Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
.
The Left doesn't like capitalism and wants to promote an authoritarian, centralized federal bureaucracy at all times.
So it's ideologically obligated to demonize "corporations" at every opportunity. Of course, a "corporation" could be a grandmother running an Ebay business from her kitchen table, so they have to keep the term nice and vague.
Effective regulation (not the same as MORE regulation) is absolutely crucial, and maybe one day we'll have it. But we can count on the Left to demonize private industry at every turn. Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
The real problem is conservatives don't understand what constitutes a true free market and what constitutes a captured market.
There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.
And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic.
A free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.
But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.
Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution.
The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
Our founding fathers completely understood this.
Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.
Early laws regulating corporations in America
*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
*Corporations licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
*The state legislature could revoke a corporations charter if it misbehaved.
*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldnt break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were just doing their job when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted in perpetuity, as is now the practice).
*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
*Corporations real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.
The Early Role of Corporations in America
The Legacy of the Founding Parents
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.
William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention
Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
.
The Left doesn't like capitalism and wants to promote an authoritarian, centralized federal bureaucracy at all times.
So it's ideologically obligated to demonize "corporations" at every opportunity. Of course, a "corporation" could be a grandmother running an Ebay business from her kitchen table, so they have to keep the term nice and vague.
Effective regulation (not the same as MORE regulation) is absolutely crucial, and maybe one day we'll have it. But we can count on the Left to demonize private industry at every turn. Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
The real problem is conservatives don't understand what constitutes a true free market and what constitutes a captured market.
There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.
And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic.
A free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.
But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.
Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution.
The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
Our founding fathers completely understood this.
Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.
Early laws regulating corporations in America
*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
*Corporations licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
*The state legislature could revoke a corporations charter if it misbehaved.
*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldnt break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were just doing their job when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted in perpetuity, as is now the practice).
*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
*Corporations real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.
The Early Role of Corporations in America
The Legacy of the Founding Parents
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.
William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention
Wrong.Yes you did miss something. You missed my point. I dont have to provide proof that they recommend spraying. What you want me to provide is a deflection once again from the point. They provided the GM roundup proof crop seeds. Any idiot can follow the progression from there. The farmers will spray specifically using roundup to get rid of weeds. Now that the superweeds have emerged more roundup will be used to kill the increasingly resistant weeds. No company on earth is going to tell you to keep spraying because watchdog groups will be crawling all over them. They know that you are in the habit and most likely you will use their product. Dont you know anything about product marketing and consumer psychology?
Naive people like you are their dream consumers. You have not the slightest clue what they are doing to you at all. Lets make it simple for you. You buy their seed. The cash register rings. You buy their roundup. Cha ching. The 2 are intertwined so they make money on both ends of the deal. I cant possibly make it any clearer for you.
Wrong.
What I want you to do is actually debate the topic, which is why I put this thread in the Clean Debate Zone. Making wild accusations, and then crying when the other guy asks you to defend them, is not debating it is crying. If you want to cry you have plenty of places to do so, if you want to debate, bring on some arguments and defend them with facts.
Again you are deflecting from the point. I dont have to provide you anything. What for? I dont care if you believe it or not. You must have me mixed up with someone that thinks your opinion means something. The company is double dipping on the same process and adding more poison to the environment and our food in the process. I dont want to debate because its not a debatable issue. The company provides both products and have made it so both are intertwined. Those are facts. in regard to your OP I already said companies were not evil buts lets not pretend all companies are just and pristine either.
Wrong.Wrong.
What I want you to do is actually debate the topic, which is why I put this thread in the Clean Debate Zone. Making wild accusations, and then crying when the other guy asks you to defend them, is not debating it is crying. If you want to cry you have plenty of places to do so, if you want to debate, bring on some arguments and defend them with facts.
Again you are deflecting from the point. I dont have to provide you anything. What for? I dont care if you believe it or not. You must have me mixed up with someone that thinks your opinion means something. The company is double dipping on the same process and adding more poison to the environment and our food in the process. I dont want to debate because its not a debatable issue. The company provides both products and have made it so both are intertwined. Those are facts. in regard to your OP I already said companies were not evil buts lets not pretend all companies are just and pristine either.
If you don't care what others beleive, then why in the hell are you posting on thus forum?
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to quote that massive post.
You seem to deny my point, and then eloquently reinforce it. And to have a left-winger go all religious on me is delightfully ironic.
