he grills Trumpers about “birtherism.” Refutation of the Right by exposing the hypocrisy of its least competent adherents is a dead letter. It is purely mean-spirited humiliation of fools. But the deepest dilemma is that Klepper’s frame is purely personal. People cannot be separated from politics; we need a politics that places the human being as central. But politics, rightly considered and deliberated, is based on the policies that place human beings at the center, rather than placing the personal idiosyncrasies of our leaders as paramount. Klepper’s brand of comedy inverts a proper understanding of political values. They are purely ad hominem arguments, and have no bearing on genuine political policy. With his red-herring political attacks on the Right, Jordan Klepper, the good comic he is, dumbs down America’s political discourse, and by extension, the American public.
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THE FREE PRESS EDITORIAL STAFF
On Tuesday, the Student Assembly (SA) of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) drafted articles of impeachment against UGBC President Christian Guma, CSOM 2021. The article charges that Guma released a statement to the UGBC Instagram account without official approval from the SA, in violation of the UGBC Constitution. The impeachment, however, is on account of a farce. Guma, a UGBC outsider who triumphed in a hotly contested election last year, has drawn the ire of his colleagues for daring to be a more effective leader than they had been in years past. His administration has been highly effective and genuinely useful to the student body, and so the SA is resentful and is trying to get rid of him. Guma’s statement was released in the wake of vandalism that took place on the Multicultural Learning Experience (MLE) floor in Xavier Hall. The MLE floor was subject to vandalism, as a couple students punched in ceiling tiles, knocked over trash cans, and caused a commotion in the middle of the night. The incident has been met with the contempt of the student body. In Guma’s statement he noted that UGBC had offered support to the students directly affected, met with senior administrators, and stressed that there “must be accountability” for those who perpetrated the “intolerable, unacceptable” actions. Since then, the University has apprehended the students, and disciplined them for multiple violations of University policies, according to an email sent out by Executive Vice President Michael Lochhead. Despite Guma’s strong words, his statement was subject to intense criticism from his peers in UGBC for failing to explicitly say that the incident was a “hate crime,” which brings us to the point about impeachment. It is not evident why impeachment is a sound option of dealing with the situation. According to AHANA+ Leadership Council member Mitzy Monterroso-Bautista, MCAS 2022, the SA could deal with Christian’s statement in a number of ways, including impeachment, censure, or refraining from any disciplinary action. If that’s the case, why are they taking the nuclear option of impeachment? Christian admitted he made a typo in not making clear that the statement was from himself. He quickly fixed it. It was a mix up—anyone with a brain can understand that. So why are they going after Christian on impeachment charges for making a typo? Would a censure not be enough to achieve justice and make clear that UGBC does not endorse the since-deleted statement? The real motivations for this political hitjob are much more cynical and vicious. They are really impeaching him because, in his statement, he did not refer to the MLE incident as a “hate crime.” Members of the SA believe it was a hate crime, and are furious that he did not call it that. If that’s really the case, why not impeach him for that? Why hide behind some farcical charge that he maliciously violated the UGBC constitution? It’s a simple answer: the logic of impeachment for failing to call an incident a hate crime is too flimsy. It is not clear what the motivations of the perpetrators were, which is crucial to determining if it was a hate crime. Moreover, not saying that it was a hate crime is not the same thing as saying it was not a hate crime (for logicians, ~Sh is not the same as S~h). He was waiting for the disciplinary process to play out before making such an accusation. A hate crime is a heinous act, and people who perpetrate them are contemptible, but we cheapen the meaning of the term if we attribute it to every single case without proper evidence. Furthermore, the presumption of innocence is baked into the core of our moral sensibility, so why is the SA impeaching Christian for following a principle that protects the rights of the student body? It’s because they do not care about the truth of what happened. They want to virtue signal to their constituents and score political points with their friends, and railroad Christian’s administration in the process. Let’s also not forget the radical racialist orientation of some members of the SA. Monterroso-Bautista, for example, expressed her displeasure with Christian’s statement because it came from a “white man.” Evidently, it is a crime to condemn vandalism if you’re a white man. This is the purest form of racist identity politics, openly championed by members who claim to represent the undergraduates of Boston College. They put us all to shame with their racist personal attacks against a man trying to help while also suspending judgment until all the facts are in. Like hate crimes, such personal attacks are also contemptible and vile. The SA is also jealous of how successful and effective Christian has been this year. In a statement posted to his personal instagram account, Christian listed his accomplishments this year. Christian’s track record boasts achievements that show he has worked in a bipartisan fashion, staying true to his goal of making BC home to all of its students. This year, his administration has:
Christian Guma is the best UGBC President in school history. Highly effective and a principled reformer, he showcases the potential that UGBC could have as a useful organization. His impeachment is a sham, motivated by resentment, racial animus, jealousy, and contempt. It represents the worst of our student body: unbridled ambition in a student government. How pathetic.
