On 3/24/07, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This is a gaping loophole, and if I had been present at the founding, I
would have insisted that this be explicitly stated ... that the rights
under the Constitution are universal within our borders (citizens and
non-citizens) and by our government and all domestic entities
But there is a key difference. We give government the power to use
force, the power to physically compel us. WIth non-government
entities there is only contract. The world you find yourself in with
non-governments is one that *you* decide to participate in or not. We
put government through these formal processes because it has the
power, more than anything else, to go terribly wrong. And the members
of our society are not given the choice of being subject to government
power ("social contract" is a myth).
But as it stands, it's been used by the gvmt to get private
enterprise to enforce illegal gvmt initiateves, like Nixon getting
industry to drug test everybody and the current crop using credit bureaus
to illegally snoop in our lives.
That's a good argument against what I'm saying.
If I were a Founding Father, I'd have added something about separation
of Economy and State, to go along with Church and State. I'd have to
think about it some more, though.
Separation of Economy and State would have to entail not recognizing
corporations as anything other than a collection of contracts between
individuals. Corporations could not be sued. Only an individual
would have any sort of legal standing. Burned by coffee? Sue the
server, the site manager, the CEO, etc. Each individual would have a
greater or lesser legal liability for the incident, with that
liability being apart from economic considerations.
Furthermore, corporations would not have any legally recognized
obligation to customers. Customers have only their rights as
citizens, not "consumer rights", and everything else is contract. The
formalities layed out in the Constitution wouldn't need to be applied
to non-government institutions, as you suggest, because there would be
only government and individuals, nothing else legally.
Industry should not be made to shill for government.
All of the good that comes from our current mix of economy and state
could be replicated in a separated model, with a good portion of the
bad going away.
Face it guys, they hate us. We're nothing to them but a source of their
obscene incomes and a pool of timorous wage slaves.
Speak for yourself / your own company! I have a very humanistic and
respectable employer. And I don't deal with companies that treat me
like a pluggable income-generator. Except maybe my ISP, and I bully
them back when I need to.
-todd, citizen of an imperfect world
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