Collective bargaining at itsfinest

[The T]

No problem...BTW, our founding fathers were not libertarians.
Were the Founding Fathers Libertarians? | FrumForum


When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.

The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:

* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.

* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.

* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.

* Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.

* Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.

* Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company's accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States

Other sources that reinforce our founders strictly regulated corporations.

The History of the Corporation

Early corporations

The Uncooling of America The History of Corporations in the United States

Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

Yeah, all your 'sources' are leftwing nutjob agenda sites. I consider their information most suspect as well as your thesis. Not even worth my time.

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Problem is? You don't debate...So how can he oblige you?

 

[Bfgrn]

Ahh yes..The liberal mainstay called the "all or nothing straw man argument".
No one said anything about eliminating services. You made that up. Stop the shrill nonsense. Get your head out of the sand.
The issue is the taxpayers can no longer afford the high wages and gold plated benefits.
The people are demanding the public sector do with less. Just as the private sector must do with less.
If you and those who support this nonsense wish, you may dig into YOUR pocket and cover the cost. Don't sit there and demand others pay up for what only YOU want.
On public education....Don't dare go there. 10% of all students are home schooled. Another 20% go to private schools. Another 5% go to Charter Schools.
So don't try that shit. Public schools are NOT the only venue fr education. You are right with the teacher's unions in that regard.
I find it laughable when the only people who gripe about school vouchers, private schools and Charter Schools and the fucking teacher's unions.
Trash removal.....Hey genius most towns and cities already have private contractors do that. Most towns have volunteer fire departments. Some small towns and gated communities have private security( sworn officers with powers of arrest) too patrol te streets.
The point heavy government is not necessary. Where I live \our town has 25,000 people. We have limited government. We employ the county sheriff's dept to be our police dept. It cost's $800,000 per year as opposed to a neighboring town with half the population which has it's own PD at a cost of $4million per year. We have private contractors collect the trash, take care of the landscaping in the public areas and the county hires private contractors to maintain the roadways. Our tax rate......a whopping 12 cents per $100 of assessed value.....How about THAT!!!!
No unions. No collective bargaining. No expensive and bulbous municipal budgets and no political patronage or nepotism. No bullshit...We don't want it and we don't need it.
I am running into people who hail from the high tax areas of the Northeast. They come down here and tell me they can buy twice the house 1/3 the money. They say the were paying $1,000 per month in property taxes there and $1,000 a year here.
Gee, why is that?.....
So you go ahead and make that silly "no services" argument. Full of shit is an understatement.
Try again.

No, actually the polarized, all or none, black or white argument is a mainstay of the right. My use of it was to point out the fact those services are required and the need for them will remain a requirement. There are some services I support privatizing, like garbage collection. There are others I oppose privatizing like education, law enforcement or any service where a human life is a stake.

The GOVERNOR of Wisconsin decided the public unions needed to be busted. Which is what this was all about. If you are unaware of this fact, or deny it, you are uninformed or just stupid.

Walker claimed Wisconsin had a $137 million dollar deficit, declared an emergency and passed a little used 'repair' provision to use executive power as an ax.

What you won't hear on Fox News is this:

Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the “crisis” would not exist.

Walker Concocts 'Scoop and Toss' Borrowing Scheme to Pay for $140 Million in Special Interest Spending
Wall Street Bond Holders Win; Wisconsin's Long-Term Debt Rises

Madison-- Republican Gov. Scott Walker plans to pay for $140 million in new special interest spending signed into law in January by extending the state's long term debt in a "scoop and toss" refinancing scheme that will cost untold tens of millions of dollars in additional debt for Wisconsin.

"Scott Walker railed non-stop against budget gimmicks as a candidate and now as governor he's put together a scheme that would make a pay-day lender blush," said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. "Gov. Walker created this problem by handing out $140 million in special interest spending to his corporate pals and he's going to make our children pay for it by taking loans the state was ready to pay off and borrow more money on them."