You can ignore the thousands of posts on this board or the clearly anti-business rhetoric and actions of liberals and Democrat politicians and this administration as much as you would like. It requires a monumental amount of denial, but I realize that's what partisan ideologues do. Reality is optional. When it comes to business, you people wax poetic in theory and reverse course in practice.
And, while on that topic, I realize partisan ideologues like to/need to keep things nice and simple. You pretend I'm "revealing my true far right wing colors". Interesting, what are my positions on personal income taxation, health care, gay rights, war, foreign policy and abortion?
Here, let me help:
"Gee Mac, I don't know, but I need to keep things nice and simple, and since you sometimes say stuff I don't like, I just make that child-like assumption."
You're welcome.
And this is why I have long since determined that trying to have a conversation with partisan ideologues is generally an abject waste of time.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to quote that massive post.
You seem to deny my point, and then eloquently reinforce it. And to have a left-winger go all religious on me is delightfully ironic.
You can ignore the thousands of posts on this board or the clearly anti-business rhetoric and actions of liberals and Democrat politicians and this administration as much as you would like. It requires a monumental amount of denial, but I realize that's what partisan ideologues do. Reality is optional. When it comes to business, you people wax poetic in theory and reverse course in practice.
And, while on that topic, I realize partisan ideologues like to/need to keep things nice and simple. You pretend I'm "revealing my true far right wing colors". Interesting, what are my positions on personal income taxation, health care, gay rights, war, foreign policy and abortion?
Here, let me help:
"Gee Mac, I don't know, but I need to keep things nice and simple, and since you sometimes say stuff I don't like, I just make that child-like assumption."
You're welcome.
And this is why I have long since determined that trying to have a conversation with partisan ideologues is generally an abject waste of time.
So ...... you object to being put in a "far right" blanket box ..... by lumping your adversary into a "liberal/Democrat/'the Left'" blanket box.
Interesting approach. Let us know if you get it to work.
Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to quote that massive post.
You seem to deny my point, and then eloquently reinforce it. And to have a left-winger go all religious on me is delightfully ironic.
You can ignore the thousands of posts on this board or the clearly anti-business rhetoric and actions of liberals and Democrat politicians and this administration as much as you would like. It requires a monumental amount of denial, but I realize that's what partisan ideologues do. Reality is optional. When it comes to business, you people wax poetic in theory and reverse course in practice.
And, while on that topic, I realize partisan ideologues like to/need to keep things nice and simple. You pretend I'm "revealing my true far right wing colors". Interesting, what are my positions on personal income taxation, health care, gay rights, war, foreign policy and abortion?
Here, let me help:
"Gee Mac, I don't know, but I need to keep things nice and simple, and since you sometimes say stuff I don't like, I just make that child-like assumption."
You're welcome.
And this is why I have long since determined that trying to have a conversation with partisan ideologues is generally an abject waste of time.
So ...... you object to being put in a "far right" blanket box ..... by lumping your adversary into a "liberal/Democrat/'the Left'" blanket box.
Interesting approach. Let us know if you get it to work.
Oh, it's easy.
When I see partisan ideologues not behaving like partisan ideologues, I deal with it then.
Not a problem so far.
So ...... you object to being put in a "far right" blanket box ..... by lumping your adversary into a "liberal/Democrat/'the Left'" blanket box.
Interesting approach. Let us know if you get it to work.
Oh, it's easy.
When I see partisan ideologues not behaving like partisan ideologues, I deal with it then.
Not a problem so far.
Apparently an omission, since you have yet to quote where anybody in this thread exhibited this "adoration of, and devotion to, government". But I understand it's easier to stick everybody who differs with you into a box and slap a label on it than actually listen to what they're saying, so carry on
.
The Left doesn't like capitalism and wants to promote an authoritarian, centralized federal bureaucracy at all times.
So it's ideologically obligated to demonize "corporations" at every opportunity. Of course, a "corporation" could be a grandmother running an Ebay business from her kitchen table, so they have to keep the term nice and vague.
Effective regulation (not the same as MORE regulation) is absolutely crucial, and maybe one day we'll have it. But we can count on the Left to demonize private industry at every turn. Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
The real problem is conservatives don't understand what constitutes a true free market and what constitutes a captured market.
There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.
And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic.
A free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.
But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.
Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution.
The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
Our founding fathers completely understood this.
Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.
Early laws regulating corporations in America
*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
*Corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
*The state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter if it misbehaved.
