white_wolf (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun May-08-11 12:01 AM
Original message
Why are those who are so scared of government power not equally afraid of corporate power?
I always hear the Right say some crap like well people are corruptible so the government shouldn't have much power to interfere with people's lives or businesses. Yet, they all are for letting corporations do whatever the hell they want with no oversight. People who are worried about the government taking away their right need to wake up and realize that the real threat to you rights won't come from Washington, but from Wall St. No institution is more totalitarian than a corporation. Hell, in some cases corporations are more powerful than legitimate governments, they can operate in any country in the world whereas governments are of course limited. They have their own private armies in blackwater and the like, they buy and sell politicians and will do anything in the name of profit.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1062009What world do you goons live in? Corporations have a ton of oversight. Everything from federal laws to state and local laws. This notion that corporations are running free with no oversight is insane.
There also is the fact that corporations can not force us to do business with them. The govt however can. In some cases the govt forces us to pick one of the corporations to do business with, laws like mandatory insurance. I'm personally not a huge fan of corporations and depise the corporate bullshit that one has to deal with day to day at work, however corporations are a necessary evil, without them most things that all of us depend on day to day would not be available so easily and so affordable. When I write a check to a corporation for some product or service they have to fulfill what they promise. When the federal govt deducts money from my check for "services" there is zero guarantee that they will provide what they have promised.
Drale (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun May-08-11 12:08 AM
Response to Original message
1. I've been asking the very same thing
Corporate power is far more dangerous then Government power. It probably has something to do with the fact that most of the folks who vote republican just listen to what Faux and the other M$M talking heads tell them to do.
Corporations can't take my money by gunpoint, they can't make something that I like to do and enjoy illegal, and they can't force me to subscribe to their services or buy their products. Also, if a certain corporation does me wrong, I have the option of no longer supporting them, and going to the competition. You can't do that with govt.
Oasis_ (80 posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun May-08-11 01:16 AM
Response to Reply #5
9. ok
Can a corporation place you in jail or prison? No, but the government most certainly can. Does a corporation have the ability to declare war? No, but the government does.
Can a corporation decide at what rate to confiscate your earnings? No, but the government does.
A corporation can't even force you to purchase its own products. Did the Founders warn us of unchecked corporate or government power? (and yes they existed in the 18th century)
If you allow the government enough power, eventually it becomes your master---and you its slave.
Corporations need regulation, but aren't inherently evil. Government, while not inherently evil either, becomes so when it stretches its tentacles into areas in which it was never meant or intended.
Oasis
Enjoy your stay at DUmmyland.
ProfessionalLeftist Donating Member (925 posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun May-08-11 08:25 PM
Response to Reply #9
56. When corporations own and control the government (which they DO)
they can do all those things and they do, directly or indirectly, with utter impunity.
Yet unions controlling the govt is just fine.
paparush (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun May-08-11 08:41 PM
Response to Original message
61. Because Corporate Media tells them to be afraid of govt. nt
Common sense tells one to fear the govt. Our founding Fathers believed in this, that is why the Constitution was written in order to restrict just what the govt can do. Both sides, (especially the left) have not paid much attention to the Constitution over the years though.
Everything they claim that corporations are doing is exactly what they want our govt to do.