Walker is refusing to provide full accounting of how much in additional costs his "scoop and toss" scheme would cost taxpayers down the road. Since his inauguration in early January, Walker has approved $140 million in new special interest spending that includes:

* $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation. Walker is creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs. [Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 1/7/11]

* $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants. [Government Accountability Office, 4/1/08; Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 1/11/11]

* $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at-best the benefit provided to job creators would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day. [Associated Press, 1/28/01]

Walker Concocts 'Scoop and Toss' Borrowing Scheme to Pay for $140 Million in Special Interest Spending - One Wisconsin Now


BTW, Wisconsin is not a southern state. They have things called snow, frost and blizzards that are annual events during long periods of the year. The need for public works, highway departments and much more frequent road repair are significant factors.

if Walker's office won't release details then why are there so man details.
I'm guessing this information has some accuracy but it's intent has to be called into question.
Now, if health savings accounts are available, and then the writer says "will benefit mainly the rich", why did he not state how he knows this? Why did he not provide the data which states that only the rich can participate. And even if it does, it is THEIR money to save! Got a problem with that?
In any event your post has ZILCH to do with the fact that the public worker unions have to be reined in. Too much money for too long has been drained from the pockets of taxpayers to fund this garbage.
THERE IS NO MORE MONEY.

Here's something to consider. Governor Walker and the Republicans in Wisconsin are lying and their actions are not fiscal, they are political. They are not interested in the well being of the state, or the well being of taxpayers, schoolteachers and nurses who are not overpaid, it is about the party and special interests who fund their party.

As Walker Signs Union Busting Bill, GOP Admits It’s All About Politics

As previously reported, Walker’s bill makes special exemptions for the two labor unions which endorsed his campaign for governor. The workers who were members of unions that supported his opponent, on the other hand, were the targets of the legislation. Moreover, despite claiming that they are simply trying to be fiscally responsible, Walker and his GOP allies backed massive corporate giveaways that expanded the deficit.

But now, Republican leaders in the state legislature are practically admitting that the bill was about partisan politics.

Republican State Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald told Fox News that the bill was passed in order to dramatically weaken the clout of unions who could support President Obama’s reelection campaign in the swing state: “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”

 

[Bfgrn]

Yeah, all your 'sources' are leftwing nutjob agenda sites. I consider their information most suspect as well as your thesis. Not even worth my time.

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Problem is? You don't debate...So how can he oblige you?

Well T, you, Fitz or anyone else on this board is welcome to bring proof our founding fathers supported unregulated corporations and mass privatization. The problem is, the best example of those beliefs resided in the minds of people like Benito Mussolini.

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power but he warned that our political institutions, our democratic institutions, would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth, who would erode them from within.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more."

Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing. Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power. And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left. ref

 

[The T]

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Problem is? You don't debate...So how can he oblige you?

Well T, you, Fitz or anyone else on this board is welcome to bring proof our founding fathers supported unregulated corporations and mass privatization. The problem is, the best example of those beliefs resided in the minds of people like Benito Mussolini.

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power but he warned that our political institutions, our democratic institutions, would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth, who would erode them from within.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more."

Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing. Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power. And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left. ref

One WORD BOY...LIBERTY...a foreign concept...and what they gave up their sacred HONOR for.

Rad their writings...or is that too much of a challange for you?

 

[Bfgrn]

Problem is? You don't debate...So how can he oblige you?

Well T, you, Fitz or anyone else on this board is welcome to bring proof our founding fathers supported unregulated corporations and mass privatization. The problem is, the best example of those beliefs resided in the minds of people like Benito Mussolini.

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power but he warned that our political institutions, our democratic institutions, would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth, who would erode them from within.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more."

Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing. Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power. And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left. ref

One WORD BOY...LIBERTY...a foreign concept...and what they gave up their sacred HONOR for.

Rad their writings...or is that too much of a challange for you?

