1. From a free speech stand point why would you make a distinction between a for profit entity and a not for profit entity? On what basis does one lose its right to freedom of speech and the other lose it?
2. As to campaign financing, I have no problem with your policy if you apply it equally to everything. Limit the freedoms of all associations of people and by all means you can do it to corporations as well.
Absent that you've arbitrarily limited the rights of political opponents for your own crass partisan gain.
You are ignoring that if we have no money the corporations have no one to sell to in the first place.
Would they just sell to each other? Possible... but unlikely.
Human labor will remain useful until robots are superior to humans in all things. That is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Look at all the wonderful stuff coming out these days. I see no reason why you and I couldn't each have personal robots. They'll come out of a box after we read a review we liked... some of us might have an unboxing on youtube... and imagine the possibilities? It is scary. The future is always scary. But don't be scared. It is just different.:-)
What you are describing is typical when bringing a legal case against ANY group.
Consider what just happened with the IRS denying tax exempt status to political activists opposed to the sitting president. They're literally destroying evidence and every time something comes up they shrug their shoulders.
This isn't a corporate issue. It is a group issue. You do have a very valid point about it being hard to determine who did what and when. However, that doesn't mean corporations are uniquely to blame for this situation. And removing corporate personhood would not change this situation. If I am in a limited partnership with a bunch of other people... and something happens... who knew what? The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove their case. If the cannot do that then the accused walks away.
That is what is happening here. Most corporations get away with things because the prosecution doesn't have enough evidence. It isn't because of some shadowy secret law that lets corps just ignore the law.
Drone trucks are going to happen. Especially for long haul trucking. They'll get on the highway, stick to the slow lane, and get off at preprogrammed points to refuel.
I am a big fan of people doing things when it serves a purpose. Airplanes with passengers probably should have a pilot. But maybe cargo planes don't need pilots.
We both acknowledge that computers are stupid and computers make mistakes. But you also have to understand how insanely cheap things can get if robots do more and more for us. Our costs can go through the floor which makes all sorts of things possible.
Long and the short of it is that the US economy MUST have it. We must. It isn't optional. The status quo isn't sustainable. We must cut costs massively to remain competitive.
The affordable care act etc only makes it more important that employees be reduced to a minimum. Or if you prefer that productivity per employee increase radically. Automation will do that.
Will there be problems? Of course... expect fatalities and scandals. But we don't have a choice. we have to do it.
Okay, but spending money is a form of free speech.
Think about it. Let us say you are a newspaper. Is paper free? Is ink free? Are writers free? Are editors free? Are delivery trucks free?
Do you give your news away for free?
No on all counts. Newspapers are also corporations are they not? And yet they participate very actively in the political process. In fact, most news agencies are owned by larger parent corporations and they often push an agenda through their media divisions.
Would you forbid news outlets from taking political positions or expressing opinions?
Lets back out and talk about the World Wildlife Foundation. They engage in various campaigns all the time. And those campaigns cost money. Without the money they couldn't do a lot of it. They need to hire ad agencies. They need to rent office space. They need to buy plane tickets. And all of that money is in the service of influencing the political process and free speech. They do it all to be heard. Which means all the money they spend is to speak.
Money is less speech then it is required for speech in many cases. Without money you can't buy the megaphone to be heard.
And consider further that many people donate money to organizations AS a form of speech. If I donate to the World Wildlife Foundation, then I expect that money to go into environmental activism. And that means my contribution was my exercise of free speech.
If the authorities are prepared to go to jail for breaking that law then that is their choice. Just as you can do all sorts of things so long as you're prepared to go to jail for it.
Why do I have to keep saying this... the police under what I am saying would be prosecuted and sent to jail for breaking this law.
So yes, they could break the law to catch you. But they'd pay the same price you paid for committing crimes. They would go to jail right beside you.
Now here you say "but the penalty wouldn't be stiff enough"... well who says the penalty has to be light? Make violation of this law 10 years in prison or the electric chair or whatever it is you think is a reasonable punishment for breaking that law.
