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"The rule of law does not apply to the powerful."

The author lost me here. They do not know what the "rule of law" is.




Countless examples of this being literally true, not just figuratively. I don't think they are implying that is the way it should be either.


What do you think rule of law means and what do you think the author thinks rule of law means?


basically what it means is that when you have all the power, no one is capable of punishing you


"Rule of Law" is the concept that laws apply to everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law


"Laws apply to everyone" is theoretical.

In practice, they don't.

Laws theoretically apply to Mark Zuckerberg, and he has broken them. But because he is wealthy and powerful, the justice system does not attempt to hold him accountable for breaking those laws.

Therefore, the result is the same as if the laws did not apply to him in the first place.


No one here is disputing the concept, just the execution. You know, the part that actually matters.


I expect that a judge would think differently.


Your expectation is incorrect. For example [1]:

> The Dirks case is an example of what has been called the “white collar paradox” – that conservative Supreme Court justices, who rarely vote to reverse convictions of poor criminal defendants, have shown a clear sympathy for rich ones. The conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, one study found, voted for defendants in about 7 percent of non-white-collar criminal cases – and 82 percent of white-collar ones.

> After Watergate, Congress passed a tough campaign finance law, with strict limits on both contributions and expenditures. In 1976, the Court struck down the expenditure limits, on the dubious theory that money equals speech under the first amendment. That let wealthy people spend as much as they wanted to elect candidates, and the Court has been opening the floodgates further ever since. In 2010, in Citizens United v. F.E.C., it took the radical step of saying that corporations have the same right to spend money to elect candidates as people do.

> In a series of rulings, including a high-profile one against Wal-Mart in 2011, it has made it far harder for workers and consumers to band together in class action lawsuits, which are often the only way for working-class people to get justice. In the Wal-Mart case, the Court threw out a class action by about 1.5 million female workers, insisting they did not have enough in common to sue together. The Court has also decided that the Due Process Clause bars what it views as excessively large punitive damage awards. It then used that made-up doctrine to drastically reduce jury awards against Exxon Shipping for the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and State Farm over its mistreatment of a physically disabled customer.

[1] https://time.com/5793956/supreme-court-loves-rich/

Also:

- https://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/overview

- https://www.gq.com/story/no-irs-audits-for-the-rich

- https://www.gq.com/story/wage-theft


The article makes the point with evidence that just filing criminal charges will change corporate behavior regardless of how a judge rules.




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