-Caveat Lector- Click Here: <A HREF="http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/nesteruk23.htm">NEW NARRATIVE FOR CORPORATE LAW</A> ----- Legal Studies Forum
Volume 23, Number 3 (1999) reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum A NEW NARRATIVE FOR CORPORATE LAW JEFFREY NESTERUK* INTRODUCTION There is something intriguing about the way science—with its hegemonic claims to truth—has inspired such a rich genre of fiction. Intriguing because this fictive genre reminds us of the embedded character1 of science’s empirical claims. The facts of science only fully reveal themselves in the stories we tell about them. Science fiction—far from being the antithesis of science fact—can, at its best, disclose what is most meaningful for us about scientific truths. Something analogous occurs within the law. The truth of a judicial opinion is indeterminate at the time of its writing, because it too has an embedded character. It is situated in a common law tradition with settled precedents and future interpretive possibilities. The meaning of a judicial opinion depends on the future stories lawyers and judges choose to tell about it as they interweave precedent and possibility. In both science and law, stories provide moral frameworks for the truths they reveal. “It is from the ‘is,’ from the story told a certain way,” writes James Boyd White, “that we get our most important ‘oughts’: our sense that a particular story is incomplete without a certain ending, which we can supply.” 2 In this essay, I wish to explore a particular intermingling of a story of science and a story of law. I am aiming for what White would describe as an “integration”—“a kind of composition, and that in a literal and literary sense: a putting together of two things to make out of them a third, a new whole, with a meaning of its own.”3 Integrations of this kind are, to my mind, fundamental to the value of this special issue exploring “Law, Literature, and Science Fiction.” Bringing together “law,” “literature,” and “science fiction” should allow us to perceive both [281] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ an as yet unseen whole with new meanings in each of the whole’s constitutive parts.4 The integration I have in mind will focus on the moral frameworks of two stories, and focus on them in a particular way: my interest is in how one story can reveal to us what the other story leaves out. All stories have this exclusionary feature (“all languages are limited”5) that gives rise to “the most profound obligation of each of us in using his or her language...to try and recognize what it leaves out, to point to the silence that surrounds it.”6 By looking at one story to see what another story leaves out, I hope to show how the moral framework of the former can be used to reframe the latter, exposing new normative possibilities. As a former corporate law attorney, I have an interest in what corporate law “leaves out,” in the “silence that surrounds it.” Such silence may be broken by bringing together the law’s story of corporate personhood with its science fictional counterpart:7 the story of the android, Lieutenant Commander Data, from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Both the modern corporation and Data are cases of artifactual agency—actors created by artificial means. As such, their claims to personhood—that is, to being moral agents with the same rights and duties as their human counterparts—are problematic. But the story science fiction tells of Data’s claim to personhood is markedly different from the story the law tells about the corporation. Data’s story reveals the “silences” in the narrative of corporate law, replacing them with dialogue. In revealing such “silences,” Data’s story brings into view an alternative moral framework for the law’s struggles with corporate personhood, a new “ending, which we can supply.” [282] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE NARRATIVE OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD The narrative of corporate personhood springs, I have argued elsewhere, from the dichotomous character of the legal universe the corporation inhabits. 8 It is rooted in the basic opposition within our legal system between “person” and “property.” Elaborating on the dichotomous character of this context, I argue that: The distinction, roughly put, is one between that which “acts” and that which is “acted upon.” The essentially active nature of the person is evident from the law’s conception of the person as the subject of rights and duties. Rights and duties, after all, imply an active subject, one who may exercise privileges and fulfill obligations. Similarly, the notion of property as an entity “acted upon” or essentially passive is also readily apparent. Central to the law’s definition of property is its susceptibility to ownership. The traditional notion of ownership entails control. As a controlled entity, property is acted upon by those who exercise control, i.e., its owners.9 Within this dichotomous legal universe, the narrative of the corporation has a certain necessary structure. Given such a framework, the corporation can only narratively appear as an anomaly. To continue the story: The large, modern corporation does not fit neatly into this conceptual scheme. This is because the person/property dichotomy