I hate Elon Musk and I think that the Tesla corporation is overvalued, and I am generally for environmental regulations, but it's not like "state laws preempting city laws" is unique to Texas. This is true of pretty much every state, just like federal laws preempting state laws.
I can't really blame a for-profit corporation for using the laws as they are written. I blame Texas for having the loophole.
It's actually not just like federal laws preempting state laws. It's much stronger. States actually have a degree of sovereignty that can protect them from preemption in some cases. Local governments have none and are completely subordinated to the state governments.
>I can't really blame a for-profit corporation for using the laws as they are written.
It's funny how whenever a corporation behaves hostilely toward its community, or its customers, or its competitors the rallying cry is "Well it's for profit, they might as well do whatever is mathematically correct", but whenever people turn around and try to make the behavior mathematically incorrect by, say, regulating the corporation or refusing to do business with them or protesting and blocking the factory site they're all of a sudden being unfair and disrupting legitimate business operations.
I can't speak for other people but I'm 100% onboard with increasing regulations so that it's illegal and/or too expensive for corporations to do unethical things. I'm also alright with people refusing to do business with companies that they feel operate unethically. I'm onboard with protesting and potentially blocking the sites as well.
I'm just saying that a corporation is sort of like the frog/scorpion story; it's their nature to maximize profit in any way they can, and at some point you can't even really blame them. It's up to governments and customers to make bad practices illegal or impractical.
I still fully blame them. There're plenty of corporations that make an effort to embed themselves in their communities as stakeholders and engage the public. It's entirely possible to run a successful business without fucking over your workers, your customers, or your community.
I think we give way too much of a free pass to the actual people making the actual decisions to fuck people over. I think if we started yelling at them and ostracizing them more instead of just shrugging and saying it's the nature of the game, there'd be a lot less misbehavior going around.
Sure, I have no issue with thinking that the people in charge of companies are assholes. I don't have much nice stuff to say about pretty much any CEO of big tech companies (and most other companies either). From a social level it's totally fine to dislike them. I also think it's fine to yell at them or ostracize them. I'm not going to stop you if you treat Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Rupert Murdoch badly on Twitter or something.
I'm just saying that we kind of have to expect this stuff. If there is a loophole, I think we have to assume that someone eventually finding it and exploit it. I'm not saying that every corporation is always going to do it, just that some definitely will. It's up to lawmakers and voters to ensure that the loopholes are closed.
You say change things at the state level, but carefully don’t mention how that’s impossible in Texas. Care to give some advice how, or is that just a brush-off? There’s no state referendums in Texas. Republicans have a gerrymandered supermajority and they crush outsiders. So it feels manipulative when you say that without mentioning the impossibility of it.
The local laws exist because changing the state laws are impossible, I know, I’m an Austinite.
It's not impossible to change Texas law. In fact, it happens very frequently. Changing them in the way you want is impossible, I think, is closer to what you mean. And since Republicans are a majority in Texas regardless of gerrymandering, that is in line with Democratic principles no matter how much you don't like it.
I don't disagree though I do wonder if those days are numbered. Texas cities tend to be a lot more liberal than the more rural areas, and the populations there are growing. I think with the increasing demand for tech in Texas, it's potentially going to bring in a lot of left-leaning people into the cities and their respective suburbs, and I don't know that it will be as clear-cut.
There are. We call them propositions, and we have some in every statewide election.
> Only local initiatives can be done by voters in Texas.
What you mean is that statewide propositions are put on the ballot by the legislature, not by petitions. But your statement that I was responding to said nothing of the sort, only that there's no state referendums in Texas.