*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn’t break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were “just doing their job” when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice).
*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
*Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.
The Early Role of Corporations in America
The Legacy of the Founding Parents
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.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention
.
The Left doesn't like capitalism and wants to promote an authoritarian, centralized federal bureaucracy at all times.
So it's ideologically obligated to demonize "corporations" at every opportunity. Of course, a "corporation" could be a grandmother running an Ebay business from her kitchen table, so they have to keep the term nice and vague.
Effective regulation (not the same as MORE regulation) is absolutely crucial, and maybe one day we'll have it. But we can count on the Left to demonize private industry at every turn. Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
The real problem is conservatives don't understand what constitutes a true free market and what constitutes a captured market.
There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.
And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic.
A free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.
But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.
Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution.
The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
Our founding fathers completely understood this.
Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.
Early laws regulating corporations in America
*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
*Corporations licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
*The state legislature could revoke a corporations charter if it misbehaved.
*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldnt break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were just doing their job when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted in perpetuity, as is now the practice).
*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
*Corporations real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.
The Early Role of Corporations in America
The Legacy of the Founding Parents
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.
William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention
IOU when rep clock is up.
It's kinda pathetic the way they keep mouthing this shit -- apparently because some rhetorical authority told them to -- and then when we ask for evidence thereof all they can do is go "hobba hobba hobba..." and then repeat the same thing all over again. Somebody out there just ain't listening.Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
.
The Left doesn't like capitalism and wants to promote an authoritarian, centralized federal bureaucracy at all times.
So it's ideologically obligated to demonize "corporations" at every opportunity. Of course, a "corporation" could be a grandmother running an Ebay business from her kitchen table, so they have to keep the term nice and vague.
Effective regulation (not the same as MORE regulation) is absolutely crucial, and maybe one day we'll have it. But we can count on the Left to demonize private industry at every turn. Their adoration of, and devotion to, government requires it.
.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
The real problem is conservatives don't understand what constitutes a true free market and what constitutes a captured market.
There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.
And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic.
A free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.
But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.
Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution.
The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
Our founding fathers completely understood this.
Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.
Early laws regulating corporations in America
*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
*Corporations licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
*The state legislature could revoke a corporations charter if it misbehaved.
*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldnt break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were just doing their job when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted in perpetuity, as is now the practice).
*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
*Corporations real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.
The Early Role of Corporations in America
The Legacy of the Founding Parents
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.
William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention
Dont enlighten them. You will feel their wrath.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to quote that massive post.
You seem to deny my point, and then eloquently reinforce it. And to have a left-winger go all religious on me is delightfully ironic.
You can ignore the thousands of posts on this board or the clearly anti-business rhetoric and actions of liberals and Democrat politicians and this administration as much as you would like. It requires a monumental amount of denial, but I realize that's what partisan ideologues do. Reality is optional. When it comes to business, you people wax poetic in theory and reverse course in practice.
And, while on that topic, I realize partisan ideologues like to/need to keep things nice and simple. You pretend I'm "revealing my true far right wing colors". Interesting, what are my positions on personal income taxation, health care, gay rights, war, foreign policy and abortion?
Here, let me help:
"Gee Mac, I don't know, but I need to keep things nice and simple, and since you sometimes say stuff I don't like, I just make that child-like assumption."
You're welcome.
And this is why I have long since determined that trying to have a conversation with partisan ideologues is generally an abject waste of time.
.
To start with your OP title is somewhat misleading. Just because Monsanto may be right in claiming that as of now genetically modified foods show more positives than negatives that has nothing to do with the inherent morality of "corporatons". To anchor the argument in reality remember how the leaded gasoline industry defended itself for decades after it had been proven their product was poisoning the environment as well as people. And the tobacco industry, do I have to say more?
So gmo's are helping feed a hungry planet. Modifications for climate and shorter growing seasons are a proven boon. But some start to raise questions at these kind of modifications, "What are the desired traits? Most of the nation's corn and soybeans are genetically engineered to resist pesticides and herbicides." Some wonder if being able to flood the environment with more poison is such a good thing.
And why the big push-back against labeling. I think the general rule is "the more information the consumer has, the better."
If GMO's are so safe why do mega-food corporations oppose labelling to the point;
"In Congress, the food industry is pushing a House bill that would head off efforts to enact mandatory labeling of genetically modified ingredients by proposing new voluntary labels nationwide -- an attempted end run around the state-by-state laws."