offers no conceptual framework for understanding property which has been artificially activated, that is, has become an actor. But that is precisely what occurs though the legal mechanism of incorporation. The corporation retains its status as property, is owned by the sharehold-ers, and in theory is controlled by its owners. However, the corporation also has an independent legal existence which permits it to act in many significant ways, such as entering into contracts, suing those who have wronged it, and even exercising its free speech rights in political referenda.10 Situated in a dichotomous legal universe and appearing as an anomaly, the modern corporation is enmeshed in a narrative structure that fosters a particular terminus. It is a terminus marked by “silences.” With surprisingly little analysis, the law simply declares the corporation’s [283] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ status as a person. Chief Justice Waite’s famous announcement regarding the applicability of the Fourteenth Amendment to corporations in Santa Clara Co. v. Southern Pacific Railroad11 provides the quintessential example here: The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.12 Such a bald assertion of the corporation’s status as a person is striking because of what it leaves out. Why, for instance, assert the corporation’s status as person rather than as property? Certainly, the corporation’s susceptibility to ownership would have allowed a contrary assertion. More fundamentally, why not begin by calling into question the basic dichotomous framework that forces such a choice? THE STORY OF COMMANDER DATA Commander Data’s story presents an alternative framework, one far less constricted than the dichotomous legal context of the modern corporation. Data’s universe is a cornucopia of life forms, encompassing entities as diverse as Klingon and Borg and Q. Fundamentally, it is marked not by dichotomy, but multiplicity. The story of Data’s artifactual agency has a markedly different character. The corporation’s story, as we have seen, is one of anomaly and silence. Data’s story, I hope to show, is one of aspiration and dialogue. Such aspiration and dialogue arise from the multifarious nature of Data’s universe. The Next Generation series highlights Data’s story of aspiration and dialogue in the episode, “The Measure of a Man.”13 In this episode, Data’s status is the subject of a legal hearing. In order to avoid being disassembled for scientific study, Data resigns from Starfleet. Starfleet Commander Bruce Maddox challenges Data’s freedom to resign, claiming that Data is the property of Starfleet and thus subject to its control. At the hearing before Judge Advocate General Phillipa Louvois, Captain Jean Luc Picard argues Data should be accorded a person’s freedom to choose. Appointed by the Judge Advocate General, [284] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Commander William Riker argues that as property of Starfleet, Data does not have the right to such personal freedoms. The first scene in which Data appears in “The Measure of a Man” centers on a poker game among Data and other members of the Enterprise crew. The scene foreshadows the episode’s focus on Data’s status by showing him trying to master this human game. He comments that the game appears remarkably simple given the limited number of possible numeric variations among the cards. He is also disparaging of a fellow crew member’s need to sit at a particular chair at the poker table for good luck. Despite his initial confidence, Data loses the hand, fooled by Commander Riker’s bluff. When Data remarks it made little sense for Riker to keep raising his bids given his poor poker hand, Riker smiles. The other crew members explain that success at poker requires more than rational calculation; it requires human instinct. >From the start, we are introduced to Data’s aspirations to personhood and the dialogue such aspirations engender with his fellow crew members. But even more fundamentally, we encounter in this early scene a community of individuals at ease with Data’s aspirational relation to personhood. He is not yet a person, but his potential to be so is assumed. Accustomed to encountering myriad actors in nonhuman forms, the world of the Enterprise crew is one in which nonhuman actors may be persons. In such a world, the crew must be open to the distinctiveness of new entities they encounter, resisting the impulse for immediate evaluation and assignment to existing categories. Condi-tioned by the world they inhabit, Data’s fellow crew members readily accept a being such as Data aspiring to personhood. The episode’s central conflict begins with the arrival of Commander Bruce Maddox on the bridge of the Enterprise. He often does not address Data directly, preferring to speak to Captain Picard and Commander Riker. He refers to Data as “this.” Without analysis, Maddox assumes Data’s status as property much as Chief Justice Waite assumed the corporation’s status as a person. But unlike in the corporate law narrative, such silences are untenable here. Picard immediately seeks an explanation of Maddox’s purpose. Unable to convince Picard of the wisdom of disassembling Data for scientific study, Maddox produces a Starfleet order overriding Picard’s wishes. Faced with Maddox’s Starfleet order, Picard summons