should Ginsburg (and maybe Breyer) retire

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obama could probably get a nominee through now if and only if it the need to appoint someone was clearly not due to someone resigning specifically so Obama could appoint the replacement.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Andrew Napolitano will be a coming. Once he's in kiss abortion bye bye.

The only way Napolitano gets through the Senate is if the GOP gets to 60 in the Senate, maybe 61.  There's zero chance the Dems wouldn't filibuster him and zero chance the GOP pull the nuclear option of killing the filibuster to get him through.  60 GOP Senators in 2013 is possible but not likely.

Kennedy is planning to retire under Mitt.

I could see Kennedy hoping to retire under a moderate Republican if he tires of the court.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes.

This thread is three years old. You would be better served starting a new thread, for future reference.

Indeed.  In fact, we have a more recent thread on this topic, tho the one I found wasn't the one I was thinking of.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167455.0

Discussing potential SCOTUS retirements and the desirability of doing so is a fairly perennial topic with multiple threads over the years.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For that matter there is no guarantee of how 2014 will go.  While I don't think the chances of a Republican takeover of the Senate are as high as Nate Silver does, it is possible and even more possible is such a slim Democratic control that Obama would have to nominate someone far more moderate than Ginsberg as her replacement just to secure approval.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The only reason the Hobby Lobby case is even an issue is because thru the tax code we encourage people to get health insurance from their employers, which leads to them becoming involved in personal details of their employees that should be none of their business.  If a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby causes Democrats to start acting to dismantle the current employer provided system, then in the long run that'll be a good thing, tho whether that would more than offset the short term problems such a ruling would cause depends on how long that long run turns out to be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes, while there is still a Democratic president that would appoint progressives, and a senate that would confirm them.

By that standard, Perhaps Ginsburg should wait until after 2016.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The only reason the Hobby Lobby case is even an issue is because thru the tax code we encourage people to get health insurance from their employers, which leads to them becoming involved in personal details of their employees that should be none of their business.  If a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby causes Democrats to start acting to dismantle the current employer provided system, then in the long run that'll be a good thing, tho whether that would more than offset the short term problems such a ruling would cause depends on how long that long run turns out to be.

I still don't get how a corporation could have religious beliefs, or in the alternative, why the religious beliefs of a majority (or more of its shareholders, I realize HL is a closely held corporation) should really matter given that HL is its own "person."  Are we piercing the veil only when it suits a certain faction here?

While Romney got excoriated for saying it, corporations are people too in that they are groups of people.  While for-profit corporations typically place that as their only consideration, they need not.  Nor is necessarily against the profit motive if a for-profit corporation takes stands that may cause a certain segment of potential customers to view it favorably and thus spend their money buying that corporation's profits. So the idea that corporations should never base their decisions on moral principles is pure bunk and generally only brought up when a corporation does a decision that offends someone else's moral principles.

Now it certainly is the case that what Hobby Lobby wants to do here offends some people.  From a point of pure economics, it potentially could be an adverse decision financially.  However more broadly, those running Hobby Lobby might not be basing their value function to be maximized on pure dollar and cents terms.  Hence an adverse financial decision could still conceivably be the economically smart choice for them because their economics encompasses more than fiscal maximization.

As for your point that shareholders might not share the vision of management of how best to maximize the value of the corporation, that's true regardless of whether a company sticks to a purely fiscal sense of maximization or not.  Those shareholders have the option getting a sufficient number of shareholders to agree with them to either force management to change its policies or to change to a management that favors different policies.  If they prove unsuccessful in that option, then if find that the course does not maximize value for them, then they can sell their shares and invest in a company that acts more in accordance with what they want done.

To repeat, the fact that measurement of value is not being limited to fiscal terms does not change that, it just makes maximizing value for everyone involved more complicated.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't know whether or not you are missing my main point on this tangent we've taking this thread into.  I'll assume not and run with it, since it does bear on my main point.  Yes, treating corporations as legal persons with a wide array of abilities and rights (those which can be wielded by assembled groups, rather than those solely possessed by individuals) can lead to some apparently bizarre outcomes.  But the potential absurd outcomes with regard to health benefits arise solely because our system of providing individuals with health insurance is already absurd due to its encouragement of inserting yet another party into the health care relationship by not only encouraging people to get their health insurance via their employer via the tax code, but also by essentially requiring employers to provide health insurance.  If employers weren't forced to be a part of the health care system, then whatever beliefs they might have concerning health care wouldn't matter because they would never be in a position to act upon them in a manner that affects the personal health care decisions of their employees.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well then, it basically boils down to whether or not for-profit corporations should be able to act on any motivation other than purely financial ones.  I would say yes.  As I pointed out a couple posts ago, those financial motivations can be based upon the impact on potential customers of taking particular non-financial stances, so there is no bright dividing line that for-profit corporations could be barred from crossing, even if it would be desirable to so bar them.  But beyond that, I don't accept the need for an Aristotelian dichotomy between for-profit corporations that act solely for financial purposes and not-for-profit corporations that act solely for non-financial purposes.  There needs to be the ability for corporations to act for any purpose unless limited by their charter to specific ones.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What does limited fiscal liability have to do with whether or not a corporation can act upon non-fiscal impulses?  The two seem to me to be issues that are completely orthogonal.  Frankly the idea that something is legal if done by an individual yet is illegal if done by an organized group is something that we should strenuously avoid as it can and inevitably will serve as an impediment to free association.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

A corporation can't really be charged with a crime, go to jail, be executed right?  You or I have a right to a jury trial in at least criminal cases. The right to remain silent, right to an attorney, or protections against double jeopardy.   The rights real people have compared to corporate persons are not the same.

Actually, corporations can be executed, in the sense of having all their assets seized for criminal violations committed by the corporation, tho they rarely are.  I certainly would not be adverse to seeing corporate death penalties applied more often, or even having certain crimes cause a rupture of the limited liability aspect of corporate laws, if it could be shown that the shareholders knew or should have known that their corporation was violating the law.

A corporation person can't find Jesus. The shareholders can.  The idea of corporate religious freedom is bonkers in my most humble opinion.

So when shareholders are trying to exercise their freedom of religion and say the law runs afoul of that right (not to mention the "right" of workers to healthcare or to control their reproductive futures) it's the shareholders who are injured. Not the corporation which can't go to church, pray, etc. Unless we're saying the corporation is a closely facade for its shareholders and isn't its own separate entity.

So people who share a specific set of religious views cannot form a corporation that shares those views?  That the right to associate would be limited for religious views but not for financial views is what I would consider to be a crazy idea that exalts lucre above all else.  Freedom of religion to be complete requires that the religious be free to exercise their religion in groups and furthermore be free to do so in any type of group they choose to form.

The proper way to deny Hobby Lobby the ability to interfere in their employees' health care choices is not by mandating that they provide their employees with specific packages of health care coverage, but by not mandating that they provide health care to their employees.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Again are we going to baptize PepsiCo now?  Give communion to Coca-Cola.

As for your specific example, I wouldn't baptize the devil and Coca-Cola is already a holy liquid.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You are more than free to associate how you wish, but once you give birth to that separate person so that you're shielded, I would suggest that the separate person's injury is no longer your own and your injuries are not "his"..."His?"... (because, erm...well...you're shielded and he, He? in a way is shielded from you).

As far as I know, limited liability only works in a financial sense, not a moral sense.  Until God starts to charter limited moral liability corporations, limited liability cannot shield shareholders from the moral consequences of the corporation's actions. (Perhaps the Pope could charter corporations with built-in indulgences, but I fear I digress, and in any case, I don't believe the management of Hobby Lobby is Catholic.)