So unregulated corporations = Liberty? Corporations should be free to dump their waste in our lakes, streams and water supplies? Corporations should be free to fill the air we breath with toxins and deadly chemicals? Corporations should be free to process our food in plants that breed bacteria and disease? Corporations should be free to make themselves rich by shipping jobs overseas, paying slave labor wages and their CEO's don't have to live in the squalor those wages create, they should be allowed the privilege of living in America?

So far, it sounds like the only application of the word 'liberty' that applies is that corporations should have the right to take whatever 'liberty' they want to fill their pockets. Boy, I am sure there is plenty of support for that in the writings of our founding fathers.

If you are such a scholar of their writing, why haven't you provided any examples?

Well, if you want some of their writing, let's start with Thomas Jefferson.

In this famous passage, Jefferson voices his confidence in yeomen farmers and his fear of the influence of industry. As you read, consider why Jefferson has confidence in yeomen and why he is fearful of industry.


The political economists of Europe have established it as a principle that every state should endeavor to manufacture for itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America, without calculating the difference of circumstance which should often produce a difference of result.

In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be resorted to of necessity, not of choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity of land courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half should be called off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for the other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if he ever had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.... Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandmen, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition....

Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to that of its husbandmen is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a... barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption. While we have land to labor then, led us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry; but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and the spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the hearts of its laws and constitution.

http://www.pinzler.com/ushistory/jeffagricsupp.html

 

[Big Fitz]

No problem...BTW, our founding fathers were not libertarians.
Were the Founding Fathers Libertarians? | FrumForum


When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.

The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:

* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.

* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.

* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.

* Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.

* Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.

* Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company's accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States

Other sources that reinforce our founders strictly regulated corporations.

The History of the Corporation

Early corporations

The Uncooling of America The History of Corporations in the United States

Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

Yeah, all your 'sources' are leftwing nutjob agenda sites. I consider their information most suspect as well as your thesis. Not even worth my time.

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Who's running? i'm looking at it going... hmmm nope. not acceptable.

If you had credible sources, not nutbag revisionist history bullshit that couldn't make it's way into an accredited text book, why bother debating you?

I've listened to Thom Hartmann on several occasions to see what the left is thinking The man should be certified insane and you use him as a source? Pfft! no wonder you're not connected with reality anymore in regards to history.

Historical revisionism is not factual or truthy. It's propaganda, and is too short to ride this ride.

 

[Big Fitz]

Well T, you, Fitz or anyone else on this board is welcome to bring proof our founding fathers supported unregulated corporations and mass privatization.

110 years of history where there was almost no government intervention in business from the inception of the nation to the reforms of the 1890's once business had gone too far and needed to be reigned in before it caused the destruction of this nation prove that point. It was only after the creation of the big modern style corporate structure like Standard Oil, US Steel and the like that you started to need regulatory protection.

At the same time you also had the democrat machines like Boss Tweed running amok, selling political influence and shaking down businesses and politicians and the city government like nobody's business. The 1880's up to around 1920 was a very tumultuous time for business because so much abuse and corruption was going on. Reforms were needed in those days when society decided what kind of world they were going to live in. These reforms allowed for the expansion of the middle class between the depressions of 1929 to the current on.

That is historically accurate.

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power but he warned that our political institutions, our democratic institutions, would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth, who would erode them from within.

And he's right. But like all of us, he was prisoner of his own time's view and could not see the downside of the reforms that were created in his era. The pendulum of history had swung too far in favor of capitalism, so to speak and without limits, it was turning the human race into chattel. To preserve the God Given Rights of men, reforms and limitations for how the powerful, non-government structures like the wealthy and the corporations could operate were required. This is the type of adaptability the constitution offers. Not that it's a living document, but that it can be improved and refined over time to deal with threats to its founding principles.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.

As he was right to. Now we should be warning about the Media-Governmental-Corporate complex. An incestuous relationship that must be broken up. George Stephanopolis for example is a liberal political hack. But yet now, as he is a member of the media... he's non partisan??? Bullshit. This politico-laundering garbage from lobbyist to politician to media and back again needs to end.