Data. Picard tells Data, “[W]e have a problem.” Picard’s recognition of the problematic nature of the Starfleet order reveals something of the world in which they live. Justice Waite saw no problem in corporate personhood and thus imposed silence. But having regularly encountered novel creatures, Picard recognizes the need for dialogue on the issue. The [285] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ uncertainties of his world generate in him the need for continual conversation. Reflecting the multiplicity of the universe in which he lives, Picard makes an effort to refer to Data in a carefully nuanced way, speaking of “beings like yourself.” Working from a richer perspective than the person/property dichotomy of our legal system, Picard begins not with an attempt to classify Data as person or property, but rather trying to gain a deeper appreciation of Data’s distinctive status. Data is also careful in the way he refers to himself, saying only, “[I] am not human.” Outside our law’s person/property dichotomy, Data’s statement has a precision unmuddled by what would otherwise be its implication: that his nonhuman status means he is property. In a world filled with myraid life forms, Data’s self-reference only initiates the analysis and conversation about his status. When Maddox confronts him directly, Data attempts such a dialogue by emphasizing his distinctive status. Data claims his existence has “added to the substance of the universe.” He can not allow himself to be disassembled because then “something unique, something wonderful will be lost.” In this dialogue with a hostile interlocutor, Data reveals another important aspect of the role dialogue plays in his aspirations to personhood status. Data’s dialogue is not only an aid to his own development, as we saw in his attempts to master the game of poker. Such dialogue also contains the possibility of developing his interlocutor’s perspective. (Something Justice Waite’s stance does not allow.) While he is not immediately successful, the dialogue Data initiates with Maddox ultimately prevails. As the dialogue over Data’s status develops, Captain Picard turns to the language of rights. In a prehearing appeal to Judge Advocate General Phillipa Louvois, Picard asserts of Data, “He has rights.” Picard also emphasizes the connection between personhood and rights in a later confrontation with Maddox. Maddox points to the utilitarian benefits of disassembling Data, citing the potential gains of scientific knowledge. He stresses that Starfleet might even be able to make large numbers of Data-like androids to serve Starfleet’s goals. Challenging the utilitarian perspective of Maddox, Picard states, “Data is a Starfleet officer. He still has certain rights.” In this way, the dialogue over Data’s status develops a particular focus that will ultimately allow its legal resolution. At the core of personhood is the bestowal of rights. A being who is a person acquires a dignity able to trump utilitarian considerations. [286] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ At the legal hearing, Commander William Riker offers dramatic demonstrations of Data’s property status, first removing Data’s fore-arm, and then even shutting him off. Riker picks up on the utilitarian argument Maddox made earlier. Data’s purpose, Riker declares, is to serve human interests. Worried by the effectiveness of Riker’s presentation, Picard asks for a recess. Puzzling over his next legal move, Picard enters into a conversation with another member of the Enterprise crew, Guinan. Noting the multiplicity of life forms in the universe in which they live, Guinan emphasizes the ever-present danger such differences among species pose. The danger is that some come to be regarded as “disposable creatures” who do “the dirty work.” With such creatures, Guinan continues, we need not think of “their welfare” or “how they feel.” In the episode’s revelatory moment, Picard sees the larger issue posed by Data’s status. The issue, he says, is slavery “obscured behind the comfortable, easy euphemism: property.” The danger of slavery is the fundamental reason to maintain an openness in the evaluation of newly-encountered forms of life. An unreflective application of familiar preconceptions to other kinds of beings creates the risk of missing their dignity as life forms and assigning them a secondary status. Failing to recognize them as persons leads to a denial of rights and ultimately their enslavement in one form or another. Returning to the legal hearing, Picard begins his response to Riker’s presentation. He does not deny many of Riker’s claims, allowing that Data is a machine created by a human being. But then Picard calls Commander Maddox to the stand as a hostile witness. With Maddox on the stand, Picard continues the dialogue with Maddox begun earlier by Data. Reminding Maddox of the need to attend carefully to “all life forms,” Picard asks Maddox to state the requirements for qualifying as a sentient being. Maddox appears unsure but mentions the qualities of intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness. Pressed as to whether Data possesses all of such qualities, Maddox again indicates his uncertainty. Having illustrated the uncertainty arising in a multifarious universe, Picard raises the danger of slavery, of “thousands of Datas,” “a