This is a counter-argument from the libertarian perspective, rebutting the ridiculous notions put forth over at the Godless woke blog Imagine Democracy in the post, Understanding What a Corporation Actually Is Can Help Restore Democracy
Governments did not create corporations. Corporations were created by GOD, before the time of Adam and Eve, preceding the events chronicled in the Bible.
Ordained with special powers
Guided only by the Invisible Hand
Homo Economus
No human meddling
It hasn’t sunk in yet but yesterday’s vote to allow Republican election-rigging and keep the filibuster marks the end of democracy. From here on out the fight is over. Republican efforts to rig the next elections will now accelerate. They know they have a free hand to do what they want. The public will tune out, understanding that nothing can change.
Billionaires and corporations funded and engineered the effort to keep the filibuster. Their thinking is that they’re at the top of a system rigged in their favor, and the filibuster keeps anything from changing. The filibuster has maintained their position at the top of the pyramid, blocking all efforts by the people to use government to change the rigged system. All Republicans were part of this pay-for-play operation, of course, but so were many Senate Democrats under Obama, and now Manchin and Sinema.
The corporations and billionaires think the current system of paying politicians to keep the money flowing to them has been locked in.
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I just got back from the UK where my Chinese step-mother-in-law and step-grandmother-in-law told me about living through the Cultural Revolution. Somehow personal stories make it more real. Some of us remember what happened in Chile. Some of us remember the treatment of the “Freedom Riders.”
Fascists types (I count the Cultural Revolution/Stalinist types there, too) will just line people up and shoot them, throw them from helicopters, take people’s houses and businesses, and laugh at the sub-humans they do it to while they do it. It’s a personality type not an ideology. If ‘fascism’ is the wrong word I’ll use another.
When collapse happens, they come out and play.
Nothing is more important than stopping the forces of fascism from getting control once they are unleashed – as they are now. Even if it means getting “in the foxhole” with the Lincoln Project, or Liz Cheney or whatever it takes. We still have the institutions that currently keep that crowd from living their dream. Collapse is collapse and that crowd is just itching to start the mayhem.
It is imperative that we fight that.
#ShockingUnansweredJan6Questions
“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.
“We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.” – Mark Lamb, Sheriff, Pinal County, Arizona
Today’s example of America’s new breed of fascist law enforcement: Resist democracy, choose which laws to enforce.
Politico, He Calls Himself the ‘American Sheriff.’ Whose Law Is He Following?, (Emphasis added, for emphasis)
Since taking office in 2017, Lamb has become the face of a new online streaming service called the American Sheriff Network and of a nonprofit coalition of sheriffs called Protect America Now; he also founded a charity, the American Sheriff Foundation. Lamb is a frequent talking head on Fox News and Newsmax, where he derides President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of immigration, and he has spoken at political events like a Turning Point Action summit a few months ago in Phoenix …
As much as he glorifies law enforcement, though, Lamb is selective about which laws he chooses to enforce. He takes a hardline approach on immigration, for example, but when it comes to the government telling people to get vaccinated — or declaring the 2020 election legitimate — he fashions himself as more of a vigilante resister, with a heavy dose of anti-government, sometimes militant rhetoric.
Lamb supported the “stop the steal” campaign in Arizona and has expressed sympathy for the Jan. 6 rioters. He has called vaccine mandates “garbage” and spoke at a recent anti-vaccine rally in Phoenix, where he told supporters, “We’re going to find out what kind of patriots you are. We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.”
* “Protect America Now, which was founded by a Republican strategist and two businesspeople”
Members of Congress trade stocks in companies when they receive inside information. CNBC, Insider trading and Congress: How lawmakers get rich from the stock market.
(PS NBC, Justice Department drops insider trading investigations of three senators.)
Federal Reserve officials trading stocks that the Fed is propping up. NY Times, Fed Officials’ Trading Draws Outcry, and Fuels Calls for Accountability, Central bank regional presidents traded securities in markets in which Fed choices mattered in 2020.
Federal Reserve officials traded stocks and other securities in 2020, a year in which the central bank took emergency steps to prop up financial markets and prevent their collapse — raising questions about whether the Fed’s ethics standards have become too lax as its role has vastly expanded.
Federal judges own stock in companies they rule on. WSJ, 131 Federal Judges Broke the Law by Hearing Cases Where They Had a Financial Interest,
More than 130 federal judges have violated U.S. law and judicial ethics by overseeing court cases involving companies in which they or their family owned stock.
A Wall Street Journal investigation found that judges have improperly failed to disqualify themselves from 685 court cases around the nation since 2010.
We all know no one will be held accountable.