But I digress.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more."

And? So? He's partially right. Even Jefferson said that a national bank is a greater threat to liberty than a standing army.

Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing.

That's a two way street bucko. You're advocating that government controlled business is better. Every communist nation of the 20th century proved THAT wrong.

Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power.

That's right. Fascism is the same as corporatism. But funny, Communism is the government owning the business, and dominating them. Same damn thing. It's too bad we can't have a separation of corporation and state like you libs scream you want from church.

And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism.

My GOD! You GOT IT! And both are equally as evil.

And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left. ref

Damn it... spoke too soon. Knew something was fishy, that was too cogent for you. Those aren't even your thoughts... just a damn quote by RFK Jr who's a bigger lunatic than you are to a bunch of ecofascists at the sierra club. Tardtard... you're something else.

This is why I won't debate you normally. You don't have any thoughts of your own and I don't debate tape recorders spouting other people's thoughts creatively arranged by an editing hack like yourself.

 

[Big Fitz]

So unregulated corporations = Liberty?

Please find where I advocate lassaiez faire and unregulated corporate activity?

I am ethical capitalist. I believe in broad well defined guardrails to protect society from bad behavior of corporations. Always have, always will. The guardrails are very far apart, and not some narrow one lane road most liberalcommiefucks want. It's 10 lanes wide and no speed limit. Just stay in the lines and in the guardrails and everyone gets along fine.

 

[editec]

Those are terrible policies.

That isn't the fault of collective bargaining though.

That is the fault of bad bargaining on the part of managment.

What management?

The managment that was on the other side of the bargaining table, QW.

If your point was they sucked at it, I'm not debating that point.

Is that the unions fault?

 

[mudwhistle]

I heard from "Waiting For Superman" documentary, that tenure is indeed a major factor in killing quality in our public schools.

Some teachers seem to think that they can treat students with disdain because they have no fear of repercussions. Most of the time we hear stories from teachers about unruly students, but what about teachers that act like students are a bunch of idiots.

I had a second-grade teacher that nobody liked. She was strict and sometimes really rude to her students. Years later she was in a church group that was on a tour of Europe with my parents and she told me she remembered me, and she talked to me like I was one of her students again. To be honest, I don't think she aged a day. 28 years had passed and she was just as mean as she was when I was 6.

Personally, I think some people shouldn't be around our kids much less teaching them.

 

[Bfgrn]

Yeah, all your 'sources' are leftwing nutjob agenda sites. I consider their information most suspect as well as your thesis. Not even worth my time.

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Who's running? i'm looking at it going... hmmm nope. not acceptable.

If you had credible sources, not nutbag revisionist history bullshit that couldn't make it's way into an accredited text book, why bother debating you?

I've listened to Thom Hartmann on several occasions to see what the left is thinking The man should be certified insane and you use him as a source? Pfft! no wonder you're not connected with reality anymore in regards to history.

Historical revisionism is not factual or truthy. It's propaganda, and is too short to ride this ride.

Well there is such an easy solution. If I am presenting revisionist history, then the real history should be easy to find. So why don't you bring me the real history? If our founding fathers were corporatist it should be easy to prove.

In the meantime, I will quote another leftist nutbag...Thomas Jefferson, who believe that industrialization would threaten liberty and virtue:

"While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

Notes on the State of Virginia

 

[Big Fitz]

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Who's running? i'm looking at it going... hmmm nope. not acceptable.

If you had credible sources, not nutbag revisionist history bullshit that couldn't make it's way into an accredited text book, why bother debating you?

I've listened to Thom Hartmann on several occasions to see what the left is thinking The man should be certified insane and you use him as a source? Pfft! no wonder you're not connected with reality anymore in regards to history.

Historical revisionism is not factual or truthy. It's propaganda, and is too short to ride this ride.

Well there is such an easy solution. If I am presenting revisionist history, then the real history should be easy to find. So why don't you bring me the real history? If our founding fathers were corporatist it should be easy to prove.

