Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 November 21

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November 21

Corporate Legal rights

I know that corporations, in the eyes of the law, are treated as human individuals. They own property, sign contracts, and act in many ways as if they were a human being. However, do these rights apply to pre-IPO (before their initial public offering of stock) corporations?--LastLived (talk) 04:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The short answer, which may have jurisdictional variations, is that, public or private, a company is a legal entity from its incorporation/registration/formation. (The language will vary from place to place.) An IPO has no effect on this characteristic. Bielle (talk) 05:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

But they wouldn't have the right to sue and be sued, so valid contracts would have to be made with their original partners or the members of the unincorporated association that preceded the corporation. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Just to make sure we're all on the same page: initial public offering (IPO) is when a corporation is listed to sell its shares on a stock exchange. Corporation is a legal entity created under government authorization; a corporation may never, ever get listed under an IPO but it remains a corporation. However, prior to INCORPORATION taking place, yes the original "partners" or incorporators would generally be liable for debts of the entity. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 10:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You're right, of course. I was confusing the meaning of an IPO. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• Also, depending on where you live, a partnership may have many of the legal rights that corporations have. In many U.S. states, if you're a small business, the differences between partnerships and small corporations are so subtle that you'd really need a lawyer or an accountant to tell you on a case-by-case basis which one is more advantageous. --M@rēino 23:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• Yes. Generally see Corporation. But as the above said, and IPO isn't special. That's an Initial Public Offering. Corporations had no need to be "public", even now. Corporations are incorporated entirely under the state in which they are incorporated. Delaware has largely become the preferred state of incorporation for large companies for a number of reasons, including no-par value requirements, a standard and predictable body of law, and a favorable tax environment. Shadowjams (talk) 06:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bar Club discrimination

I am a teenager, and I have read a couple books about the law. From what I understand, everybody is equal in the eyes of the law. This means that Jim Crow laws are declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.

This also means that a business cannot charge varied prices for people of different races and sex, right?

However, I heard that clubs and bars (don't worry, I've never been in one yet!) sometimes charge women a discounted price, or let them in free of charge. Isn't this illegal in some sort, since businesses cannot discriminate by sex, which in this case is the male gender? --LastLived (talk) 04:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You can always discriminate if the quality you are discriminating based on is actually relevant. To steal an example from a comedy sketch, you can refuse to let a man become a surrogate mother. I expect the exact details of when you can and can't discriminate vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it wouldn't surprise me if the discrimination you describe is legal in some jurisdictions. There is a genuine benefit to having an even split of men and women in your bar/club so taking affirmative action to correct an imbalance may well be allowed. (You may even be able to take it further and say that having more women than men is desirable, thus justifying even greater differences in rules and prices - this is done at some sex clubs, for example, they may require men to come as part of a couple but allow single women.) --Tango (talk) 05:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

There is all kinds of price discrimination. Often, "equality under law" does not figure into it. Refusing to admit someone to an establishment solely due to race and/or sex could be illegal discrimination. Charging different prices would not necessarily be illegal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:53, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to do more research, but I recall that "Ladies' nights" were ruled discriminatory at one point, I think by the courts, but perhaps by the alcoholic beverage control authorities. On the other hand, charging youngsters, students and senior citizens lower ticket prices at cinemas, and charging lower dues to younger members of genuine clubs and associations, is a very old practice, and I doubt that it would constitute age discrimination in terms of human rights policy or law. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:10, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The same thing applies to poker tournaments designated for women only — men can't technically be excluded, and sometimes play, occasionally making a show of it[1]. Tournament contract bridge, on the other hand, still has men-only, women-only, and mixed tournaments, which is apparently OK because the ACBL normally doesn't allow cash tournaments. PhGustaf (talk) 16:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Gustaf is seriously out of date regarding bridge tournaments in the ACBL (i.e. in North America; elsewhere I don't know about). Men-only events were abolished about 1990. I don't think there was any formal move to abolish mixed events (which means every pair must have one man and one woman partner), but in practice I never see them on tournament schedules any more. Women-only events have also become less common, but still occur at the highest level, most notably the Wagar Cup.

The way I have seen it explained is that a majority of the top players were men and so the men's events were seen as superior, and so women found it discriminatory that they could not enter and challenge the top players. In addition, some men-only events were used to qualify entrants for international invitational events that did accept women. So female players brought a suit against the ACBL in the 1980s and, if the brief mentions I find on the web are correct, this was a settlement. Mixed and women's events were seen more as social events and there was not the same desire to abolish them. (This rationale strikes me as odd now that women's games mostly occur at the top level, but there it is.) So the tournament schedules that at one time would have featured simultaneous men's and women's events, and maybe also a mixed if the tournament was big enough, were changed to have open and women's (and maybe mixed) events.