race” serving the bidding of others. This case, Picard claims, “could significantly redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom.” Picard notes the founding purpose of Starfleet—“to seek out new life.” Seeking new life requires a willingness to reconsider old conceptions, to know what we do not know. In this way, Picard’s argument reinforces [287] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ not only the need to allow for the aspirations of entities to personhood, but the need for dialogue in evaluating their progress. In rendering her decision, the Judge Advocate General states Picard and Riker have in their presentations skirted the main issue. The central issue is: Does Data have a soul? But, she knows, they have skirted it with good reason. Such an issue is one of “metaphysics,” something “best left to saints and philosophers.” The truth is, the Judge Advocate General concedes, that she does not know the answer to the question of Data’s status. Therefore, the law should embody the openness appropriate to this uncertainty. There must be a legal space for Data’s aspirations to become a person. “I have got to give him,” she concludes, “the freedom to explore that question himself.” She, therefore, rules in Data’s favor. Thus, in a significant sense, the Judge Advocate General decides not to decide. Such an approach acknowledges how the multiplicity of Data’s world—a multiplicity of diverse life forms and myriad actors—allows for an aspirational model of personhood. In a community of individuals willing to acknowledge their own uncertainty, a being such as Data can seek the status of person through dialogue with others. AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE FOR CORPORATE LAW By reframing the silences surrounding corporate law, Data’s story exposes the silences embedded in the law’s story. Corporate law’s silences surrounding its assertion of corporate personhood are rooted in the dichotomous character of the legal universe in which the corporate narrative begins. With only two ill-fitting choices open to it—person or property—corporate law’s encounter with the anomalous nature of the corporation requires “silence” as part of its justification. Silence is required because neither the concept of person nor the concept of property adequately captures the reality of the corporation. The underlying choice in corporate law is “silence”: silence regarding the property-like character of the corporate entity if the characterization of person is chosen or silence regarding the person-like character of the corporation if a property characterization is given priority. Along with reframing the narrative of corporate law, Data’s story helps make the crucial connection between personhood status and the bestowal of rights. This occurs dramatically in the dialogue between Picard and Maddox regarding the utilitarian benefits of disassembling Data. Even more fundamentally, it arises in the revelatory Picard-Guinan dialogue on slavery. During this dialogue, Picard realizes [288] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ that what is at stake in Data’s case is a new slavery “obscured behind the comfortable, easy euphemism: property.”14 In a legally concrete way, what lies at the core of the question of personhood is the issue of rights. The emphasis in Data’s story on rights is significant for two reasons. First, it reorients the question of Data’s status: from the stubbornly metaphysical question of personhood to the more legally manageable question of rights. Second, in the context of rights, the question of personhood becomes subject to gradation. Instead of the all-or-nothing character of the philosophic debate, a particular right may be approached, case by case, on an individual basis, with one right being affirmed and another denied. Entities thus may have more or fewer rights depending on where they are situated on a person/property continuum.15 A legal universe that recognized a fundamental multiplicity of actors would not experience the modern corporation as an anomaly in the way current law does. The distinctive character of the corporate entity would have a different salience in a world of many actors of differing characters. In a universe in which all are in some sense anomalous, no one is distinctively so. If the modern corporation did not present to our legal system such a distinctive anomaly, there would be less systemic need for law’s silence. We might replace silence with choice and aspiration. Just as Data has made choices in aspiring to become more human, the choices of corporations could have a significance in the law’s characterization of such entities. Within such a framework, the law could set certain minimal standards that corporate entities must meet to be accorded the legal status of person, granting to corporations that met certain standards the rights appropriate to the status they have achieved.16 Instead of responding to the anomaly presented by the contemporary corporation in silence, the law could consider the aspirations of [289] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ corporations to personhood. Open to corporations in this way, the law could engage in a dialogue with individual corporations aspiring to this legal status. Before such a dialogue can take place, law must first articulate the norms