Showing posts with label corporate personhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate personhood. Show all posts

Monday, May 23, 2022

Censorship, Cancel Culture, and The TattelTale Society: Part II

Censorship, Cancel Culture, and The TattelTale Society: Part II
By
JT


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Part I of Censorship, Cancel Culture, and the Tattletale Society looked at understanding these social phenomenons. In this post, we are seeking to explore the problems caused by censorship, cancel culture, and TattleTale Society is likened to a black hole that draws everything at the event horizon into what seems to be inescapable doom. However, America's founding principles have the power to turn this problem around.

The Problem of Corporate America

Let us begin by pointing out that much of what Corporate America does is not consistent with the Original Intent of the Forefathers. Thomas Jefferson said, "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. (Federer, 1996, p 329)." In the book the World is Flat, the author Thomas Friedman concludes that Karl Marx could have predicted the flattening as American corporations outsourced, offshored, streamlined workflows, etc... (Freidman, 2005, pp 233-235). Perhaps Corporate America should be labeled Corporate Socialist instead. The problem stems principally from the way companies have been legally structured which fundamentally changes the philosophy of business and industry. In the past, people worked to support their lifestyle choices. In more contemporary times, the work is attempting to define a person's lifestyle and choices for them. The problem has emerged over time as the philosophy of business has changed.

In the 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the United States Supreme court ruled that a corporation is the same as a living breathing organism. This ruling is the notion of corporate personhood in which an organization legally becomes human-like and is the basis for corporate law in the United States. The emergence of corporate governance fundamentally changes a corporation when commingled personhood.

Corporate governance has companies, a fictitious entity, as a meme for the political aspirations of their corporate boards which are composed mostly of proponents of the Political Left. Under Corporate Governance, the corporation takes on duties and responsibilities that the government would normally perform. If the corporation performs these duties and responsibilities reasonably well then the government will simply monitor as opposed to enforce.

Corporate governance arose out of a power struggle between government and industry during the late 1970s. The US Government was enacting many reforms that were a burden on industry. Industry reacted by applying economic pressure to the elected officials' districts who were in favor of the reforms. Originally, Corporate governance was aligned with the business and markets usually through sustainability initiatives. However, through the decades corporations have moved towards socio-political issues that have a very little-to-no connection to the business. Many companies latched on to the Woke tactics while imposing opinions, views, and beliefs on the labor force denying the labor force any voice in the matter. Court rulings have suspended unalienable rights during the time the employee is at work and in some cases have applied the suspension every day and around the clock. Unalienable rights are not for sale and can never be taken away as they are unalienable.

Remarks by Twitter CEO that Twitter's role is not bound to the First Amendment, Right to Free Speech, need to be held accountable to America's Original Intent. Making a statement of intent then following through with actions is at least in contempt of the American Founding or malicious intent against America. These corporate boards, the people, need to be held accountable to the standard set forth by the American founding when operating in the United States.

Other Examples of Free Speech Problems

The internet is groupthink on a global scale tending to promote a secular humanist narrative. For example, web services such as Wikipedia attempt to discuss a variety of topics and use a moderator to guide the truthfulness and accuracy of the articles. Often these moderators are biased to the Political Left with secular humanist thought. Thus, contributions even when properly attributed, referenced, and have merit are frequently removed when not consistent with the moderator's personal narrative. The moderators, regardless of the platform or venue, tend to lack the authoritative competency to properly assess comments for accuracy and truth disenfranchising the audiences from making those determinations themselves. As a form of censorship, moderators steer the conversation to support their own narratives.

The internet bubble is the notion that people are more interested in what goes on in their front yards than what is going on somewhere else. Thus, news, information, and knowledge are filtered to what is presumed to be in one's interest. This filtering is performed by technocrats who develop algorithms that not only learn one's habits but also act on biased guidance to mask news, information, and knowledge that may create warranted dissent. This is an instrument that limits free speech from reaching intended audiences and attempts to manage audience outrage.