In the meantime, I will quote another leftist nutbag...Thomas Jefferson, who believe that industrialization would threaten liberty and virtue:

"While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

Notes on the State of Virginia

Jeez... You just can't help slamming that door into your face again. beginning to remind me of the lousy bear hunter getting fucked in the ass repeatedly by the bear being asked "You're not here for the hunting, are you?"

Here's a quote for you: "There are those who have wit, and those who quote witty people." Oscar Wilde

Replace the word 'wit' with smart in your case.

Thomas Jefferson, a man far smarter than you and probably smarter than me, is right because once again, he's a prisoner to his time's view of the future. Industrialization IS a threat to the provincial bucolic agrarian life that dominated colonial America. Just as it had begun to do in Georgian England in that era. The Spinning Jenny and other inventions with the industrial revolution had begun to put thousands of cottage industries out of business because it could do the work of hundreds or thousands of them. It proved a more efficient way to deliver cheap goods to market for higher profit, while saving the consumer money!

You're trying to argue the dangers of John Deere's Polished Steel plow to farmers using cast iron to till a few dozen acres and apply the argument to today's 20 row wide combines and specialty spectracides in farms measured in thousands of acres!

From the perspective of Jefferson, he's predicting the troubles industrialization will cause, accurately for his day. 80 years after his death, his predictions did come true! Hellish sweatshops and ungodly working hours were the standards. Children beginning work at frightfully young ages and dying of the strain in the mills. Absolute horror shows.

What Jefferson could NOT forsee is how our nation would respond to such horrors and how we'd come out of it. Nobody can see around the next historical bend. Not even you or me. But at least I for one understand there IS a bed up ahead and straight line predictions are quickly wrong the further out you go.

Wisdom comes good judgment. Good judgment from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

you seem to have only bad judgment still, because you certainly aren't learning from experience.

 

[georgephillip]

Yeah, all your 'sources' are leftwing nutjob agenda sites. I consider their information most suspect as well as your thesis. Not even worth my time.

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Who's running? i'm looking at it going... hmmm nope. not acceptable.

If you had credible sources, not nutbag revisionist history bullshit that couldn't make it's way into an accredited text book, why bother debating you?

I've listened to Thom Hartmann on several occasions to see what the left is thinking The man should be certified insane and you use him as a source? Pfft! no wonder you're not connected with reality anymore in regards to history.

Historical revisionism is not factual or truthy. It's propaganda, and is too short to ride this ride.

Was Lincoln too short for this ride?

"In the early history of America, the corporation played an important but subordinate role.

"The people -- not the corporations -- were in control. So what happened? How did corporations gain power and eventually start exercising more control than the individuals who created them?

"The shift began in the last third of the nineteenth century -- the start of a great period of struggle between corporations and civil society.

"The turning point was the Civil War.

"Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges and even presidents.

"Corporations became the masters and keepers of business. President Abraham Lincoln foresaw terrible trouble.

"Shortly before his death, he warned that 'corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggregated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed.'"

Or was he a Prophet?

 

[Big Fitz]

Why am I not surprised? You are more than welcome to bring your own sources into the debate. An intelligent person would do some research and try to bring some proof that disputes my facts.

You choose to just dismiss the truth because it doesn't fit into your agenda, dogma and the propaganda you swallow on a daily basis. So like all cowards, you cut & run.

Who's running? i'm looking at it going... hmmm nope. not acceptable.

If you had credible sources, not nutbag revisionist history bullshit that couldn't make it's way into an accredited text book, why bother debating you?

I've listened to Thom Hartmann on several occasions to see what the left is thinking The man should be certified insane and you use him as a source? Pfft! no wonder you're not connected with reality anymore in regards to history.

Historical revisionism is not factual or truthy. It's propaganda, and is too short to ride this ride.

Was Lincoln too short for this ride?