Prosecution and defense must stand as equals in the court of law. Neither one afforded any special privileges. The only exception being that parties making accusations have the burden to prove them.
In regards to special tax and legal status... Let us go through that.
1. They are double taxed. The income is taxed at the corporate level and then taxed at the investor level.
2. The legal status is different because the investors have extremely limited liability for the actions of the company. This is mostly the difference between a corp and anything else. The protections exist almost entirely between the investor and the company. Not between the management of the company and the law.
If you have some specific examples you'd like to discuss we can do that. But I think a lot of people in this discussion were misinformed about how this works and are jumping to incorrect conclusions.
As to giving up their right to free speech, I am not seeing how you can do that given the freedom of association. You're going to need to change the constitution if you want to do that.
As to your notion that the burden of proof should be on the defense to prove their innocence that is clearly unjust and not going to happen. If you want to prove someone is guilty then the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove it. Suggesting otherwise is irrational.
As to holding executives accountable for fraud etc... executives are sent to jail for fraud. If they break the law it generally does result in them going to jail. That said, if the matter is a civil one and the penalty is a fine... generally I don't see the problem with the corporation paying the fine especially since the amounts of money we're talking about exceed anything even the senor management is going to have.
THAT SAID, I agree with you to the extent that I think senor management are often not very accountable to shareholders. The boards of directors are often puppets of the senor management instead of representatives for the shareholders.
Something which might help is if the board of directors were required by law to represent the shareholders. Either by quantity of stock held or by the direct election of those individuals by the shareholders to the board of directors. And that board should have oversight over the company on behalf of the shareholders.
Keep in mind that most CEOs that go nuts and do stupid thing are acting against the interests of the shareholders when they do that.
This would be a solution to our problem here without having to rewrite the constitution. As to corporations being dominant, much of that is government's fault. We used to have more family businesses. But between the death tax confiscating half of a family fortune every generation and the ever expanding regulation... it isn't possible in most cases to run a large enterprise unless it is a corporation.
Consider how many major corps could survive if every generation they had to liquidate 50 percent of all assets... all capital... simply to pay taxes. Family businesses have to do that.
We're seeing some attempts to avoid the death tax with living trusts etc... but they don't work very well.
And it is because of this that we get corporations running everything. That and we've made everything so complicated that only a dedicated legal team can maintain compliance.
As to the government's job to regulate the economy, I don't agree with that point. I think the government's job is to protect the nation from external threats and maintain justice internally. Everything beyond that is a luxury.
Corporate management goes to jail all the time for things like that. Some fool just referenced Enron trying to say that corps don't pay the price... but the CEO of enron went to prison so that doesn't make any sense.
Corporate personhood does not mean you are immune from the law. If you PERSONALLY make choices then you're going to be held accountable for those choices.
Corporate personhood exists mostly to shield investors and not corporate management. If I buy stock in a company and that company does something immoral, should I as an investor, be held accountable for that? Obviously not. All I did was buy some stock.
Can you cite an example where a corporation was proven to have committed a crime and yet they were exempted from the law due to your notion of corporate personhood?
See, I think you misunderstand what corporate personhood means. Someone explained it to you badly and you're jumping to unfortunate conclusions. It doesn't work that way.
What legal privilege do you think corps have that you don't want them to have. Be specific please. You keep repeating talking points, catch phrases, and buzz words but I don't think you know what they mean. No offense. I would just like you to describe what you want to change in your own words so I know precisely what you are talking about and know that you know what you're talking about.
As to passing out leaflets with your friend, that might work if there are two of you. But what if there are several thousand of you? Then you need an organization. And if you forbid associations that would mean that such organizations would be illegal or would have limited rights. Is that your intention?
Do you want Planned Parenthood to not be allowed to participate in the political process?
I have to assume he would exclude associations because the notion that he would forbid all associations of people from having such influence is as absurd as it is politically impossible.
The problem with this corporate personhood whine is that it is ultimately nothing more then a talking point fed to impressionable children that don't understand the issues.