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OPAL POLYNICE
The recent Gamestop controversy has revealed something we have all known for a long time: corporations are primarily concerned with enriching themselves. It also revealed their sense of entitlement; only ‘insiders’ are allowed to manipulate and profit off of the stock market. As soon as others do it, institutional investors disable trading platforms to disallow members from buying more stock, forcing the stock to decrease in value and crash because they would rather let the money burn than let anyone else enjoy it. But that’s not what this article is about. The whole scenario got me thinking, and I realized how little I know about the stock market. And precisely because of my ignorance, and that of millions of other Americans, institutional investors and CEO’s got away with off of market manipulation for decades. So I set out on a journey to learn more about how the stock market works and came along some interesting information, namely that the stock market indirectly affects our wages. I am going to learn you a thing I just learned myself five hours ago, so sit back and enjoy this article on why companies are purposely keeping your wages low and how it is not a figment of your imagination. According to a study by Congress, wages for workers in the 50th percentile increased about 8.8% overall from 1979 to 2019. This figure does not reflect changes in wages for minority groups, whose numbers show significantly more depressing figures, with black workers earning 1.2% more and Hispanics earning 2.2% less. Wages in the 50th percentile (the number of Americans who earn a higher salary, on average, than 50% of the adult population) went from $21.14/hr to $23.00/hr over the last 40 years. Wages in the 10th percentile increased overall by 6.5%, going from $11.27/hr to $12.00/hr. What does this mean? For millions of Americans, wages have either undergone unremarkable change or have even depreciated. What about the top 1% of earners, or those who make at least $737,697? Over the same period of time, they saw their wages increase an astounding 160%, and 0.1% earners saw their income increase 345.2%. If we further specify the category of earners and focus on CEOs, then the wages from 1979 to 2018* have increased 1,008%. Now, of course, the problem isn’t Chief-Executive-Officers (CEOs) earning more money over time. The problem is wealth distribution, and that the figures are not being reflected in worker’s wages. The S&P 500, or the 500 largest earning companies in the U.S., spent 55% of their revenue on buybacks between 2006 & 2016, and another 39% on dividends, leaving only 6% to be used for other expenditures, such as research and development. Unsurprisingly, this small margin also leaves little room for companies to raise wages for workers. Before I go any further, let me quickly go over some terms you need to know. A stock buyback is when a company repurchases its shares from the marketplace. Why might a company be interested in buying back its shares? For a few reasons; one, it may believe that the market is depreciating the value of their shares, which in turn depreciates the value of the company. The share may depreciate or appreciate for many reasons, including company earnings, popularity, or scandalization of a company’s reputation, among other things. However, the most common reason companies do buybacks is to increase the value of their share. As investopedia explains, companies want to maximize return for shareholders. This increase in value leads to an increase in dividends for shareholders. Since a company’s value is somewhat tied to the value of their stock, companies want to make sure their stock is not losing any value. CEOs also consider that investors may be less willing to buy shares in a company they don’t have confidence in, because that would mean losing their money if the company loses revenue. A dividend is the distribution of a company’s earnings amongst a class of its shareholders. It can be paid in the form of cash or additional stock, though cash is more common. The idea of paying dividends is to reward shareholders for the trust/investment in the company. Before distributing any payments, a board of directors must approve the amount being issued. Shareholders must also approve the amount. It should be noted that companies are not required to pay dividends. It is merely the company rewarding shareholders for being… shareholders. Returning to my point, most S&P 500 companies spend 94% of their revenue on dividends and buybacks. This means they are not investing their money in employees or innovation—rather, they are rewarding shareholders and investing money to artificially manipulate the value of their stock. While this may enrich those who enjoy owning large shares in the company, it is of little profit to anyone else. What essentially happens is that companies are acting in short-term interests by investing in their own earnings. They are not long-term investments that increase company productivity and longevity. And the people hit hardest by this are laborers and consumers. When company revenue decreases because of mismanagement and bad investment, it is the laborers who lose their jobs and the consumers who have to pay more for products to keep the company afloat. Netflix usually generates a lot of garbage, but there is an interesting series called ‘Explained’ in which Netflix attempts introductory explanations into contemporary events and phenomena. They have an episode about the stock market, and surprisingly, it makes some valid points. Lynn Stout, an American corporate law scholar and guest on the episode, explains how in the 1980s, the pay of a CEO became tied with the performance of the company’s share price. According to