We're right not to trust the word of Corporations, I think the Author of your article caved a little too quickly.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to quote that massive post.
You seem to deny my point, and then eloquently reinforce it. And to have a left-winger go all religious on me is delightfully ironic.
You can ignore the thousands of posts on this board or the clearly anti-business rhetoric and actions of liberals and Democrat politicians and this administration as much as you would like. It requires a monumental amount of denial, but I realize that's what partisan ideologues do. Reality is optional. When it comes to business, you people wax poetic in theory and reverse course in practice.
And, while on that topic, I realize partisan ideologues like to/need to keep things nice and simple. You pretend I'm "revealing my true far right wing colors". Interesting, what are my positions on personal income taxation, health care, gay rights, war, foreign policy and abortion?
Here, let me help:
"Gee Mac, I don't know, but I need to keep things nice and simple, and since you sometimes say stuff I don't like, I just make that child-like assumption."
You're welcome.
And this is why I have long since determined that trying to have a conversation with partisan ideologues is generally an abject waste of time.
.
Did you notice that it wasn't actually his post? He just pasted it from the Sierra Club? Pretty neat how he forgets to actually mention that part, isn't it?
Transcript of RFK Jr Speech at Sierra Club Summit 9-10-05
That is why talking to Bfgrn is like talking to a parrot.
Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to quote that massive post.
You seem to deny my point, and then eloquently reinforce it. And to have a left-winger go all religious on me is delightfully ironic.
You can ignore the thousands of posts on this board or the clearly anti-business rhetoric and actions of liberals and Democrat politicians and this administration as much as you would like. It requires a monumental amount of denial, but I realize that's what partisan ideologues do. Reality is optional. When it comes to business, you people wax poetic in theory and reverse course in practice.
And, while on that topic, I realize partisan ideologues like to/need to keep things nice and simple. You pretend I'm "revealing my true far right wing colors". Interesting, what are my positions on personal income taxation, health care, gay rights, war, foreign policy and abortion?
Here, let me help:
"Gee Mac, I don't know, but I need to keep things nice and simple, and since you sometimes say stuff I don't like, I just make that child-like assumption."
You're welcome.
And this is why I have long since determined that trying to have a conversation with partisan ideologues is generally an abject waste of time.
.
Did you notice that it wasn't actually his post? He just pasted it from the Sierra Club? Pretty neat how he forgets to actually mention that part, isn't it?
Transcript of RFK Jr Speech at Sierra Club Summit 9-10-05
That is why talking to Bfgrn is like talking to a parrot.
The problem with all these silly denials is that we can read their other posts, read what they say in public, and see what the administration does.
Basic observation is all it takes to prove them liars. In one thread they're attacking corporations, in the next they're pretending they're pro-business.
.
Total nonsense. It is this kind of post that reveals your true far right colors.
The real problem is conservatives don't understand what constitutes a true free market and what constitutes a captured market.
There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.
And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic.
A free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.
But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.
Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution.
The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.
Our founding fathers completely understood this.
Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.
Early laws regulating corporations in America
*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
*Corporations licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
*The state legislature could revoke a corporations charter if it misbehaved.
*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldnt break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were just doing their job when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted in perpetuity, as is now the practice).
*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
*Corporations real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.
The Early Role of Corporations in America
The Legacy of the Founding Parents
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.
William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention
Dont enlighten them. You will feel their wrath.
Bfgrn couldn't enlighten a broom closet if he had 25 million candlepower spotlight, all he can do is cut and paste other people's arguments and contradict himself.
Oh, it's easy.
When I see partisan ideologues not behaving like partisan ideologues, I deal with it then.
Not a problem so far.
Apparently an omission, since you have yet to quote where anybody in this thread exhibited this "adoration of, and devotion to, government". But I understand it's easier to stick everybody who differs with you into a box and slap a label on it than actually listen to what they're saying, so carry on
"la la la" indeed.
Perfect.
The mark of a good little partisan ideologue.
Apparently an omission, since you have yet to quote where anybody in this thread exhibited this "adoration of, and devotion to, government". But I understand it's easier to stick everybody who differs with you into a box and slap a label on it than actually listen to what they're saying, so carry on
"la la la" indeed.
Perfect.
The mark of a good little partisan ideologue.
As I said -- if you had a point you'd be able to make it. All you have is strawman.
Dismissed.