They don't know that the corps are basically just associations of people. That the distinction between for profit and not for profit is one very easily twisted. And that really the only way to stop corps from influencing politics is to forbid all associations. Which means the world wildlife foundation etc would not be allowed to petition the government. Sound like that is going to work? Obviously not.
And even if you were crazy enough to try and it somehow made it through congress... all you would have done is given total power to elite individuals because the most powerful people in the country would then be billionaires, movie stars, and other people that are individually able to influence.
In effect, banning corporations would make the resulting political environment less democratic. And why furthermore should a corp not be allowed to petition? They pay taxes. They follow the same laws. The laws effect them. Why shouldn't they be allowed to say "hey that law is bullshit." Just like any other group?
I'm less worried about someone raiding my data to target ads at me then someone raiding my data to bring criminal prosecution against me or othewise directly compel me by force of law.
People seem to forget that the government is the group with the guns. These guys will show up at your house and point a gun in your face if they think that's a good idea.
Google won't.
So I don't worry so much about google's nonsense. Google etc is also not actively hacking my systems. They use honey pot systems where they create something attractive, invite you to join it, and then spy on everything you do there. That is not comparable to the NSA breaching your security, sneaking backdoors into software, and other assorted crap.
This ignores that the information privacy laws in these other countries is often no better or often worse then the US. So you're just exchanging one set of snoops for another. And again, if the US government wants the data... chances are they'll get it so long as the information is centralized.
The only solution against government snoops is decentralized storage in small obscure systems. The big cloud systems are the enemy.
... the court dicision is based on the only rational interpretation of the law. What is more you are dodging the question of freedom of association.
You clearly view the corporations as undeserving of influence over civic processes. Very well, but what legal distinction would be you make between a corporation and any other lobbying group?
Mother's against drunk driving? Artificial legal construct.
People for the ethical treatment of animals? Artificial legal construct.
World Wildlife Foundation? Artificial legal construct.
You cut the corps out and you cut all the lobbying groups out as well. You can't say one is okay and the other is not without biasing the political process. You're not removing corruption if you do that. You're picking winners and losers in political debates and thus subverting democracy.
Look, the issues of money in politics are very serious and I think we should reform it. However, if you are going to reform it, then you need to reform it for all factions at once. If you try to bias the system so that some factions can contribute and others cannot... you give those factions that are at a disadvantage no reason to permit the action. And that means you're not going to get their cooperation in congress.
As to this notion that you'll just change the law by arbitarily changing court rulings... that is the height of anti democratic theory. That's dictatorial. The courts ideally must JUDGE the law as written by the legislature. They should neither make the law nor say what should or should not be law. Their purpose is to judge the law not create it.
The freedom of association is what grants the corps access to the political process. Not this collection of misunderstood buzzwords.
It solves many problems. It will be interesting to see what happens when robots and intelligent systems go consumer. Personal robots and personal digital assistants.
As to congress and the corporation, they are associations of people. If you think they can have their rights reduced at will, then you must give a reason for why they can have their rights reduced but other human associations cannot have them reduced.
As to a corporation being an artificial legal construct... what isn't? What is a not for profit charity? It is likewise artificial and likewise a legal construct. What about a labor union. Likewise artificial... likewise a legal construct.
Why are you singling corporations out and on what basis. You cannot do it on the basis of being either artificial or a legal construct. Neither criteria is unusual.
The primary problem with your idea is that it infringes on the freedom of association. Corps are associations of people. Think of them like clubs. Under the law they're only different for tax purposes. And those differences only exist because clubs rarely generate a taxable income.
Again, you really need to address the freedom of association if you're going to deal with this issue. It is typical for people that deal with this to skip over that. You can't and retain intellectual integrity.
If your argument is that only individuals should be allowed to exercise freedom of speech that leads to all sorts of problems.
This is by and large a half baked issue pushed around by political groups that are mostly just upset that a corporation didn't donate to their political cause. While at the same time being more then happy to take funding from other equally dubious sources. I see no moral high ground on this issue.