COVID-19 Mandates Infringe on Unalienable Rights

A mandate is an official order to do something that differs from laws. Laws are enacted by a legislative body and are durable. Whereas, mandates originate within the administrative state headed by the executive branch and are not supposed to be durable. Constitutionally, there is a separation of powers under which the legislative body enacts laws and the executive branch asserts the law. The government's authority is vested in the ability to police which is under the executive branch. Through mandates, the executive branch is effectively and errantly creating the force of law usurping the legislative branch and the people's will. This is often done in the sense of urgency to meet some sort of crisis or temporary event. Unfortunately, many mandates persist due to the administrative state's persistence across election cycles. In short, the legislative branch is delegating its duties and responsibilities instituting, even leveraging, the administrative state undermining Constitutional constructs to advance ideas that are unConstitutional, unpopular, and even unsupported by the people. Mandates are imposed upon the people and those imposing the mandates are not accountable to the people. Who are they accountable to, some sort of political faction against America's founding.

The Right to Fair Treatment is the commandment "Thou shalt not to bear false witness" applying to all circumstances including criminal, civil, and even gossip. The duty is to truthfulness and the responsibility is to uphold honesty in all circumstances. Often we hear the call to science as though science is nonbias, objective. Unfortunately, scientists are not objective, holding bias and even extreme prejudice. Often this is observed in an unwillingness to examine work counter to their own work. Nonetheless, many scientists hold political or philosophical postures advancing errant science supportive of their own bias at the expense of truthfulness and honesty. COVID-19 is no different as narratives are being pushed as clear evidence pours out against the narratives. These narratives are advanced often through the cancel-culture, censorship, and tattletale society preventing the Right to Free Speech and equal participation in the public sphere.

The Right to be Secure in One's Person originates from Bible and is a theme throughout many books. Personal security underpins nearly all other unalienable Rights and freedoms too. The American Forefathers wrote this into the Bill of Rights as The Right from Self-Incrimination, The Right to a Secure Home, and many other Rights. In short, people have the Right to make intimate personal decisions without external recourse or interference. Thus, no one can poke, prod, stab, jab, search, induce, or cause injury to another person. This includes mandates to be vaccinated, take a pill, or even wear a mask. People often argue about the collective good of society which is foundational to socialism. The United States was founded upon individualism. If the unalienable rights are exalted then everyone participates in a manner in which their duties and responsibilities protect other people and society as a whole. This approach begins with truthfulness and principle-based character ethics.

Reinforcing The Founding Principles

The Declaration of Independence declares quite eloquently that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. There is a lot of meaning packed in the founder's statement. First, an unalienable right is one that cannot be taken away, given away, or otherwise removed by any human or human institution as the Creator gave those rights to all humans and only the Creator may affect these rights. Second, among these rights overtly mentioned is liberty or freedom such as the freedom of speech. Other unalienable rights include the Right to Fair Treatment, the Right to Life which is not simply a contrast between life and death but also to live one's life freely.

Americans need to stand up to impositions on these unalienable rights. The American Forefathers created a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people. Infringement upon unalienable human rights cannot be for the people.

Within the American founding is the peaceful ability to assemble and address grievances against the government. Part of the problem is that the government has created an economic situation in which the people's time is consumed with trying to make ends meet. There is no time for the citizens to assemble and address grievances. Another aspect of the challenge is that addressing the issues with the administrative state is senseless as they have no accountability to the people and are adherents to their narrative regardless of people's desires or concerns. They will simply provide demagoguery to any challenge and continue their narrative and activities.

The approach is not to address the symptoms or overt issues but instead to address the principles and lack of constructs that limit the administrative state's power and authority - if America is going to continue with an administrative state. The challenge of the tactics of censorship, cancel culture, and tattletale society can be addressed by re-enforcing founding principles. Making the people reporting and performing these tactics known under the Right to Fair Treatment will stop much of this activity when the accused faces the accusers, reporters, or otherwise subversive actors who are protected by a false Right to Anonymity. Once these actors are known they can be held accountable for their conduct and that should greatly reduce the use of these tactics.

The American Forefathers built the United States on timeless principles that work for everyone but everyone has to strive towards those principles. When individuals, groups, or factions decide to pursue humanist beliefs and principles that are counter to the founding, conflict is unavoidable. Patriots must stand up for America's founding and be prepared for the ensuing conflict.

This article was ghost-written for the Naked Truth Report.

Censorship, Cancel Culture, and The TattelTale Society: Part I

Censorship, Cancel Culture, and The TattelTale Society: Part I
By
JT

What does censorship, cancel culture, and the tattletale society have in common? All are about quelching disagreement, discourse, dissent, and free speech. This is an attempt to control the conversation and promote a narrative regardless of merit. In fact, assessing the merit is not desirable as those seeking to control the narratives are utopians and ideologues who can only see the dream and are not grounded in reality. Often there is little to no merit to their narrative.

