"Who is "we"?"

Brilliant point.

"No one seems to listen to 'we the people' anymore."

You mention huge demos, which are nice, but the face of the matter is that what we have in the US is occasional huge showings of opinion and a lot of (almost) nothing. That's why no one listens to "we the people" anymore, because "we the people" don't have follow through.

Edit: Small change.

All right folks, but what do we do about it? Any concrete suggestions?

Are you talking about specialization? I.e. that the problem is that people are becoming too specialized so that if the worst does happen most of us won't know how to survive?

You know, I thought the same thing to at first. But my friend showed me that you can actually do this with facebook. I.e. you can limit your messages to only going out to certain groups. The real difference between facebook and google+ on this issue is that google+ puts this in the center of your field of vision. What I mean is that (to use facebook terminology): friending someone happens when you put them in a group whereas, in facebook, you friend people and the groups are an afterthought. You can see evidence of this in the interface: you drag people to a circle or click on a circle to put them in. You never click "accept."

One thing, however, is potentially problematic. Facebook requires bilateral agreement between the two parties before there is a live feed. I don't believe that's true with google+, if I put you in my circle you will see what I share with that circle unless you consciously opt-out. This, I think, has potential for abuse.

"However, does the US have a set of basic rights that alien workers hired by US corporations have?"

I don't think so. Certain things are disallowed by US law (e.g. bribery) but I don't think labor standards are dictated much if at all. The ILO though may have something to say on the matter.

"If not, what is it about a US corporation that makes it a US corporation? -especially one that does most of its manufacturing overseas?"

As far as I know, its related to things like taxes, where the head corporate office is, etc...

Also, its worth mentioning that this issue is one of jurisdiction, not rights. AFAIK, the court decided that it has the jurisdiction to hear cases against companies by foreign citizens for actions that occurred abroad. Prior to this it had been agreed that this could be done against individuals but the districts disagree on weather it can be done against companies (though recently the 7th circuit has also agreed it can be done against companies: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/9H0ZPPY9.pdf).

The question of what rights can be enforced (or, if you prefer, what actions can be punished) is a separate one that will be answered by looking at treaties, customary international law, etc... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_of_international_law). If you get a chance to read it you should, its a short well written opinion.

If you look at the 7th circuit opinion I linked to, you'll see that Judge Posner says that 1) they have jurisdiction but 2) that the alleged actions are not a violation of international law. In fact, he implicitly brings up good reasons not to apply U.S. law. In different countries the economic situation is different. It may not make sense to impose the kind of labor limitations we do in the U.S. since it may do more harm than good.

Too much information is, in some ways, as bad as too little information. There is no way to realistically take all the information out there and use it in a rapid decision making process. So, in the very long term, the invisible hand might have an effect (assuming people use the information correctly), but there will be short to medium term stickiness. If people don't use the information correctly (misinterpret it, ignore something important, use poor metric, etc...) then the old theories are really just mathematical fun.

Well, that can't be entirely true right? What if there were a lawsuit about contract interpretation? Certainly it would make sense to use the other country's rules on this and not those in the U.S. That's part of the reason that the Alien Tort Statute is limited to things that are violations of international law i.e. a body of law that, in theory anyway, applies around the world.

"IMO one facet of progress means the dissolution of exceptionalism."

Truer words. It is worth bearing in mind that very few nations actually have the ability to bring lawsuits like this. Admittedly, when the statute was passed in the 1790s it had different purposes, but it has evolved to allow aliens to sue aliens for things like torture which, I think, is progress in the right direction.

I agree with you, but historically it makes sense. Up till after WW2, international law never allowed interference in another country's "internal affairs." It was considered an invasion of sovereignty. With the advent of international human rights, this is changing, but slowly. In the early 1900s, this was the way it was even between States within the US. I'm happy its changing but there are legitimate fears of overstepping.

Interesting, but not surprising. More often than not, the stuff non-professionals/wonks see in an area are the extremes. Think of any field: law, politics, medicine, science, etc... Lawyers, politicians, doctors and scientists (respectively) see the daily grind but everyone else just gets the most interesting stuff.

Nonetheless, its good to be reminded of this every now and then.