Then please tell me: how does this decision not apply to any other "sincerely held religious belief of a closely held corporation"? The SCOTUS might say that the decision is only supposed to apply to these particular scenarios, but I can't see how you can distinguish one sincerely held religious belief from another. Unless, of course, you let the government get into the business of deciding which religious beliefs trump which.

Then again, this is already happening, thanks to some enlightened congress critters wanting to legislate Baptist beliefs into government law.

The problem is that the only difference between your libertarian and your anarchist is that the anarchist goes to the logical end of "all government intervention is bad", and the libertarian just happens to support exactly the intervention that you like.

In other words, it's just another form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

The Hobby Lobby owners are not forced to pay for other people's contraception out of their own pocket. However, they decided to form a corporation to take advantage of a lot of tax and liability incentives. Apparently, the SCOTUS decided that incorporating is all upside and zero downside.

Can I form a corporation, and, because I sincerely believe that paying taxes is immoral (I'll even provide some documentation that I sincerely believe that), not pay taxes on any money I take in through the corporation?

Yeah, didn't think so. Don't hide your religious bigotry behind a legal construct.

The key word is right there: Presumably. Are they? As far as I can tell, most CEOs can be replaced by chipmunks for at least 6 months at a time, and absolutely nothing happens. What's more, I can think of quite a few high-profile cases where a chipmunk would have produced better results (hello, Carly). The only thing I know for sure is that the bigger the pyramid atop which the CEO sits, or the bigger the flow of money that runs across his (or, in much fewer cases, her) desk, the bigger the pay check. I see little correlation with actual productivity.

Since you're so wonderfully loading the question, I'm going to rephrase it a little bit. Does a civil engineer deserve less money than a marketing director whose sole job is to pump out pretty graphics to tell others what to buy and his bosses what that money went to? Because civil engineers, especially those starting out, make diddly squat.

You haven't met many CEOs, have you? Those that are CEOs or owners of small companies are indeed extremely busy. They also make shit money. Those that make the obscene salaries on the other hand have enough time for mistresses, hobbies and extra-curricular activities - far more so than any working drone underneath them.

False dichotomy. Your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

Most likely, they actually believe their drivel. The stupidity that is rampant even at well-run corporations would indicate that something far more susceptible to politics, theater and attracting the least qualified would result in positions like this. The TSA is utterly useless and needs to be abolished. Too bad that's only going to happen the day that we wholesale dissolve Congress, remove the POTUS, scrap all existing rules, and start from scratch.

You kinda got it right. Corporate social networks are there to promote the distribution of information. But for God's sake, do NOT call them "Facebook for the Enterprise", "Enterprise Social Network", or anything like it. Do not mention enterprise, do not mention facebook, twitter, instagram, or any other idiotic time killer. Call it what you want - "Acme's place for Engineers to comment on feature update requests from PMs", "Worldwide Information Sharing Platform", just don't use the Facebook analogy.

Second, employees are asking for tools to better share information. Sharing your latest beer run or cake social pictures is not information. Sales people want to know if someone knows someone at corp A, where they just got a meeting for. Support people want to know if anyone has seen weird behavior x that isn't documented anywhere, and hasn't been tagged in a case yet. Others want to know if there are some good presentations on a topic so that they don't have to create them by hand, or just want to get in touch with someone in a particular position but who they have never met. An enterprise social network helps that.

Here's the third issue, and this is where most corporate social networks fall down. It has to be used by the execs, and the execs have to show to everyone how to use it right. If they start posting pictures of their latest executive retreat where everyone has a Margarita in hand, or they start to talk about what movie they saw over the weekend, shit will irretrievably go in the shitter. Lack of adoption of a corporate social network is always and every time the fault of the corporate leaders. Whether the execs, or just the people everyone wants to listen to.

What's the problem with knowing that someone got charged for assault in a case that is very understandable?

The right to be forgotten is a terrible solution to the problem of people not being able to judge others properly.

No, not personal data. PRIVATE data. Plus, Google is handling other companies' data that has been put by them onto the public internet. Why the fuck is Google responsible for what is in it? Are you going to blame trash collectors for what people throw out on the highway?

You don't understand statistics very well, do you? Or how actuarial tables work.

When men don't get into 2 as many accidents as women. Sorry, but a corporate accountant has analyzed your criteria, and found that your penis is correlated with a higher rate of accidents. Enjoy your rate.

Your mistake is to assume that we can survive without an ecosystem replete with a shit-load of species whose impact on us is largely unknown. We're about to find out if we can survive with a drastically changed one.

Yep, I'm aware of union shops and right to work states. Just wanted to be sure what you were talking about, because your initial description told a much, much wilder story.

Because free markets do not exist, and capitalism is not a silver bullet to the world's problems (it may, however, be a silver bullet for the problems of the 1% to get more money, which is why quite a few people like it).

That said, I can't figure out if this is sarcasm, or if someone is serious. The political discussion in this country is seriously fucked.

By instituting rules that apply to how speech is created, and completely disassociated from the content of that speech.

Some examples:
1) You can't run ads that mention political candidates or parties 2 weeks before an election.
2) You can't contribute more than x money to the campaign of a single person/party for a specific election.

Does it leave concern-troll ads open? Sure does. It's not meant to be remove all influence of money on political speech. It just attempts to curtail the impact that a single large donor can have on the entire political process (witness Christie's pilgrimage to Adlai Stevenson's "political forum").

Yes, it means that political speech is impacted. Congratulations, you found out that sometimes, there's a trade-off in a decision that you make, and a perfect solution doesn't exist. It also means that you're capable of weighing the pros and cons of a decision.

Because money is not speech.

Seriously, stop trying to undermine the entire concept of a democracy. Or, in your lingo, a republic (even if that means you think the US and China have the same form of electing leaders... oh, wait, that would explain a lot of things).