Not only is your statement sillier but it misunderstands the point he was trying to make.
When you go up against the govt, you're going up against govt players as arbitrator, as opponents, in the govt's house, with rules the govt controls more easily than a citizen. Not even close to a "like any other organized group" comparison.
Except it isn't exactly the same, really. To suggest that the corporations own the courts is for sure popular to say in this day and age, and surely, it's true that their deep pockets offer them an advantage over the average individual, but if the claim were actually true, there would never be judgements / damages / awards issued as the result of lawsuits or class actions.
As we know that those types of judgements are awarded, we can easily disprove that corporations own the judicial system.
"As we know that those types of judgements are awarded, we can easily disprove that corporations own the judicial system."
Negative. On the list of things that could be used to prove a lack of corporate ownership of the courts, that falls very close to irrelevant. Just because damages for and against various entities of varying power, wealth, and importance, does not necessarily mean a lack of control. While a C level or two might get fired for something egregious enough, to the kinds of corporations we are talking about, a court damage is just another business cost and isn't that big of a deal. You win some, you lose some...
Let's not forget there are two court systems. The real key, is not in the civil courts, which I would agree with you are largely tipped in the favor of corporations over citizens (and sometimes in favor of more powerful corporations), but in the criminal courts. It is in the criminal courts where the real "ownership" of the court system comes into play.
To take a look at the numbers behind the private prison industry, especially as it it relates to non-rights violating crime, and say that it is easy to disprove that corporations own the judicial system, is naive and ill-informed at best. At the very least there is much more to be discussed before such powerful conclusion could be reached.
Let us take for example, that an FBI whistleblower contact of Sibel Edmonds who was part of the vetting of judicial candidates says that anytime he came back and said a candidate was clean, they were immediately dropped from the roster. The implication is that only dirty, and therefore more easily controlled, people would be allowed to take the position. Or major supreme court cases where clear conflicts of interests were present, and yet a member of SCOTUS would not recuse themselves, with almost no backlash. With the well known for decades tactics of blackmail of the NSA on judges and their 6 degrees of KBacon just coming to light to the public, the real kicker to keep in mind is that Snowden was working for a corporation, not directly for NSA itself, and yet still got access to all this information!
I would venture to say that any kind of in depth study of the judicial system would show that the rule of law itself is in tatters, and the corruption is expanding in every corner. Such is the path of a nation who has forgotten the reasons behind The Great Rising, but that is another discussion entirely.
I stand corrected. I have quibbles with the argument you present, but overall I find the gist of it compelling enough that I won't bother haggling over them.
I'll take that. Honestly it's sad when hacker news is one of the few places left to honest discussion of matters, and it's responses like yours that make the effort of a conversation worth having.
And all that time, having to think that the eye is watching.
Which is equally true of a system like the US government, or most modern democracies, where the judiciary is separate from the legislature.
The government isn't one guy, it isn't even a small group. It's thousands of people, at minimum, just to run things at the top. When the US government goes to court, it can't just get the rules changed on a whim. It can't even necessarily afford the best lawyers in the field it may be going into.
Pardon? I'll cede that it bears little relevance to the proceedings here, but the notion that the government isn't subject to the whims of a single entity has pretty effectively been debunked.
Between the PATRIOT Act, the NDAA, etc., the Executive Branch has the authority to bomb you, kill you, or indefinitely detain you with zero approval or oversight from Congress.
When you go up against the govt, you're going up against govt players as arbitrator, as opponents, in the govt's house, with rules the govt controls more easily than a citizen. Not even close to a "like any other organized group" comparison.