of personhood appropriate to the corporate entity. Thus, while we can not expect corporations to exhibit human emotions,17 we can, for example, expect their conduct to be respectful of the worth and dignity of other community members. Like their human counter-parts, corporations might be prompted to better consider the effect of their actions upon others.18 Presented with legally-articulated norms of personhood, the onus would shift to individual corporations to show how their corporate organizations embody such norms. Much as Data continually converses with those around him in attempting to master such human attributes as humor, dance, music, romance, and artistic creativity, corporate managers could consult legal authorities as to the kinds of development needed by a corporation to realize the corporate aspiration to person-hood.19 Corporate aspirations and dialogue to personhood would provide a much richer framework than the rigid dichotomy of current law. Instead of having only the two ill-fitting choices of “person” and “property” available,20 corporate law, taking its cue from Data’s world, might reflect corporate potential along a graduated continuum with the concepts of person and property representing the two extremes. [290] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Corporations would then be legally characterized as more person-like or more property-like depending on their aspirations and achievements regarding norms of corporate personhood. Reconceptualizing the question of personhood as an issue of the bestowal21 of rights allows for a finer, more textured legal treatment of corporations. It allows the law to bestow selective corporate rights, granting some and refusing others, rather than tacitly assigning rights in toto through the characterization of “person.” It also makes possible a more subtle evaluation of individual corporations, with a fuller range of rights being given to those corporate entities that have more fully achieved the legally-articulated and socially approved norms of personhood. But most importantly, this approach would provide a corporate law regime that institutionalized dialogue to replace silence. Just as Data and his fellow crew members gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their humanity through their dialogue regarding Data’s aspirations, so the law can gain a richer comprehension of corporate entities and their proper regulation through promoting exchange regarding the nature of corporate personhood. Such a dialogue would go beyond legal concepts and principles; it would include investigations into the actual day-to-day behavior of particular corporations. Such a mixture of theoretical inquiry and empirical investigation would foster the development of a richer legal system and a more humane corporate law regime. Given the increasing reach of corporate power, the conversation proposed here is long overdue. In this way, a dialogue enters the picture that is strikingly absent from the current scheme of corporate law. The dialogue arises as decision makers in the legal community seek a more developed notion of legal personhood and its implications, and as corporate actors seek the granting of personhood status for the rights accompanying such status.22 [291] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONCLUSION My proposal of an alternative narrative for corporate law is only that—a different way of telling the corporate story. I have intentionally argued neither for specific norms of personhood the law should adopt nor the particular rights that should follow from the achievement of such norms. Moreover, I have left the practical implementation of the dialogue I hope for unexplored. The power of this new story lies in the fact that it is “incomplete without a certain ending” and the ending is one “we can supply.” The “we” here indicates the social character of the task at hand.23 There is value in this alternative narrative of corporate law if we are engaged by it, asking new questions not only of the ending we might supply but of who we become in the process. Thus, in the end, the value of this new narrative resides in the stories we will choose to tell about it. [292] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ {Editorial note: "The Measure of a Man", STTNG, episode 35, is available on Paramount Home Video) ENDNOTES * Associate Professor, Franklin & Marshall College. My thanks to Bruce Rockwood for his close reading and helpful comments on this essay. 1. In speaking of the “embedded character” of these empirical claims, I emphasize how the meaning of such claims is often dependent on a larger context or framework. For example, the moral meaning of cloning depends on placing empirical findings within the framework of ethical principles. 2. James Boyd White, HERACLES’ BOW: ESSAYS ON THE RHETORIC AND POETICS OF THE LAW 175 (1985). 3. James Boyd White, JUSTICE AS TRANSLATION: AN ESSAY IN CULTURAL AND LEGAL C RITICISM 4 (1990). 4. White writes, “In this process the elements combined do not lose their identities but retain them, often in clarified form; yet each comes to mean something different as well, when it is seen in relation to the other.” Id. 5. Id. at 81. 