By the way, when I say "men" and "women" here, those are just the usual terms. I don't believe it has ever been required that the players must be adults.

--Anonymous (male ACBL tournament player), 21:53 UTC, November 20/09 21, 2009.

Well, I haven't played in an ACBL tournament since before 1990, and I appreciate the correction. (Hey, I even remember individual tournaments.) At that time, It certainly wasn't required that players be adults — I see on looking it up that the youngest Life Master in 1989 was eleven years old, and the current one was nine. PhGustaf (talk) 22:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• For the original question: if you want more info on how the theory behind the law works, see strict scrutiny and Rational basis review. Basically, not all kinds of discrimination are equal: some are very dangerous to democracy (for example, governments making life harder for certain racial groups), while others are less dangerous to democracy (for example, businesses offering discounts for a certain gender or age group). --M@rēino 23:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually it's not so clear. Those "ladies nights" issues have been litigated. I don't know for sure how they turned out, but a far cry from saying they were open and shut. So you know, the 14th amendment's equal protection clause has two issues relevant to your question. The first is whether or not-state enforcement through state power (i.e. police) of a non equal criteria is legitimate, and the second is whether or not that enforcement would affect the question you're talking about. I don't know the answer to that. Be aware though that the 14th amendment isn't really the relevant part. It's instead the statutory laws, for instance the Civil Rights Act of 1965, or the similar one of 1861 (i think). There are some extensions of the 14th amendment into private contracts (in the property rights arena) but those are generally limited. Most restrictions on private rights of exclusion, commercial or otherwise, are based in statutory law. Shadowjams (talk) 06:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, rather than to challenge: those Civil Rights Acts of 1866-75, as well as the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 et seq. derive much of their authority from the Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, i.e. the 13th (banning slavery), 15th (forbidding exclusion from the suffrage for race, color or previous condition of servitude) and 14th (due process, equal citizenship and no denial of equal protection of the laws, among other things). Like most constitutional amendments, these ones grant Congress the right to enforce their provisions "by appropriate legislation". However, some rights derive independently from English common law, such as an innkeeper's duty to lodge every paying traveller who applies. [Some provisions of the Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights adopt or incorporate Common Law.] In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment couldn't apply to discrimination by private parties, only by state actors (government), a ruling partly overturned in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) upholding the public accommodation provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide a reference for that innkeeper law? It doesn't sound like the kind of thing to be common law. --Tango (talk) 07:25, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Not off-hand: I first ran across it looking at second-hand books in Moe's Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, years ago, although I think I've seen other references. I think it had been used by English anti-discrimination authorities before the U.K. adopted the European equivalent of the U.S. Bill of Rights; and it has more relevance to states which have generally (except for Louisiana) incorporated common law into their case law than to the Federal government directly. In other words, while I'm reasonably confident that I could find a suitable reference by Internet search, consulting books I have or looking at ones I don't, I can't produce one at the moment. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

See, for example this 1993 book beginning at page 38. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

He may be right about the inkeeper common law right, although I'll say without looking up the sources that there's no way that inherited to any of the common law in the Southern U.S. I will need to reevaluate some of my con law undestanding if you find a federal case that says there's a federal common law right to inkeeper patrons, particularly if it persists past 1890. What Shakescene says is definitely true. Section 5 of the 14th amendment gives a lot of force to reconstruction era legislation, but I think in retrospect that very little rests on the 13th amendment, and I don't remember anything that rests on the 15th (maybe wrong). The 14th gives some very specific authorization, and Heart of Atlanta only expands my explanation above. Equitable covenants persisted well past that however. I just want to point out though that most civil rights legislation has nothing to do with section 5, nor have very many laws ever been argued to have even been authorized by the reconstruction amendments. Shadowjams (talk) 09:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very interesting. I guess I was forgetting quite how important inns were when most of common law was originally created. --Tango (talk) 09:30, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

After sleeping on my answer, I realized that while much of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 rests on the 14th Amendment — notice how many of today's arguments rest on "due process", "equal protection" and the idea of those duties being extended to state & local government, all of which arguments derive largely from the 14th Amendment — the public accommodations sections (as argued, I think, in the Heart of Atlanta case) rested much more heavily on an extremely broad interpretation of Congress' Article I, section 8, power to regulate commerce among the several states. Before 1964, there had been several earlier Federal rulings about desegregating interstate buses, trains and their stations, both in the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and by orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission; and the Freedom Rides of 1960-1961 were specifically designed to test the applicability of such policies (or to expose their inapplicability) in the Southern states. (Insofar as civil rights legislation affecting private transactions rested on bases other than the 14th Amendment, of course, the less the courts would need to be asked to confront or contradict the findings of the 1883 Civil Rights Cases.) —— Shakescene (talk) 19:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