"In the early history of America, the corporation played an important but subordinate role.

"The people -- not the corporations -- were in control. So what happened? How did corporations gain power and eventually start exercising more control than the individuals who created them?

"The shift began in the last third of the nineteenth century -- the start of a great period of struggle between corporations and civil society.

"The turning point was the Civil War.

"Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges and even presidents.

"Corporations became the masters and keepers of business. President Abraham Lincoln foresaw terrible trouble.

"Shortly before his death, he warned that 'corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggregated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed.'"

Or was he a Prophet?

You anti-capitalists take the cake. Particularly when you quote even bigger, nuttier anti-capitalists.

"The people -- not the corporations -- were in control. So what happened? How did corporations gain power and eventually start exercising more control than the individuals who created them?

Really? How? Where were the people 'in control'? Which people and controlling what, per sey? If I recall correctly, which I'm quite certain I do, a fellow by the name of George Stephenson invented a self propelled Kettle over in England during the 1820's and the exportation of steam power to the US revolutionized the textile industry in the US. Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin and created a boom in cotton that knocked slavery on it's ear and hastened the day of it's obsolescence.

Every corporation started with an individual. Jay Rockafeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie. Captains and titans of industry who became self made men because they seized on their shining moment to make a great empire in industry. Did they ultimately go too far? Shit yes! Just like Manchester England knitting mill owners did in the 1700's and the Newcastle coal mine owners in the 1600's. In their own way they made the world a better place, despite the sins done to make it. Sins that now in many case that have been countered and corrected with good regulation.

But, we've gone beyond good regulation, to silly regulation. And now the pendulum swings back the other way cutting through all the ropes people always use to bind the pendulum to one side.

"The turning point was the Civil War.

"Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges and even presidents.

Corruption and collusion between business and the state started LONG before the civil war. East India Company. Hudson Bay Company. This is a holdover from ancient mercantilism. It didn't 'turn' at the Civil War, it accelerated because politicians, political bosses and monopoly and trusts discovered that money can buy legislation. Even this has roots even further back with men like Jakob Fugger who as a private citizen paid for the entire debt of Bavaria in the 1700's IIRC. Money and politics have always been a dangerous mix since the rise of the merchant class of the middle ages, and even a little before that with the Merchant Princes of Venice. You are incredibly short sighted historically speaking.

"Shortly before his death, he warned that 'corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggregated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed.'"

Or was he a Prophet?

Very prophetic. But he also did not see the end of this era. By 1920 most of the first wave of modern industrial reforms were passed. Trust busting, union forming, Anti-Monopolization laws, consumer protection reform, labor rights... Lincoln saw none of these social evolutions because they were unheard of concepts in his era! Sure, unions were tried in the past, where we got the word sabotage, but often quickly broken because businessmen remembered the troubles guilds (the genetic predecessor of unions) historically caused.

And what do you know? we're back with unions acting like the medieval guilds again! Demanding a prince's ransom from king, queen, merchant and pauper alike for their 'invaluable' services.

Do you have anything intelligent you can say in your own words? Or do you have to quote people, supposedly, smarter than you to try and make a cogent point? I'm getting sick of having to debate (and beat) your sources when you have nothing to say or add of your own.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Well T, you, Fitz or anyone else on this board is welcome to bring proof our founding fathers supported unregulated corporations and mass privatization. The problem is, the best example of those beliefs resided in the minds of people like Benito Mussolini.

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power but he warned that our political institutions, our democratic institutions, would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth, who would erode them from within.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more."

Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing. Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power. And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left. ref

One WORD BOY...LIBERTY...a foreign concept...and what they gave up their sacred HONOR for.

Rad their writings...or is that too much of a challange for you?

So unregulated corporations = Liberty? Corporations should be free to dump their waste in our lakes, streams and water supplies? Corporations should be free to fill the air we breath with toxins and deadly chemicals? Corporations should be free to process our food in plants that breed bacteria and disease? Corporations should be free to make themselves rich by shipping jobs overseas, paying slave labor wages and their CEO's don't have to live in the squalor those wages create, they should be allowed the privilege of living in America?