6. Id. 7. This is not to deny the dissimilarities between the contemporary corporation and Data. Indeed, such dissimilarities would provide the basis for a future development of the analysis offered here. For example, the corporation is an organized group of individuals while Data is a single entry. Comparing Data to the modern corporation might therefore illuminate the kind of integration and unity necessary for organizational personhood. It is also significant that Data has a physical presence—a body—while the corporation lacks a physical character. The corporation is, in Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous description, “an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in the contemplation of the law.” Dartmouth College v. Woodard, 4 Wheat. 518, 636 (1819). This opens up the larger question of the relation of personhood to the material world. 8. Jeffrey Nesteruk, Persons, Property, and the Corporation: A Proposal for a New Paradigm, 39 DePaul L. Rev. 543 (1990). 9. Id. 10. Id. at 543-44. See: First National Bank of Boston, et al. v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978), holding that corporations have the same political speech rights as individuals. 11. 118 U.S. 394 (1886). 12. Id. at 396. 13. The Measure of a Man (Paramount Pictures)(broadcast on the week of February 13, 1989)(quoted passages are all from this episode). 14. See the discussion of “old” and “new” property in Bruce L. Rockwood, “Retakings: Perspectives on the Nature of Property and Politics from the Law and Literature of Slavery,” in Roberta Kevelson (ed.), LAW AND THE CONFICT OF IDEOLOGIES 211-236 (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). 15. Attributing rights to Data raises a problem unacknowledged in The Measure of a Man. Data, like the modern corporation, is potentially immortal. This raises the question whether immortal entities need the protections of rights as do mortal agents. Certainly, applying the same rights to an entity with perpetual life such as a corporation poses risks. With a perpetual existence, the modern corporation has an advantage, for instance, in the accumulation of wealth not shared by natural individuals whose lives will end. 16. For an earlier proposal tying corporate benefits to corporate behavior, see Jay A. Sigler & Joseph E. Murphy, INTERACTIVE CORPORATE COMPLIANCE: AN A LTERNATIVE TO REGULATORY COMPULSION (1988). 17. Peter French has, however, argued for the use of shame in corporate settings. See Peter A. French, COLLECTIVE AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY (1984). 18. by management scholars. See R. Edward Freeman, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: A S TAKEHOLDER APPROACH (1984). 19. An analogy might be drawn here to the law’s treatment of children. The law defers granting certain rights—for example, the right to vote—until individuals have reached a certain level of development. My proposal differs, however, in that it is never assumed that any particular corporation will achieve the requisite level of development for personhood. 20. James Boyd White also tries to escape dichotomous thinking about corporations when he warns of “a false opposition between the economic goals of a corporation (expressed as an ultimately self-interested duty to enhance ‘corporate profit and shareholder gain’ and other corporate aims or activities conceived of as public-spirited or philanthropic (including its obligation to obey the law).” James Boyd White, How Should We Talk About Corporations? The Languages of Economics and Citizenship, 94 Yale L. J. 1416, 1417 (1985). An “organic” model for thinking about the corporation, which emphasizes both new technology and values, is found in Thomas Petzinger, Jr., THE NEW PIONEERS (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999). His suggestion that corporations do well if they let employees have freedom to manage themselves finds support in (and gives support to) the Judge Advocate General’s ruling in favor of Commander Data. 21. It is important to emphasize that I am speaking of the law bestowing rights only in the case of an artificial entity such as the corporation. In the case of natural persons, I would raise the issue of rights arising independent of a community’s legal and moral choices. Science Fiction sometimes questions this assumption, as in the case for conditioning voting rights on military service presented by Robert Heinlein in STARSHIP TROOPERS (New York: Ace, 1987) (1959). 22. With the development of corporate personhood we might expect something in the nature of corporate citizenship. Data is presumed to be a citizen of the Federation, but is “stateless” since the colony where he was created has been destroyed. Multinational corporations may be chartered under the laws of one country, their subsidiaries under the laws of other countries, and so they behave as if they were stateless with none of the obligations of citizenship the law expects of natural persons. See generally, John A. Bonsignore, LAW AND MULTINATIONALS (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1995). 23. Any given ending is, of course, subject to revision with the appearance of a new case, chapter or volume, like the never-ending Science Fiction “trilogies” or Dworkin’s characterization of the common law as a “chain novel”; See: Ronald Dworkin, A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE 158-159 (1985) ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om