her, as much as 80% of the CEO’s pay is based on what the share price is going to be. This, of course, means companies have a HUGE incentive to raise share prices, which they do as I explained above. When companies seek short term gains, they offset long term benefits like company expansion and sustainability. Such incompetent management will eventually result in companies not being able to cost efficiently produce at maximum capacity, which will in turn lead them to begin cutting costs. The example of this in Netflix’s episode was Wausau paper company. According to former Wausau CEO, in 2012, Wausau began to transition from producing printing paper to producing tissue paper. But when a New York hedge fund bought up a large amount of shares, they began to vote on policies such as cutting production costs and redirecting that money to dividends, effectively stunting the company’s intention to invest in something that would actually benefit it long-term. This decision cost 450 people their jobs. If you are interested, you can watch the episode here. What this teaches us is that, though laying off workers and keeping wages low wreaks havoc for the economy long-term, it benefits shareholders, so companies are willing to do it. Economist William Lazonick, whose research and publishings were also cited in Netflix’s docuseries, was so disturbed by this trend that he published articles calling for a complete banning of stock buy-backs. According to Lazonick, “It is the underlying problem of the corporate obsession with stock-price performance that makes U.S. households more vulnerable to the boom-and-bust economy” and “stock buybacks... undermine the quest for equitable and stable economic growth.” Lazonick has been a longtime critic of buybacks. He asserts that they intensify income inequality and leave companies vulnerable to losses. In reference to the 2008 market crash, Lazonick said in an NYT op-piece, “Having wasted billions on buybacks, many [companies] incurred huge losses and required mass layoffs to avoid bankruptcy.” To remedy this, Lazonick has recommended the rescinding of Rule 10b-18, a rule established by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which allows companies to buy up to 25% of their stock’s average daily trading volume over the previous four weeks. The incentive for companies to do buybacks before was not as lucrative, since companies thought that through buybacks, the SEC would accuse them of manipulating the stock market. However, with this bill, companies essentially got the green light to do so, provided it remained within certain limits. This company behavior is why so many millennials are seeking socialist policies. Though many on the right, including myself, may not agree with this solution, we can understand the frustration at such an utter lack of transparency. It feels like they interpret working class people as idiots. It’s discouraging to see corporation’s revenue increasing while simultaneously underpaying workers. And though socialist policies such as higher tax rates may not be the answer, we cannot fault young men and women for trying to actively seek ways to remedy income inequality. Corporations created this problem, and they have a responsibility to fix it, as does congress.
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Contra Stare Decisis2/14/2021 THOMAS K. SARROUF, JR.
Chief Justice John Roberts has had a tough year. Trump’s presidency has caused Justice Roberts a lot of grief, as the president has been highly critical of Roberts’ jurisprudence. Consequently, many conservatives have critiqued what appears to be Roberts “politicizing the Supreme Court” by ruling with the liberal justices. Indeed, Roberts is being spurned for alleged judicial activism. In an era where trust in institutions is low, Chief Justice Roberts has been trying to restore faith that the Supreme Court is not a political institution. According to professors Varad Mehta and Adrian Vermeule, Roberts has been giving the impression of a balanced court by voting with the liberal justices instead of voting with his fellow conservatives on the Court. By trying to keep the peace, however, he is exacerbating tensions; not only does he diminish the legitimacy of the Court, but he also loses the ability to secure that legitimacy in the long-run by making unprincipled and poorly-articulated political rulings that obfuscate the meaning of the Constitution. However, conservatives must also reckon with something: Chief Justice Roberts has always been this way. The reason we are upset now is because he is ruling against us, but consider the fact that in his early years on the Supreme Court, Roberts actively rewrote Supreme Court precedent in a way that pleased conservatives. For instance, in Gonzales v. Carhart, the conservative bloc ruled that a law banning “partial-birth abortions” was consitutional, despite Stenberg v. Carhart’s holding that such restrictions on abortion were unconstitutional. He also overturned a precedent restricting campaign contributions from corporations in Federal Elections Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. The real issue is not that he overturned precedent, but that it would appear he has always been an activist, and that should cause us all great concern. By contrast, this past summer Chief Justice Roberts concurred with the liberal justices to uphold Casey v. Planned Parenthood in June Medical Services v. Russo. In his concurring opinion, he cited stare decisis, the principle that precedent is important in deciding a case (it is Latin for “to stand by things decided”), for upholding the Casey ruling. He also cited that the facts of the Russo case were virtually identical to that of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, which ruled a Texas