If as you claim Democrats believe people are 'basically good', why do they need to be controlled by government? Why wouldn't they be able to make their own choices in what is 'fair' and 'good for others?'
Excellent question, Annie.
This simplictic notion that one can define liberals or conservatives based on what they feel about human nature, while comforting to partisans, is basically wrong.
Both liberals and conservatives believe that people need to be left alone MOSTLY.
Sadly the DNC and RNC don't.
One big difference is, I think, is how they define individuals.
Modern conservatives believe that corporations should be given many of the same rights as individual citizens.
Modern liberals think that corporations should not be given those same rights.
However, since the supreme court long ago granted corporations some of the rights of citizens, those liberals are basically screwed.
I personally believe that granting organizations which can theoretically exist forever some of the same rights as citizens, was a tremendous mistake for a democratic republic.
Essantially it them pits the private citizens up against teams of citizens who cannot personally be sued, who control organizations which can live forever.
I'm not explaining this well but this puts enormous power into those citizens who own or control large corporations, and puts citizens at an enormous disadvantage when push comes to shove.
Once again, I'll note that the ruling granting corporations some of the rights of citizens is another example of the unspoken of, but very obvious CLASS WAR that America has been in since 1787, in my opinion
And sicne both the DNC and RNC are completely comfortable with this, this is another example of why I think the differences between the parties is basically exaggerated.
editec...the Supreme Court case was in 1886 when the Supreme Court ruled on a case called Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.
Our Bill of Rights was the result of tremendous efforts to institutionalize and protect the rights of human beings. It strengthened the premise of our Constitution: that the people are the root of all power and authority for government. This vision has made our Constitution and government a model emulated in many nations.
But corporate lawyers (acting as both attorneys and judges) subverted our Bill of Rights in the late 1800's by establishing the doctrine of "corporate personhood" -- the claim that corporations were intended to fully enjoy the legal status and protections created for human beings.
We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal "persons" effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money.
Our founding fathers and corporations
...nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.
So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when. Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process. Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years. But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge. And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.
That sounds nothing like the corporations of today, so what happened in the last two centuries?
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/
