The sage knows when to hold to this and let go of that.

Humans are, at their essence, explainers. We want to understand our world and our lives. We want to explain things to ourselves and to others. It is this essential quality that has propelled us through the ages in science and art and social relations. In the end, our lives are spent answering the how's and why's of the Universe. This overwhelming task usually takes a lifetime as we are seduced into focusing on narrow fields of understanding and coming up with distinctions that, in the end, provide temporary comfort and satisfaction but do not prove TRUE. This blog is a place for those distinctions so that, like unknown terrors that paralyze us, their naming can render them ridiculous.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Person to Person

There are two kinds of persons in the United States. The first kind, the biological kind, are born, have DNA, are able to feel pain and a huge range of emotions, think, decide, believe, vote, create, procreate and die. The second kind are creations of the first kind. Not a messy procreation like birth or in a laboratory like the Frankenstein monster, but something that occurs on paper and in documents filed with government officials. The second kind of person can acquire and own stuff, can sell stuff, and can promote stuff, laws and political candidates. It can even live forever. It can act in its interest and the interest of its stockholders [sort of--as if every stockholder's interest could be known to and accounted for in the decisions which are made], and a host of other things. It cannot do the things the first kind of person does unless one of the first kind of persons acts a an agent to do them. The second kind of person is a corporation. Who, other than the U.S. Supreme Court feels these two persons are the same thing deserving the same kind of protections, duties and obligations?

I get that corporations have some useful role in our society but they are created to do something that individuals or groups cannot do. Therefore, they are different. Pretty plain to see that distinction.

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