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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRand Paul Praises Horrendous Supreme Court Decision, Would Let Employers Ruthlessly Exploit Workers
By Ian Millhiser
Lochner v. New York is widely viewed as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history. It is taught in law schools, alongside decisions upholding segregation and permitting Japanese detention camps, in order to instruct budding lawyers on how judges should not behave. Even Robert Bork, the failed, right-wing Supreme Court nominee who claimed women arent discriminated against anymore, called Lochner an abomination that lives in the law as the symbol, indeed the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power.
Lochner fabricated a so-called right to contract in order to strike down a New York law preventing bakery owners from overworking bakers, but its rationale has implications for any law intended to shield workers from exploitation. In essence, Lochner established that any law that limits any contract between an employer and an employee is constitutional suspect. If desperation forces someone to agree to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for a dollar a day in a factory filled with toxic air, then courts must treat that law with heavy skepticism. Not every workplace law was struck down during the so-called Lochner Era the justices of that era sometimes valued sexism more than they valued exploiting workers, for example but Lochner placed any law benefiting workers on constitutionally weak footing. Needless to say, the right to contract it invented appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Nevertheless, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took several minutes out of his lengthy talking filibuster yesterday to praise this abomination of a decision on the Senate floor:
You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obamas a big opponent to this, but I would ask him among the other things Im asking him today to rethink the Lochner case. . . . I think its a wonderful decision.
Watch it:
- more -
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/07/1684111/rand-paul-all-laws-protecting-workers-are-constitutionally-suspect/
Hmmm, I'm seeing a pattern.
Rand Paul, Supposed Defender Of Civil Liberties, Calls For Jailing People Who Attend Radical Political Speeches
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/31/232182/rand-paul-criminalize-speech/
Sen. Rand Paul: Civil Rights Act Was Overreach Because "I Can't Have A Cigar Bar Anymore"
http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201201090003
The Magistrate
(95,255 posts)"Even when he's right, he's wrong."
ProSense
(116,464 posts)cool if you're not championing a demagogue and his propaganda about people being killed in a cafe, which is designed to hype is stature and take focus off his other proposals that will ensure millions of Americans lose their rights and thousand lose their lives through lack of health care and starvation.
Making hundreds of thousands hungry or homeless: 'Brutal' or 'a pittance'?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022457325
The Magistrate
(95,255 posts)I am a Popular Front type, myself....
"Which does more damage, a spread-fingered slap or a punch with a closed fist?"
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)From one of his speeches...
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"ergo he is wrong on everything else"
...everything he does is propaganda to hype himself.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.....
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..... "
...the fraud "behind the curtain":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022472458
I suppose your objection is in support of Paul's rant, or is it that you think civil rights are an unimportant distraction?
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... recognize a blatant attempt to distract attention from a VERY important issue that some would prefer just go away. I think the civil right to DUE PROCESS AND THE RULE OF LAW are indeed, critical to the very survival of this Nation. I don't believe ANY person is more important or above THE LAW. Apparently, you think otherwise. As such, we will never agree.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"I 'think' I...
... recognize a blatant attempt to distract attention from a VERY important issue that some would prefer just go away. I think the civil right to DUE PROCESS AND THE RULE OF LAW are indeed, critical to the very survival of this Nation. I don't believe ANY person is more important or above THE LAW. Apparently, you think otherwise. As such, we will never agree."
...a lot of people are being duped by a fraud.
Better yet, what would Rand Paul do:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2472669
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Personalities is your gig.
Policies are mine.
Bad policies are bad policies, even when your rockstar is the one that has them.
Save your cheap bait for someone else.
"I care fuckall about Rand Paul."
...after jumping into a thread criticizing Paul to claim it's just a distraction ("HEY!LOOK OVER HERE!" , you're ready to disown him in the face of his blatant hypocrisy.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Back it up.
Quote ONE fucking word of praise I have EVER posted about Rand Paul and I'll leave this forum forever.
I dare you.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"You have a fucking accusation to make?"
...tough talk. I made my point: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2472684
99Forever
(14,524 posts)You've got nothing. How predictable and lame.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Anyone who fails to see the heritage of the KKK and the John Birch Society in his political DNA just doesn't want to look.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)Allowing more US jobs to go oversees.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Obama signs free trade agreement...Allowing more US jobs to go oversees."
...Obama is just like Paul. I take it you posted that to make a point that Paul isn't so bad?
Rand Paul votes against incentive to bring jobs back to the U.S.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00181
Fact Sheet: An Update on Bringing Jobs Back to the United States
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/08/fact-sheet-update-bringing-jobs-back-united-states
trueblue2007
(17,240 posts)cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Just cutting to the Pro-chase in case anyone is dumb enough to fail to understand this (now year-long) campaign of guilt-by-association directed at certain left-leaning Democrats and having nothing to do with the pathetic and reactionary Paul family.
Let's pretend that our enemies within the Party are Paulbots! Much easier than thinking.
The consistent outline of the effort is to find people dumb enough to think this is a valid syllogism:
Republicans are the enemy.
Thus anyone who is not a centrist is a Republican.
QED.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Just cutting to the Pro-chase in case anyone is dumb enough to fail to understand this (now year-long) campaign of guilt-by-association directed at certain left-leaning Democrats and having nothing to do with the pathetic and reactionary Paul family.
Let's pretend that our enemies within the Party are Paulbots! Much easier than thinking."
...does that drivel have to do with the OP? If you want to take issue with me calling out Paul, fine, but don't introduce bullshit straw men. I mean, you've wasted a year already building this imaginary case.
But "if you're going to kill non-combatants, people eating dinner, in America, there have to be some rules," he added.
http://www.alternet.org/progressive-wire/senators-filibuster-cia-pick-ends-after-12-hrs
Rand Paul supports "swift drone action" based on a "reasonable suspicion" of an "imminent danger"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022472789