So far, it sounds like the only application of the word 'liberty' that applies is that corporations should have the right to take whatever 'liberty' they want to fill their pockets. Boy, I am sure there is plenty of support for that in the writings of our founding fathers.

If you are such a scholar of their writing, why haven't you provided any examples?

Well, if you want some of their writing, let's start with Thomas Jefferson.

In this famous passage, Jefferson voices his confidence in yeomen farmers and his fear of the influence of industry. As you read, consider why Jefferson has confidence in yeomen and why he is fearful of industry.


The political economists of Europe have established it as a principle that every state should endeavor to manufacture for itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America, without calculating the difference of circumstance which should often produce a difference of result.

In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be resorted to of necessity, not of choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity of land courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half should be called off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for the other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if he ever had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.... Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandmen, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition....

Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to that of its husbandmen is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a... barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption. While we have land to labor then, led us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry; but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and the spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the hearts of its laws and constitution.

http://www.pinzler.com/ushistory/jeffagricsupp.html

Funny how you want to eliminate all corporations, unless they label themselves in a way you approve of.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Those are terrible policies.

That isn't the fault of collective bargaining though.

That is the fault of bad bargaining on the part of managment.

What management?

The managment that was on the other side of the bargaining table, QW.

If your point was they sucked at it, I'm not debating that point.

Is that the unions fault?

Try again, public sector unions do not negotiate with management, they negotiate with politicians. Calling them management obfuscates the point that one side of the deal has no real financial interests at stake. That is the real problem here, and that needs to change. If unions want collective bargaining they should negotiate with people who will pay for their salary and benefits. All contracts should be voted on, first by the union membership so that the union officials actually represent the members, and then by the taxpayers themselves.

The union management can explain why they think it is better to have a solid gold health plan, and put some of its members out of work, rather than going for the less expensive plan that will keep all of its members working. then they can go to the taxpayers and explain why they should pay higher taxes, and exactly what the union will provide in return for that.

If they are not willing to do that, they do not need collective bargaining, and I will support anyone who is willing to directly challenge thier demand to keep the status quo.

 

[Bfgrn]

Who's running? i'm looking at it going... hmmm nope. not acceptable.

If you had credible sources, not nutbag revisionist history bullshit that couldn't make it's way into an accredited text book, why bother debating you?

I've listened to Thom Hartmann on several occasions to see what the left is thinking The man should be certified insane and you use him as a source? Pfft! no wonder you're not connected with reality anymore in regards to history.

Historical revisionism is not factual or truthy. It's propaganda, and is too short to ride this ride.

Well there is such an easy solution. If I am presenting revisionist history, then the real history should be easy to find. So why don't you bring me the real history? If our founding fathers were corporatist it should be easy to prove.

In the meantime, I will quote another leftist nutbag...Thomas Jefferson, who believe that industrialization would threaten liberty and virtue:

"While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

Notes on the State of Virginia

Jeez... You just can't help slamming that door into your face again. beginning to remind me of the lousy bear hunter getting fucked in the ass repeatedly by the bear being asked "You're not here for the hunting, are you?"

Here's a quote for you: "There are those who have wit, and those who quote witty people." Oscar Wilde

Replace the word 'wit' with smart in your case.

Thomas Jefferson, a man far smarter than you and probably smarter than me, is right because once again, he's a prisoner to his time's view of the future. Industrialization IS a threat to the provincial bucolic agrarian life that dominated colonial America. Just as it had begun to do in Georgian England in that era. The Spinning Jenny and other inventions with the industrial revolution had begun to put thousands of cottage industries out of business because it could do the work of hundreds or thousands of them. It proved a more efficient way to deliver cheap goods to market for higher profit, while saving the consumer money!

