Many of them weren't challenged until recently, because the farmers who'd have standing to challenge them generally supported them. As the article notes, they're in effect a price-support mechanism for certain commodities, which would be an anti-trust violation if done via private-sector cartel, but not when authorized by Congress.

Why don't raisin consumers have standing to challenge an arrangement that inflates the price of raisins?

They can challenge it, but only via the political process, not a legal process. Congress had been given the power to regulate interstate commerce (lest the individual states try to do so themselves). This wasn't a problem for the first 120 years of the republic, because the government didn't have the budget to maintain a centralized bureaucracy to do too much (nor to mention that the concept of a centralized bureaucracy was born from Prussian authoritarianism that flowered in the latter half of the 19th century).

The nationalistic progressivistic movements sweeping out of Europe hit America in the early 20th century, leading people to ask: "Europe has this, why can't we?" And we ended up with a central bank and income tax all within a decade. Big centralized government built on dangling strands of Constitutional safeguards.

Well, the argument here is pretty specific: the plaintiffs (some farmers) argue that the law is unconstitutional because it seizes their property in a procedure that doesn't comply with the 5th amendment. Only the farmers would have standing to raise that particular argument.

A consumer arguing the law was unconstitutional would have to come up with a different reason, at least.

Right, so the problem is consumers having grounding for a challenge rather than standing?

That's probably not sufficient to rule it unconstitutional. Remember, just because something is boneheadedly stupid doesn't make it unconstitutional.

The farmers going after the government for involuntary expropriation without just compensation have the best claim AFAIK in terms of getting it ruled unconstitutional.

Nobody likes raisins that much.

>the US DoA

USDA?

Department of Agriculture I would assume given the topic.

I'm just making the point that there is a standard abbreviation.

"Woman" is the technical term for the female of the species. ;-)

Perhaps some day we will get past this sort of pedantic nonsense and actually read intent rather than injecting irrelevant not-quite-humorous commentary into otherwise useful discussions. But apparently that day is not today.

Gal is the analog of guy, nothing demeaning in that.

Yet some women feel demeaned by being referred to by a corruption of the word "girl", perhaps in the same way many men would take offence if you called them "boy". Not to worry, though; next time I encounter any such complaints, I'll tell them that you said it's not demeaning, so their feeling are an illusion.

It's context, isn't it? I wouldn't appreciate you calling me "dude" in a business setting, but I wouldn't mind in general. Likewise, I can imagine scenarios in which "gal" would be offensive, but this just isn't one.

It's partly context, but it's also that you don't get to choose whether a particular word in a particular context is offensive to another person.

What is socially acceptable is decided by society, not by any particular individual. Mind you, that doesn't prevent us from being more careful around people we know to sensitive to certain forms of address, but in a public forum that's not really possible because you don't know who you're talking to.

Yes, but we can mock the offense as inferred rather than implied.

Would you mind me calling you "boy" in general? How about a cutesy corruption of the word "boy"?

The etymology of the word is irrelevant to how it's used conversationally.

Words carry history. I can think of words that you might use in conversation with various groups without meaning to project any negative overtones whatsoever that would nonetheless be extraordinarily badly received; you could explain to the paramedic as he stems the bleeding that you didn't actually mean to cause offense.

FWIW, I've got three daughters, all adults now. We've talked about the evolution of the 'casual sex nomitive' and their consensus was that as a group it was ok to call everyone guys like "Hey guys, let's go to the beach!" but in the singular it they preferred the use of 'gal'. Further the use of guy/gal was preferred in casual speech over man/woman.

I suspect at some point every word may be pejorative in some way.

Well, I hope you never call anyone "guy" then either, since it's derived from the name of a religious fanatic and (attempted) terrorist.

No, it's derived from an actual name. http://www.behindthename.com/name/guy

Just because there was someone famous with a name doesn't mean that name was derived from that famous person. It took on new meaning in the UK after that famous person became famous, but he didn't invent it. While we're here, he wasn't a failed terrorist. He was a failed assassin.

Quit being speciesist by making assumptions on the species in question.

russel was simply assuming that the institutionalised speciesism if the airline industry was still in place. Animals fly with the cargo, except some small illiterate/non-communicative cats and dogs.