"Alex F. Bokov" wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Oct 2001, Alex F. Bokov wrote:
> > Such cases have become the norm rather than the exception, perhaps
> > explaining the litigious turn our culture has taken. There are now
> > thousands of corporate pseudo-persons running loose that have SO much
> > more power than individuals that they can exercise de facto tyrannical
> > control over them through the mere threat of firing, lawsuit, and
> > outright coercion. Since the rules governing how they can treat you
> > are legislative rather than Constitutional, they are easier to
> > change. You have one vote. Time-Warner/AOL has many millions. Which
> > type of entity will most likely influence the legislation in its
> > favor?
>
> ...should actually read:
>
> change. You have one vote. Time-Warner/AOL has millions of
> dollars. Which type of entity will most likely influence the
> legislation in its favor?
Eh? Time-Warner/AOL has effectively millions of *voters*, too: they
own a significant portion of the press that many people believe like
people believed the Bible in older times. Granted, there's a limit to
how far they can abuse that power, but...
There's also the problem of campaign finance, where money roughly
translates to votes when it comes to keeping career politicians in
office. In that case, it might not be too metaphorical to say "you
have one vote, Time-Warner/AOL has many millions."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:16 MDT