I grant that corps are often a bad influence on national politics. But then so are all the lobbying groups. I don't see how they're any worse.
in country hosting won't stop the NSA and it will if anything expose people to increased threat from domestic sources. What is more, it gives a false sense of security that because you are locally hosted everything is A-O-K... when you're talking abut organizations that break into hardened government databases before breakfast.
Explain why a corporation should be forbidden from participating in a political cause but the World Wildlife Federation should be allowed to participate? What is the legal difference?
This gets back to basic freedom of association and freedom of speech. The corporation is made up of and represents people just like Save the Whales, Planned Parenthood, or the Teamsters.
If a corporation cannot speak politically then no association should be allowed to speak either. And that means the only people allowed to speak will be individuals. And since associations will be silenced, the only individuals that will be heard will be elites. Billionaires and movie stars.
You can't just cut the corps out and arbitrarily leave the other associations with access without some sort of reason. Simply saying "these groups agree with me and this other group doesn't" just means you're silencing your opposition.
Think about it.
This attack on the corps has been a rather tired argument thrown around for years. It isn't especially interesting is it?
Circular logic. If our legal system were based entirely on body mass index, and I said that it should work another way... someone like you would tell me "no, it works on body mass index"...
I know how it fucking works at this moment. The whole point was that it should work a different way.
Why am I constantly surrounded by damned dirty apes?
Because it sounds like you're repeating something you heard from someone but haven't really thought about. It is hard for me to have a discussion about this issue until you've been very clear about your position.
Eric is saying the crypto will break the internet.
That is likely an exaggeration. It will change it. A lot of this cloud crap is dead. And that will hurt google. But the system can survive it in a new form.
Slashdot Mirror
Meh, I hoped it would shame some people acting like morons into waking up a bit.
so when someone uses talking points they obviously gathered from an echo chamber and are just towing a lion as someone's minion... I should say what?
1. From a free speech stand point why would you make a distinction between a for profit entity and a not for profit entity? On what basis does one lose its right to freedom of speech and the other lose it?
2. As to campaign financing, I have no problem with your policy if you apply it equally to everything. Limit the freedoms of all associations of people and by all means you can do it to corporations as well.
Absent that you've arbitrarily limited the rights of political opponents for your own crass partisan gain.
Which you say while remaining an anonymous coward.
Too much of a coward to even use a fake name on the internet and you want to know who is modding me up or down?
Dude... get over yourself. If you have a problem with me, explain why. If all you've got is "SILENCE THE INFIDEL" then get bent.
You are ignoring that if we have no money the corporations have no one to sell to in the first place.
Would they just sell to each other? Possible... but unlikely.
Human labor will remain useful until robots are superior to humans in all things. That is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Look at all the wonderful stuff coming out these days. I see no reason why you and I couldn't each have personal robots. They'll come out of a box after we read a review we liked... some of us might have an unboxing on youtube... and imagine the possibilities? It is scary. The future is always scary. But don't be scared. It is just different. :-)
What you are describing is typical when bringing a legal case against ANY group.
Consider what just happened with the IRS denying tax exempt status to political activists opposed to the sitting president. They're literally destroying evidence and every time something comes up they shrug their shoulders.
This isn't a corporate issue. It is a group issue. You do have a very valid point about it being hard to determine who did what and when. However, that doesn't mean corporations are uniquely to blame for this situation. And removing corporate personhood would not change this situation. If I am in a limited partnership with a bunch of other people... and something happens... who knew what? The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove their case. If the cannot do that then the accused walks away.
That is what is happening here. Most corporations get away with things because the prosecution doesn't have enough evidence. It isn't because of some shadowy secret law that lets corps just ignore the law.
Drone trucks are going to happen. Especially for long haul trucking. They'll get on the highway, stick to the slow lane, and get off at preprogrammed points to refuel.
I am a big fan of people doing things when it serves a purpose. Airplanes with passengers probably should have a pilot. But maybe cargo planes don't need pilots.
We both acknowledge that computers are stupid and computers make mistakes. But you also have to understand how insanely cheap things can get if robots do more and more for us. Our costs can go through the floor which makes all sorts of things possible.