And by way of yet further clarification, or correction, of my clarifications: (1) according to their Wikipedia articles, most of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 concerned protecting (i.e., restoring) voting rights. Most of Congress's power to legislate against states' denial of voting rights on the basis of race comes more from the Fifteenth Amendment than from the Fourteenth. (2) The Supreme Court did explicitly overrule itself in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), ruling that students in racially-segregated schools were thereby being denied the "equal protection of the laws" guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court had ruled that New Orleans, Louisiana, could require separate but equal streetcars for whites and Negroes without denying equal protection to the latter. In Brown v. Board, the Court essentially said that in practice separate becomes unequal. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This turned out to be an excellent discussion about the reconstruction amendments as to the enumerated powers. If our original poster can synthesize any of this into a homework assignment I bet his teacher doesn't understand it (no guarantees as to whether or not it's an A). Shadowjams (talk) 09:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Heinrich von Treitschke

Query posted on the Talk page: was he directly involved in founding an antisemitic political party in Germany? -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

He was the author of an article which, around 1880, initiated a public discussion on the Judenfrage / Jewish question (see [2]). Somewhat simultaneously, the first antisemitic "party", the Antisemitenliga (see [3]), was established by Wilhelm Marr. I can find no evidence of any direct involvement of HvT in this party. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:26, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

another geography question

which can be the place whose main attractions are sandy beaches and offshore wave action desired by world-class surfers. The natural ambience has caught the attention of land developers, but for the most part the locals have successfully fought-off any Waikiki Beach-type commercial explosion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.86.213 (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Could be any of hundreds of places. Piha in New Zealand, is one such. Grutness...wha? 22:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Netherlands Antilles? Perhaps the best way to start is to look for places that are surfing havens, then look whether they have commercial real estate development. . .--71.111.194.50 (talk) 22:40, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yet another general knowledge question

The place is virtually built after the regional devastation caused by a major war

In a few short years it replaced (in economic and functionality importance) another port city to its immediate southeast.

Possible places to fit above descriptions?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.86.213 (talk) 15:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You are aware that the reference desk is for questions you don't know the answer to, not questions you do? DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Was my grandmother jewish?

Is there any way to find out if my deceased grandmother was born Jewish? She muist have been born around 1900 or before. There are one or two events in my family history during that suggest she might have been, before becoming christian. Unfortunately other family members who might have known have passed away themselves. I think it would be interesting and somewhat prestigeous if she was. 78.146.30.105 (talk) 20:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Some censuses and some birth certificates mention religion. Conversely, if there is a record of her baptism as a baby, she was probably Christian lifelong. You'll need to tell us what country she was born in and lived in for the volunteers to be able to point you to the relevant geneology records and give advice on researching her birth record and/or any census mentions. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 20:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Did she live in the U.S. then, or some other country where buildings and their contents were not destroyed in WW2? Many small or medium towns did not have that many Jewish congregations, and a membership record might exist. The U.S. census did not record religion, but in many countries religion was stated on government documents. The census might provide some indication by the names and professions of the living in the same premises, or the neighborhood she in which she lived. Ancestry.com might have someone's family tree which includes her or her ancestors. Edison (talk) 21:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The worldwide Jewish community actually keeps quite good records on this, in order to verify marriages and so and check the relevant person's jewish 'pedigree'. Try the http://www.jewishgen.org/ or similar websites. If that doesn't work, try contacting your local Orthodox Jewish Community (Liberal and Reform jews have much poorer records as they are both more recent movements and less concerned with ancestry ideologically), they'll probably know of the 'mothership source' of it all. Prokhorovka (talk) 21:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to mention she was born in and lived in the UK. 89.243.178.245 (talk) 23:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Being baptised as an infant wouldn't necessarily prove anything; if your great-grandmother were Jewish, then by definition she, too, was Jewish, even if your great-grandparents converted before your grandmother's birth. Nyttend (talk) 23:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You could go on to Ancestry.com and find the family in the 1901 census. This would give you an address, and you might be able to track down the synagogue which served that are. You could then get in touch with them to find out if they held any records on that family. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

There was a 1900 US census, but none in 1901. Just saying. Edison (talk) 04:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The Mormons also have a lot of genealogical information, and not just about Mormons. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes but in the UK the information is either "patron submissions" i.e. someone has put some information on there, or taken from parish records. IIRC these records are only Church of England records: no Jewish records are on there. So you could have to rely on hearsay if you go through them. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

An obvious potential source of help would be the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, whose website is here [4]. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Book/website on modern US life in the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville

Does anyone know of any Book/website on modern US life in the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville? A guide to modern US daily life that uses a sociological analysis? --Gary123 (talk) 21:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Simon Schama's The American Future (a book and TV special) has been compared to Tocqueville. —Kevin Myers 15:09, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bernard-Henri Lévy's American Vertigo (2006) is inspired by Tocqueville. It makes observations on American society and government in the 21st century. --Xuxl (talk) 15:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The Christian Bible is the most successful book of all time

