

  (Source: Tristar Pictures)



I. The Rat Returns





II. Cornered, SOPA Meets Its End (For Now)


Rep. Smith ears shut

In his statement Rep. Smith writes:








III. Federal Bribery Must be Stopped




bribery pays
[Image Source: Google Images]












Comments     Threshold


RE: Here here
By Ryrod on 1/23/2012 2:58:42 AM , Rating: 2
Well I owe you an apology. It read as if you were being quite literal and not hypothetical. Regardless, I crossed a line and I'm sorry.

I apologize as well. When I re-read my earlier post, at certain points I seemed to get rather flippant with you and for that I apologize.

We have to remember we live in a WORLD economy. If corporations were banned in America, how many companies would chose to pack up and move operations oversees? And think what that would do to our country and economy. I can't even begin to predict all the far ranging consequences such a thing would cause.

We do need the corporate structure at this time, but I think that isn't so much an issue of necessity of the structure, as it is a need for security. People are ingrained in the idea of a corporation and I think if we gave sole proprietors and partnerships the same rules as corporations, you would see many more companies use those structures. In theory, we could eventually wean ourselves off of the corporate system if we choose to do so.

My biggest complaint about corporations is that there tends to be a lack of accountability because institutional and societal memory is so short that people often forget things. Coupled with the often short tenure of CEOs, this creates a system where CEOs feel little compulsion to act in a manner where the benefits to the company and the harm to society is equally balanced.

I know this is an extreme one, but for example, if tomorrow, Dow Chemical decided to dump all of its corporate byproducts down a depleted mine shaft as a way to save a million dollars, they would likely do so. Now let's say the chemicals seep into the ground and the nearby city's aquifer. This causes cancer in the nearby city, but doesn't manifest for 10 years. By then the CEO #1 is gone and the corporate structure is the one bearing the burden of paying for the lawsuits and the new CEO #2 is the one taking the flak for it. As such, a new face is brought in as CEO #3 to give the company a better image. Ten years later, the new face CEO #3 is gone and they bring in another CEO #4 that is more profit-oriented and he implements the same byproduct dumping in mine shafts policy as the first CEO. At that point, we are right back at square one and the corporate structure is dealing with CEO #4 that fundamentally hurts the corporation itself in the long run, but makes the corporation lots of money in the short-term to the detriment of society.

Now there are some corporations that keep their CEOs for a long period of time, like Apple and Microsoft, but those are corporations that were founded by their CEOs and are not typically the norm. Instead, there are constant shifts between CEOs and since corporations are profit driven, CEOs are focused on the short term benefits of policies and less focused on the long-term effects because that CEO will likely have gone to a new corporation by the time the long-term effects crop up. Partnerships and sole proprietorships don't have this problem, because the people who run such businesses are so intertwined with the business since they own part of the business. Any success of the business or failure of the business, either short-term or long-term, directly affects the economic interests of the owners/operators of that business under a partnership/sole proprietorship. If we could implement such an accountability system for CEOs in corporations, I would be ecstatic.

Legally, you're wrong. Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like natural persons. I'm highly simplifying things by using this statement, of course. But "corporate person-hood" was decided back in the 1800's.

I think you misunderstand my argument. I'm not saying that courts haven't recognized corporate quasi-personhood, because courts have. I'm simply pointing out that you can't ban something that isn't a right in the first place. I know it sounds like I'm arguing semantics, but it's an important point I will address in a second.

Excuse me but, for the most part, EVERYONE has the right to earn the privilege to drive. People do have the right to get into a car and drive, provided they have met the legal terms involved in doing so. Getting a license, having insurance etc etc.
The ACT of driving might not be a right, but the EARNING of the privilege certainly is.

I apologize in advance if I sound condescending, but I'm really trying not to. I think where you are having the problem understanding my argument is because you are applying 14th Amendment due process on the assumption that driving is a right under the Constitution. Here we are dealing with an intersection of state law and Constitutional due process imposed on the state by the 14th Amendment.

You are correct that everyone has a right to earn a driver's license if such a thing is available. States cannot arbitrarily deny a driver's license to a group of people, but the state is also not required to even issue a driver's license. What I am trying to say is that if tomorrow the state, not the Federal Government, wanted to eliminate driver's licenses and ban driving altogether, they could do so because the right to drive is not guaranteed in the US Constitution. However, if a state gives such a right to anyone, then the right must apply to all individuals equally. That was the reasoning in Citizens United as well.