Long and the short of it is that the US economy MUST have it. We must. It isn't optional. The status quo isn't sustainable. We must cut costs massively to remain competitive.
The affordable care act etc only makes it more important that employees be reduced to a minimum. Or if you prefer that productivity per employee increase radically. Automation will do that.
Will there be problems? Of course... expect fatalities and scandals. But we don't have a choice. we have to do it.
Okay, but spending money is a form of free speech.
Think about it. Let us say you are a newspaper. Is paper free? Is ink free? Are writers free? Are editors free? Are delivery trucks free?
Do you give your news away for free?
No on all counts. Newspapers are also corporations are they not? And yet they participate very actively in the political process. In fact, most news agencies are owned by larger parent corporations and they often push an agenda through their media divisions.
Would you forbid news outlets from taking political positions or expressing opinions?
Lets back out and talk about the World Wildlife Foundation. They engage in various campaigns all the time. And those campaigns cost money. Without the money they couldn't do a lot of it. They need to hire ad agencies. They need to rent office space. They need to buy plane tickets. And all of that money is in the service of influencing the political process and free speech. They do it all to be heard. Which means all the money they spend is to speak.
Money is less speech then it is required for speech in many cases. Without money you can't buy the megaphone to be heard.
And consider further that many people donate money to organizations AS a form of speech. If I donate to the World Wildlife Foundation, then I expect that money to go into environmental activism. And that means my contribution was my exercise of free speech.
If the authorities are prepared to go to jail for breaking that law then that is their choice. Just as you can do all sorts of things so long as you're prepared to go to jail for it.
Why do I have to keep saying this... the police under what I am saying would be prosecuted and sent to jail for breaking this law.
So yes, they could break the law to catch you. But they'd pay the same price you paid for committing crimes. They would go to jail right beside you.
Now here you say "but the penalty wouldn't be stiff enough"... well who says the penalty has to be light? Make violation of this law 10 years in prison or the electric chair or whatever it is you think is a reasonable punishment for breaking that law.
Prosecution and defense must stand as equals in the court of law. Neither one afforded any special privileges. The only exception being that parties making accusations have the burden to prove them.
In regards to special tax and legal status... Let us go through that.
1. They are double taxed. The income is taxed at the corporate level and then taxed at the investor level.
2. The legal status is different because the investors have extremely limited liability for the actions of the company. This is mostly the difference between a corp and anything else. The protections exist almost entirely between the investor and the company. Not between the management of the company and the law.
If you have some specific examples you'd like to discuss we can do that. But I think a lot of people in this discussion were misinformed about how this works and are jumping to incorrect conclusions.
As to giving up their right to free speech, I am not seeing how you can do that given the freedom of association. You're going to need to change the constitution if you want to do that.
As to your notion that the burden of proof should be on the defense to prove their innocence that is clearly unjust and not going to happen. If you want to prove someone is guilty then the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove it. Suggesting otherwise is irrational.
As to holding executives accountable for fraud etc... executives are sent to jail for fraud. If they break the law it generally does result in them going to jail. That said, if the matter is a civil one and the penalty is a fine... generally I don't see the problem with the corporation paying the fine especially since the amounts of money we're talking about exceed anything even the senor management is going to have.
THAT SAID, I agree with you to the extent that I think senor management are often not very accountable to shareholders. The boards of directors are often puppets of the senor management instead of representatives for the shareholders.
Something which might help is if the board of directors were required by law to represent the shareholders. Either by quantity of stock held or by the direct election of those individuals by the shareholders to the board of directors. And that board should have oversight over the company on behalf of the shareholders.
Keep in mind that most CEOs that go nuts and do stupid thing are acting against the interests of the shareholders when they do that.
This would be a solution to our problem here without having to rewrite the constitution.
As to corporations being dominant, much of that is government's fault. We used to have more family businesses. But between the death tax confiscating half of a family fortune every generation and the ever expanding regulation... it isn't possible in most cases to run a large enterprise unless it is a corporation.