I have found this information many times. Anyone have a good reference for it? Can't find even one online today only that it is " is America’s favorite book of all time"... ~ R.T.G 22:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Possibly "translated into the most languages" and/or "most copies printed," though this may refer to the entire Bible or only the Old Testament. -- Deborahjay (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"Favorite" is a POV, but just today I heard someone on NPR say the Bible is the all-time best seller. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

List of best-selling books has some references. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You also need to decide if you are going to refer to every version of the Bible as "The Bible" or if you are going to treat each version as a separate book. Then, ensure you state what you mean. If you want to call every printed book that contained something similar to what you think is a Bible as being "The Bible", you are not basing popularity/sales on the same standard as other books. -- kainaw™ 03:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The average Christian, in considering the total sales of Bibles, would likely consider the various translations to be lumped together; i.e. they would include the King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, Good News for Modern Man, and a whole mess of others to be "the Bible" for that purpose. Books that "retell" the Bible in paraphrasing, i.e. in "Bible Stories" format would not count. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Speak about overlooked elephants, (1) the translation doesn't matter—if you were to assert that the Koran or Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto or Machiavelli's Prince was the world's most successful or most dangerous book, you wouldn't be wondering about editions, versions or translations; (2) the obviously-begged question is what does "successful" mean—succeeding how or at what? There's no way we mere mortals can count the number of souls saved by the reading (or just the existence) of the Bible; and that would be the only true test, given the Book's purpose. Although it would still be mainly a debate that doesn't really belong here, perhaps a more useful question might be whether the Bible is the world's most influential book, or the one that has induced the most conversions (or, again hard to measure, prevented the most fallings-away). And the relevance of such tests would vary if one were Christian or Jewish (the Pentateuch's scribes' main purpose was not to convert people to Judaism or send them to Heaven.) —— Shakescene (talk) 06:18, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

"Successful" is another POV or subjective word like "favorite". "Successful" neutrally or objectively could simply mean "sold the most copies", i.e. "successful" for the various publishers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

No Bugs, the topic is the existence of the book. If existing is the defining quality, the bible has existed more successfully unless you want to be confusing, complicated or provide a specialist study. (Wahaha) Cockatoo.ergo.Zoom!!! God I am dumb sometimes I was searching the engines and stuff for half an hour looking for something proper about that and it was on Wikipedia (as you would imagine) all the time ! Thankes ~ R.T.G 11:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Note you could say "What is the most successfully existing book of all time...?" ~ R.T.G 12:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

??? Oddest concept I've ever heard of. Is it possible to unsuccessfully exist? No, it's not just about existing, because all books that have been created and are still sitting somewhere, even in the darkest recesses of the most obscure Tibetan lamasery, exist. None is more "successful" at simply existing than any other. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually . . . I personally believe the King James Bible is the only true and reliable Bible in the English language, and that all other Bible versions in English are to certain degress corrupted, so it does matter which Bible You use, but then even the King James had a number of editions, some due to typographical errors in the relatively earlier days of printing without spellcheck, such as the notorious " Wicked Bible " of 1628, which, according to the Australian author R. Brasch, left out the word " not " in a critical verse in Exodus, which was supposed to read, " Thou shalt not commit adultery. " The thing is, as bad as that is, and one should be careful, the context of the rest of the Bible should put one in no doubt as to what it was supposed to mean. But yes, You're right, as Christians, we do lump all books referred to as " Bibles " together, regardless of version, when considering the Bible to be the best seller of all time - even in booklets published by pro King James and anti new Bible version people, also giving us cause to doubt the statement that King James I ( and VI ) was a homosexual, which I believe is a viscious rumour perpetrated by a disgruntled contemporary. Now since some, but not all, Christians, may support only one version of the Scriptures, this doesn't make it hypocritical to lump the unreliable ones in, since even though parts of them are corrupt, and other Christians may argue this point themselves, these modern versions still contain a good deal of God's Word, certainly, God is not going to deny salvation to someone just because they don't have the King James Bible. This is because most of these weakened Bible versions have been imspired into existence because of the original true Bible, although their falsehoods are the work of the Devil. I only wish other Christians would realise this, and accept the King James. Their excuse is that it is hard to understand. Well, if they are going to study the Bible as they should, are they going to be scared of a little effort? And in any case, the King James Bible is the One used to help generations of children learn to read, so it can't be that hard. They want something in modern, flashy, groovy, cool dude language, as if the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS is some hairy hippy waiting to come down to take them to Woodstock or the Big Day Out. From the Merchant of Venice I recall that " all that glisters is not gold. " Well meaning Christians try to make Christ into their own image, when they forget that He is working to mould us into His. The Russian.C.B.Lilly User:Christopher1968 02:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)