"Roche's limit" is what you are looking for, but I don't know that it applies to balck holes.

Rights are a term used in rhetoric, originally invented to convince theistic believers that their god made them inherent.

You don't even have the right to breathe. You, instead, have the need to breathe. However, as has been proven throughout history, this need can be overridden by someone with more power. And then you die.

This same thing is true of all other "rights". The term was invented to arouse emotional support, and it works for that purpose. It has no other meaning or function in nature. It does have other meanings in law, but even there it is subject to being overridden by those more powerful.

For that matter your assertion that "Any alleged âoerightâ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right." is merely an assertion. If there is a "right" to self-defense, then there will come occasions where two different indivicuals will have conflicting rights. Which, logically, would mean that there could be no unlimited right of self defense, but rather it would need to be fenced in with conditions such that two people's right could never come into conflict. Just try to create such a statement. If you give the courts the power to decide when you have the right to speak, then the courts are the (an?) ultimate judge over how much right you have to speak. If you don't give anyone such a right, then there is no limit to fraud. Etc.

Rights, to the extent that they exist, are a social fiction by with one group exerts power over another. (Look into the history of slave holder's rights.)

Sorry, but that's not it. Insurance requirements have caused almost all schools (at least locally) to totally eliminate both wood and metal shop.

It wasn't that the students didn't want the classes (even if they didn't want that as a job), it was that the classes were cancelled, and the shops ripped out of the schools.

In a just society lawyers would have an honorable place. That, of course, doesn't say much about the ones currently existing.

Actually, even advertising has a worthwhile place in a society. Their place is ensuring that accurate information about what is being sold is available. Somehow that doesn't match what the job currently entails...except sometimes.

Not helicopters. They are too expensive. Quadcopter drones possibly. Or areostats. Or blimps. There are lots of choices, each has its advantages and disadvantages. But a robot eye-in-the-sky doesn't need to be very big or support a lot of weight...or be very expensive.

I don't like it, but expect it to happen.

No, I don't think they'd be that blatant. I don't think even the next Republican would be that blatant. Give it two or three more terms.

Actually, there are significant distinctions. E.g., it's against treaty for a military organization to use tear gas or other chemical weapons against a foe, but not against treaty for a police organization to do so.

FWIW, I'm not greatly in favor of Obamacare. I don't know how much to blame him for the implementation, but it's horribly flawed. Mainly because he didn't cut out the insurance companies, but also because he gave the drug companies a sweet deal. Also because it STILL isn't universal coverage.

Basic medical coverage should be a universal coverage. Insurance should be for coverage for exceptionals cases. It's true that drawing that line is not a straightforwards matter, but it should at least cover vaccines, clinic visits, emergency room coverage, yearly physicals. After that it starts getting questionable. I would probably side with universal coverage for more services, but I can understand that it's not a clear line. Which perscription drugs should be covered? Which non-perscription drugs? Etc.

My general feeling is that universal coverage should be available for debilitating problems, but not necessarily for fatal problems or cosmetic problems. Perhaps those should be extra cost options (i.e., insurance). Basic long term health care should be covered, but that doesn't include extras that aren't medically necessary. So some level of amenities should be either from savings or from insurance. Etc.

P.S.: When your health insurance raises its rate on you, do you automatically believe the reason they give? Can you check to determine that it's true? To me it usually seems that they are lying, or at best only telling a partial truth. This is true even when I feel that the actual amount of raise is reasonable. Perhaps the total number of proven lies from government and from corporate spokesmen just makes me doubt anything they say, but it does call their honor, integrity, and trustworthiness into doubt. This is slightly unfair as those making the statement (to the extent that it can be determined) aren't the same as those who have been proven to be lying. But they share so many of the same characteristics...

True. I already avoid all GM foodstuffs, so I doubt that it will cause me to change anything I do.

I complained about the license to our company lawyer, and his response was "They have not legal basis to enforce it". I switched away from MS as my only defense. Later, for a similar reason, but introduced more sneakily, I also switched away from Apple. (They introduced new language in a "mandatory security upgrade".)

As at first Linux didn't have a decent word processor, this made things difficult. (My choices were AbiWord, HTML, or Tex...UGH! I generally used HTML.) Fortunately StarOffice soon became available...and evolved into OpenOffice. But music score editors are still a bit primitive. I can use Frescobaldi, etc., but my wife refuses to learn, so she uses MusicScore and emits Lilypond with I reformat in Frescobaldi. And even that isn't up to Finale or Sibelius.

YES. Management never, or rarely, reads legal documents.

P.S.: This does not absolve management of responsibility. The lawyers are acting as their agent, so they are responsible for what is done in their name. This is also true for the Board of Directors, and for the corporation itself. They are all guilty, to approximately the same degree. Unfortunately, were this to lead to a legal suit it would be only the stockholders in the corporation that paid. This is an incredible mis-alignment of responsibility. Those who don't know about the misdeed are (essentially) the only ones that pay.

A. I accept that it was the lawyers.
B. The lawyers were acting as agents of the corporation and of management and of the board of directors, so they are *ALL* guilty.

I believe it was judge Learned Hand who said they could neither be put in prison nor commit treason. And in a strict sense he was correct, but the members of the board of directors and the top management could be put in prison as the legal representatives of the corporation. And I feel that if the coporation commits negligent homocide, then they *should* be so imprisoned. And they could be called felons for the rest of their lives, and forbidden the right to vote or to own arms (unless other felons also have those rights). And "own" should be extended to mean either in person or by proxy. I.e., nobody should be allowed those right when acting as their agent.

Okay, I have often heard this call for a corporate death penalty. However, how do you envision this would work? Despite the twisted perspective of the courts, corporations are nothing more than the real, human people who own them and work for them

The board of directors and top management.

On a more serious note, a coproate death penalty means the dissolution of the corporate charter and dispersal of its assets to creditors, and then, if any are left, to stockholders. I do feel that this is insufficient, and some extremely harsh penalty should be imposed on the members of the Board of Directors and on the top management of the corporation, but that is not, strictly speaking, within the jurisdiction of the "corporate death penalty".

What evidence would you expect to find?

You are right, that I don't have anything in the way of good evidence. I have only the evidence of judges making decisions the are flagrantly illegal, and which are to the benefit of local politicians. And since I'm not a lawyer, my idea of "flagrantly illegal" doesn't carry much weight.

So lets just consider the MS anti-trust case, where the first judge found against MS, was quoted by a journalist as saying things that weren't complimentary to MS *after he had pronounced judgement* and was then removed from the case and replaced by a different judge who gave MS only nominal penalties, which were actually even to their advantage.

I'm sure it was purely coincidence that between the first judge's ruling and the appointment of the second judge, MS began making large political donations.