law that restricted access to abortion unconstitutional; in that case, Roberts joined the minority in dissent. If he held that the holding in Hellerstedt was bunk, why uphold it in Russo? The political answer is that in 2016, when Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was decided, Justice Kennedy acted as the swing voter, so Roberts was more free to vote in the way he saw fit the law. His legal defense was that Whole Woman’s Health was now the law under the rules of stare decisis and so he had to uphold it. However, as we saw with other cases, Roberts gave no consideration of stare decisis when making rulings, and therein lies the dilemma. Chief Justice Roberts is running up against two problems: first, he is exposing himself as a political justice that selectively chooses when to uphold precedent and which way to rule to keep the peace; second, his treatment of stare decisis raises a number of questions about its role in our judicial system, and it is to this problem that I will now turn. As mentioned, stare decisis is the legal doctrine that attributes added value to past precedent. One of the reasons that stare decisis is taken seriously is because of its “reliance interests,” namely, that people have come to rely on the law as it is written and interpreted, and to overturn a precedent upon which people have come to rely would be damaging to their interests. Adherence to the rules of stare decisis adds reliability to the law, so it can be predictable and evolve logically. This is one of its virtues. It is a safeguard against radical activism, whereby justices could arbitrarily and capriciously alter the meaning of the law. It is also a testament to the wisdom of prior courts and prior rulings. As Justice Neil Gorsuch said in his nomination hearing, “[precedent] has lots of value, it has value in and of itself because it's our history, and our history has value intrinsically.” That being said, stare decisis is not an “inexorable command.” In his opinion in June Medical Services, Roberts defends stare decisis by citing 17th and pre-Revolutionary 18th century law books—famous ones, namely Black’s Law Dictionary and Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. These books were used by the Founding Fathers when they were learning law. However, those law books are English, which elicudates an important distinction between the English system of common law and the American legal system. In England, common law, which is the body of precedents dating back to the beginning of the 14th century, is the bedrock of English law. England’s constitution is not a written document like in the United States, and the passage of laws by Parliament and the consolidation of common law precedents is all the British have. It’s no wonder they place such an important premium on the doctrine of stare decisis! In American history, we initially followed English common law , and have incorporated it, in part, into our own legal system. But we departed from the English legal system by writing the Constitution and giving it supreme importance in the law. In the course of the late-18th and early 19th centuries, the Supreme Court departed from common law doctrines because they did not comport with the text of the Constitution. For example, in Parker v. Foote, the Supreme Court overturned the common law doctrine of “ancient lights,” which guaranteed that a property owner could not obstruct the natural lighting of their neighbor. Adherence to the common law precedent would have written provisions into the Constitution that were not there; the doctrine, though old, did not comport with the Constitution, so it had to go. Only the Constitution reigns supreme in American law. This is perhaps why conservatives are so frustrated by stare decisis as a legal doctrine. The Constitution is solely supreme, so why is past precedent so important, especially if the precedent clearly misinterprets the Constitution? This frustration is particularly strong amongst conservatives who subscribe to the “originalist” position, which is the philosophy that law, including the Constitution, should be interpreted based on the original public meaning of the text. Many originalists express displeasure with stare decisis because they focus on the text of the Constitution and on trying to discover the original public meaning of the text. Upholding a past precedent that does not interpret the Constitution as it was written is not a legitimate ruling, and is thus not worthy of being reaffirmed. That being said, stare decisis is not a worthless doctrine altogether, even for an originalist. Justice Scalia would sometimes hold to precedent, and created a “balancing test” for considering when to overturn it. Prior to Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh’s ascendency to the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas was the only justice who placed little-to-no stock in precedent. