Forwarded message:
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 19:09:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com> Subject: Re: A Libertine Question (fwd)
A reasonable person recognizes that such a business has two ways of fulfilling its responsiblities. They can either submit to regulation and quality control from the local municipality or else they can hang signs about their place of business declaring "Caveat Emptor: Our food may be tainted, eat at your own risk". Which do you think is the more reasonable?
It would be nice if businesses were offered that choice. I would choose the second, myself. Only my sign would say, "Our food is guaranteed not tainted by the Acme insurance company, not some corrupt government." The problem is, governments do not allow businesses nor consumers to make that sort of choice. With them it's, "my way or the highway" (or harassment and jail actually).
And any insurance company with a whit of sense would charge you rates so high that your much touted small vendors and many of the medium sized vendors currently in business would not exist. You think governments are bad? Wait till you see a bunch of bean counters racing a profit margin. In such a situation we wouldn't even have the opportunity for input into the system via constitutions, charters, and votes. Just imagine how much support a Japanese insurance company would provide its clients in regards to the current epidemic in Japan, absolutely none because it is better the little vendor go out of business than the insurance company.
Until Jim shows me a business that isn't owned and operated by people, I'll have to respectfully disagree. Businesses are just people acting alone or in concert. Actions are what count, not whether the action is of a pecuniary nature or not.
I own 2 businesses (CyberTects & Linux System Development Labs) and work for another (Tivoli - IBM), none are equivalent to my person. Businesses are a system of rules and procedures that one offers another person in exchange for some other commodity. Saying a business has the same rights as a person is equivalent to saying the Empire State Bldg. has civil rights because persons built it and occupy it. My dog has a better argument for civil rights than any business, it breaths and shits. Would you seriously give my dog a vote? I shure won't, and I won't support any business with rights. Jim Choate