Consider how many major corps could survive if every generation they had to liquidate 50 percent of all assets... all capital... simply to pay taxes. Family businesses have to do that.
We're seeing some attempts to avoid the death tax with living trusts etc... but they don't work very well.
And it is because of this that we get corporations running everything. That and we've made everything so complicated that only a dedicated legal team can maintain compliance.
As to the government's job to regulate the economy, I don't agree with that point. I think the government's job is to protect the nation from external threats and maintain justice internally. Everything beyond that is a luxury.
Corporate management goes to jail all the time for things like that. Some fool just referenced Enron trying to say that corps don't pay the price... but the CEO of enron went to prison so that doesn't make any sense.
Corporate personhood does not mean you are immune from the law. If you PERSONALLY make choices then you're going to be held accountable for those choices.
Corporate personhood exists mostly to shield investors and not corporate management. If I buy stock in a company and that company does something immoral, should I as an investor, be held accountable for that? Obviously not. All I did was buy some stock.
Can you cite an example where a corporation was proven to have committed a crime and yet they were exempted from the law due to your notion of corporate personhood?
See, I think you misunderstand what corporate personhood means. Someone explained it to you badly and you're jumping to unfortunate conclusions. It doesn't work that way.
What legal privilege do you think corps have that you don't want them to have. Be specific please. You keep repeating talking points, catch phrases, and buzz words but I don't think you know what they mean. No offense. I would just like you to describe what you want to change in your own words so I know precisely what you are talking about and know that you know what you're talking about.
As to passing out leaflets with your friend, that might work if there are two of you. But what if there are several thousand of you? Then you need an organization. And if you forbid associations that would mean that such organizations would be illegal or would have limited rights. Is that your intention?
Do you want Planned Parenthood to not be allowed to participate in the political process?
I have to assume he would exclude associations because the notion that he would forbid all associations of people from having such influence is as absurd as it is politically impossible.
The problem with this corporate personhood whine is that it is ultimately nothing more then a talking point fed to impressionable children that don't understand the issues.
They don't know that the corps are basically just associations of people. That the distinction between for profit and not for profit is one very easily twisted. And that really the only way to stop corps from influencing politics is to forbid all associations. Which means the world wildlife foundation etc would not be allowed to petition the government. Sound like that is going to work? Obviously not.
And even if you were crazy enough to try and it somehow made it through congress... all you would have done is given total power to elite individuals because the most powerful people in the country would then be billionaires, movie stars, and other people that are individually able to influence.
In effect, banning corporations would make the resulting political environment less democratic. And why furthermore should a corp not be allowed to petition? They pay taxes. They follow the same laws. The laws effect them. Why shouldn't they be allowed to say "hey that law is bullshit." Just like any other group?
I'm less worried about someone raiding my data to target ads at me then someone raiding my data to bring criminal prosecution against me or othewise directly compel me by force of law.
People seem to forget that the government is the group with the guns. These guys will show up at your house and point a gun in your face if they think that's a good idea.
Google won't.
So I don't worry so much about google's nonsense. Google etc is also not actively hacking my systems. They use honey pot systems where they create something attractive, invite you to join it, and then spy on everything you do there. That is not comparable to the NSA breaching your security, sneaking backdoors into software, and other assorted crap.
They're not even remotely comparable.
When the guilty go free, society itself is punished, the public is punished, the people are punished.
I am saying the police go to jail under this policy. So they are punished. That is the debt paid.
Last time.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Last word.
Good day.
This ignores that the information privacy laws in these other countries is often no better or often worse then the US. So you're just exchanging one set of snoops for another. And again, if the US government wants the data... chances are they'll get it so long as the information is centralized.
The only solution against government snoops is decentralized storage in small obscure systems. The big cloud systems are the enemy.
... the court dicision is based on the only rational interpretation of the law. What is more you are dodging the question of freedom of association.
You clearly view the corporations as undeserving of influence over civic processes. Very well, but what legal distinction would be you make between a corporation and any other lobbying group?