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote when she was still a professor at Notre Dame Law School: Originalism thus places a premium on precedent, and to the extent that originalists reject the possibility of deviating from historically settled meaning, one could say that their view of precedent is particularly strong, not weak as their critics often contend. In Barrett’s view, contra Thomas, stare decisis has value as a guide for determining what something meant in its original context. Past precedent can be the key to determining original public meaning, which makes it a strong guide for properly interpreting the Constitution. For example, looking at early rulings during the Marshall days can be instructive in determining what the Founders meant by “an impartial jury,” or “the power to tax.” Those early precedents are particularly valuable because they are closest to the original context in which the Constitution was written and ratified. To return to Justice Gorsuch’s statement, the law is valuable because it is part of our history. It tells us about ourselves. However, that is historical value, not legal value per se. The legal value of stare decisis in an originalist context is in the fact that it is instructive. It is a shortcut to determining the ruling of a case; we need not recreate the wheel every time a case comes before the Court. But past precedent is no substitute for properly interpreting the law. Justice Barrett implies just as much in her article. The value of stare decisis is in its ability to help interpret the law and the Constitution. Thus what is instructive is not the conclusion of a case, but the reasons why it was decided. A past ruling is not simply good by virtue of being a past ruling; they could have gotten it wrong, and they often do. If there is not a good legal reason for supporting the holding in a case, then it gives a bad interpretation of the law and is not a ruling worthy of being upheld as law. With this caveat in mind, it seems that Justice Barrett’s praise of stare decisis is much closer to Justice Thomas’ view with respect to its legally binding value. To this point, I have tried to reassign the value of the stare decisis principle from a place of significant priority in deciding a ruling to a helpful tool in determining original public meaning. It seems to me that Justice Thomas wins the legal argument by placing little stock in the precedent itself. However, I think it important to also demonstrate why stare decisis fails as a legitimate legal doctrine by itself. Most glaringly is the problem I alluded to, namely that reliance on the precedent detracts from a textualist reading of the law. Looking to the text of past rulings as the basis for making a current decision substitutes the supremacy of the Constitution for the supremacy of a judge. There is nothing wrong with looking to past precedent as a tool and a shortcut, but it must be used to demonstrate the right judicial reasoning for why a law is constitutional or not, which requires putting the precedential reasoning up against the Constitution rather than merely citing the precedent alone as a sufficient justification. Stare decisis is a useful shortcut—we need not prove the Pythagorean Theorem every time we want to use it—but it is no substitute for reading the law itself, and precedents must never take precedence over the weight of the Constitution itself. Thus, we see that stare decisis’ proper place is in bolstering the legal reasoning, rather than commanding a specific outcome. Less obvious, but perhaps more damning of the doctrine, is the origin problem, or the problem of the infinite regress. If current rulings must look to precedent, what was the basis of the first rulings? The first rulings had no legal antecedents to consult, so what did the judges who decided them use? If the rules of stare decisis are the proper yardstick for interpreting the law, then by the same standard, the first rulings, which did not use any rules of stare decisis, are unreliable as rulings. It is thus evident that stare decisis fails to meet logical muster because it is a self-refuting doctrine: the precedents upon which judges rely are bunk because they do not use precedents (because there are none to use). Conversely, one could argue that those who adhere to the rules of stare decisis should look to the method of interpretation used in the ruling upon which they rely, rather than the conclusion. In this case, the ruling's reasoning is being elevated as valuable, which once again demonstrates how stare decisis is properly conceived as a guide to consult rather than an “inexorable command.” It may occur to the reader that I am assuming stare decisis a complete judicial philosophy that holds the only way to judge a case is to look to precedent rather than make an original ruling. However, no judge actually rules this way. There is no “stare decisis judge” that completely abdicates their own authority to make a rule in favor of past rulings. It appears, then, that I am attacking a straw man. I do not deny it; that is precisely the point. My thought experiment is merely meant to demonstrate that in a vacuum, stare decisis is not a tenable legal theory, which is precisely why no judge relies on it alone. But the question still remains, if stare decisis is just one tool in the judge’s belt, why grant it binding authority when making a ruling? If Roberts dissented from the ruling in Whole Woman's Health on the basis of its faulty legal reasoning, then why bind himself to it in Russo? The obvious answer is that Roberts is playing politics. But for Justice Gorsuch or Justice Kagan, who make decisions based on the merits and legal arguments rather than the extra-legal circumstances, the question still remains. Precedent should be on tap; the Constitution should be on top. It is a good shortcut, but not a substitute. It suffers from the regress issue and is thus self-refuting. That a prior ruling was bad law is reason enough to overcome reliance interests. As Justice Thomas wrote in United States v. Gamble, a “demonstrably incorrect judicial decision...is tantamount to making law, and adhering to it...perpetuates a usurpation of the legislative power.” Stare decisis has its place, but we are a nation of laws under the Constitution, which is a system that sets up three branches of government to determine what the law is, should be, and can be; we are not a nation of precedents set by judges who can decide whatever they wish and then uphold that. Precedent helps tell us what the Constitution is and what the law is, but it is the Constitution that reigns supreme at the end of the day. |