You're trying to argue the dangers of John Deere's Polished Steel plow to farmers using cast iron to till a few dozen acres and apply the argument to today's 20 row wide combines and specialty spectracides in farms measured in thousands of acres!

From the perspective of Jefferson, he's predicting the troubles industrialization will cause, accurately for his day. 80 years after his death, his predictions did come true! Hellish sweatshops and ungodly working hours were the standards. Children beginning work at frightfully young ages and dying of the strain in the mills. Absolute horror shows.

What Jefferson could NOT forsee is how our nation would respond to such horrors and how we'd come out of it. Nobody can see around the next historical bend. Not even you or me. But at least I for one understand there IS a bed up ahead and straight line predictions are quickly wrong the further out you go.

Wisdom comes good judgment. Good judgment from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

you seem to have only bad judgment still, because you certainly aren't learning from experience.

Wit and wisdom Fitz? You're right, Thomas Jefferson is far smarter than me, but you don't even come up to his shoelaces. We wouldn't be talking about Thomas Jefferson if he wasn't a man for ALL time. He was not one dimensional or a prisoner of his own time. His concern about industrialization were not about mechanical invention, they were concerns about human intention and human condition. Jefferson did witness enough of the 'Hellish sweatshops and ungodly working hours were the standards' in Europe. As he said: "The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

You seem keenly aware of the danger of big government, and haplessly obtuse to the danger of big corporations. I believe the real danger in big, because big can always crush small. And a mortal human being is small and fragile compared to a big government or a big corporation.

You totally miss the point of Jefferson's concerns, just as you totally miss the dangers of corporate capture of laws and regulations and you deny the truth that our founders strictly regulated corporations. They believed making profit off of We, the People was a privilege, not a right.


The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act.

Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy.

There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter. …

A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view.

-- William Jennings Bryan
address to the Ohio 1912 Constitutional Convention

 

[thereisnospoon]

Question: What does all this nonsense about government regulations have to do with public sector unions being responsible for draining the taxpayer's wallets and bank accounts?

 

[Big Fitz]

You seem keenly aware of the danger of big government, and haplessly obtuse to the danger of big corporations. I believe the real danger in big, because big can always crush small. And a mortal human being is small and fragile compared to a big government or a big corporation.

Really? Pop quiz tardtard:

1. Who has the power to imprison?
2. Who has the power to tax?
3. Who has the power to confiscate property?
4. Can any corporation force you to do business with them?
5. Can any business force you to work against your will?
6. Must a corporation provide compensation for your labor?

So answer away tardtard. Who's the bigger danger?

You totally miss the point of Jefferson's concerns, just as you totally miss the dangers of corporate capture of laws and regulations and you deny the truth that our founders strictly regulated corporations. They believed making profit off of We, the People was a privilege, not a right.

And where are you getting such insight? As I read the constitution, I see nothing like that in there.

The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act.

Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy.

There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter. …

A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view.

-- William Jennings Bryan
address to the Ohio 1912 Constitutional Convention

Christ, you don't have an original thought either. Why don't you just start quoting the Cross of Gold speech and act like it was the founding father's who said it? Attribute it to Adams or Madison maybe.

Again, prisoner of his own timeframe. He lived to see the TeaPot dome scandal, so many consumer and labor protection acts that were desperately needed at the time; and IIRC the New Deal fiasco that decimated this nation for 8 years till WW2 dragged us out of it.

So you want to use quotes from turn of the 20th politicians and act like they're the founders? Fine. Try this one on for size:

"The business of America... is business." Calvin Coolidge.

 

[Bfgrn]

So unregulated corporations = Liberty?

Please find where I advocate lassaiez faire and unregulated corporate activity?

I am ethical capitalist. I believe in broad well defined guardrails to protect society from bad behavior of corporations. Always have, always will. The guardrails are very far apart, and not some narrow one lane road most liberalcommiefucks want. It's 10 lanes wide and no speed limit. Just stay in the lines and in the guardrails and everyone gets along fine.

First answer one question...are you The T?