Mother's against drunk driving? Artificial legal construct.
People for the ethical treatment of animals? Artificial legal construct.
World Wildlife Foundation? Artificial legal construct.
You cut the corps out and you cut all the lobbying groups out as well. You can't say one is okay and the other is not without biasing the political process. You're not removing corruption if you do that. You're picking winners and losers in political debates and thus subverting democracy.
Look, the issues of money in politics are very serious and I think we should reform it. However, if you are going to reform it, then you need to reform it for all factions at once. If you try to bias the system so that some factions can contribute and others cannot... you give those factions that are at a disadvantage no reason to permit the action. And that means you're not going to get their cooperation in congress.
As to this notion that you'll just change the law by arbitarily changing court rulings... that is the height of anti democratic theory. That's dictatorial. The courts ideally must JUDGE the law as written by the legislature. They should neither make the law nor say what should or should not be law. Their purpose is to judge the law not create it.
The freedom of association is what grants the corps access to the political process. Not this collection of misunderstood buzzwords.
It solves many problems. It will be interesting to see what happens when robots and intelligent systems go consumer. Personal robots and personal digital assistants.
As to congress and the corporation, they are associations of people. If you think they can have their rights reduced at will, then you must give a reason for why they can have their rights reduced but other human associations cannot have them reduced.
As to a corporation being an artificial legal construct... what isn't? What is a not for profit charity? It is likewise artificial and likewise a legal construct. What about a labor union. Likewise artificial... likewise a legal construct.
Why are you singling corporations out and on what basis. You cannot do it on the basis of being either artificial or a legal construct. Neither criteria is unusual.
The primary problem with your idea is that it infringes on the freedom of association. Corps are associations of people. Think of them like clubs. Under the law they're only different for tax purposes. And those differences only exist because clubs rarely generate a taxable income.
Again, you really need to address the freedom of association if you're going to deal with this issue. It is typical for people that deal with this to skip over that. You can't and retain intellectual integrity.
If your argument is that only individuals should be allowed to exercise freedom of speech that leads to all sorts of problems.
This is by and large a half baked issue pushed around by political groups that are mostly just upset that a corporation didn't donate to their political cause. While at the same time being more then happy to take funding from other equally dubious sources. I see no moral high ground on this issue.
I grant that corps are often a bad influence on national politics. But then so are all the lobbying groups. I don't see how they're any worse.
in country hosting won't stop the NSA and it will if anything expose people to increased threat from domestic sources. What is more, it gives a false sense of security that because you are locally hosted everything is A-O-K... when you're talking abut organizations that break into hardened government databases before breakfast.
Explain why a corporation should be forbidden from participating in a political cause but the World Wildlife Federation should be allowed to participate? What is the legal difference?
This gets back to basic freedom of association and freedom of speech. The corporation is made up of and represents people just like Save the Whales, Planned Parenthood, or the Teamsters.
If a corporation cannot speak politically then no association should be allowed to speak either. And that means the only people allowed to speak will be individuals. And since associations will be silenced, the only individuals that will be heard will be elites. Billionaires and movie stars.
You can't just cut the corps out and arbitrarily leave the other associations with access without some sort of reason. Simply saying "these groups agree with me and this other group doesn't" just means you're silencing your opposition.
Think about it.
This attack on the corps has been a rather tired argument thrown around for years. It isn't especially interesting is it?
Circular logic. If our legal system were based entirely on body mass index, and I said that it should work another way... someone like you would tell me "no, it works on body mass index"...
I know how it fucking works at this moment. The whole point was that it should work a different way.
Why am I constantly surrounded by damned dirty apes?
Explain specifically what your problem is here?
Because it sounds like you're repeating something you heard from someone but haven't really thought about. It is hard for me to have a discussion about this issue until you've been very clear about your position.
A fair point. It just means a complete reorganization of the internet is unavoidable.
Eric is saying the crypto will break the internet.
That is likely an exaggeration. It will change it. A lot of this cloud crap is dead. And that will hurt google. But the system can survive it in a new form.