Social media outlets attempt to control the conversation while at the same time promoting their narrative or a narrative they are sympathetic towards. Facebook issued this response to an advertisement rejection.

Your ad may have been rejected because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive social issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote, and may impact the election or pending legislation.

The point of any discussion regardless if interpersonal, written, an advertisement, or any other form of communication is to influence by sharing information, knowledge, or wisdom. While Facebook insisted that the people behind the advertisement are known which is an entirely different issue this is still an attempt to control the conversation.

Today during contemporary times, the public sphere is supported by the World Wide Web technology. Social media companies are not unlike the coffee houses as both skimmed on the conversation to make money. Unfortunately, many social media companies and the elitist behind them attempt to control the conversation today.

The Cluetrain Manifesto discusses controlling conversations. If a company tries to control the conversation, the conversation will continue to the detriment of the controlling entity as the public sphere belongs to the public. No one can control the conversation, they can only participate in the conversation as an equal (Weinberg, 2000).

Jonathan Turley who is an author and George Washington University Professor said, "The Aspen report is the latest evidence of a building anti-free speech movement in the United States. It is a movement that both rejects core free speech values and seeks to normalize censorship (Unruh, 2021, p 11). "

Let us look more closely at Censorship, Cancel Culture, and the TattleTell Society.

Censorship

In the United States, historically free speech has been limited. Remarks that incited panic such as shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater when there is no fire or threatening a crime such as making death threats are prohibited. Nonetheless, free speech is not normal or ordinary in this world. As of 2018, the world's countries that surveil and censor internet information were mostly totalitarian regimes including secular humanist governments and theocracies such as Islamic Caliphates, Figure 1. However, three years later, surveillance and censorship have increased as evidenced by the sheer number of bannings or de-platforming from social media mostly based on partisan ideology and narratives but these platforms lack competent authority to discern the truth.

Figure 1: Internet Censorship and Surveillance by Country as of 2018. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country


Social media platforms claim to be stopping rumors and misinformation but lack any competency in making such assessments. Teams that assess the information for accuracy have no competent authority on them to assess truth, misinformation, or otherwise rumors. For example, Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor and foremost authority on mRNA gene therapy technology was de-platformed from social media because he made comments not consistent with the political left's narrative. The de-platforming had nothing to do with the truth or accuracy of the information. Dr. Malone's position is that social media is not competent to make assertions about truth and, in fact, suppress the free speech of competent authority. Dr. Malone has had attack articles discrediting him and the de-platforming in an attempt to cancel his views despite being the competent authority.

The Cancel Culture

The Cancel Culture is a form of ostracizing persons who hold competitive views to the ostracizer. This culture persists when the ostracizer has no basis for the belief or their opinion nor is there any reason for anyone else to believe in their opinion. Nonetheless, the holders of the belief insist on imposing their views on others who hold competitive views by marginalizing the opposing view holders, the ostracized. The culture is vindictive and revengeful character quality of these cancel proponents.

Often the cancel culture shows up in many ways depending on the relationship between the parties. Typically, if in a provider-buyer relationship or when peer reviews are in use the action by a cancel proponent is to provide a low rating or to marginalize the opposing view by attacking the person. When in a superior-subordinate relationship poor performance reviews or counseling may be used often in an unfair manner. When equals in a conversation, the proponent of the cancel culture may use gossip, blogging, or red (attack) articles to discredit the equal. Typically, the focus shifts from the topic to attacking the person. This is not free speech as free speech is not about the attacking person but instead about debating the view, a thought, or idea apart from the messenger. In essence, one should not be killing the messenger.

The Tattletale Society

The tattletale society is characterized by the mantra that everybody should tell someone about somebody. This is facilitated by anonymous reporting systems and the imagined Right to Anonymity that now pervades the fabric of the US Landscape. The Right to Anonymity does not exist except in the imagination of those who sponsor the unnatural Right. However, there is a Right to Fair Treatment and to face one's accuser or reporter regardless of whether the accusation, report, or allegation is criminal, civil, or gossip in nature. Fair treatment applies to all circumstances and social interactions. All involved parties should be known and not hide behind anonymity.

The Tattletale Society often rides on the coattails of political correctness which is the sensibility that conduct and language should be eliminated that may offend another person. Once I overheard a conversation among attorneys that discussed when a word becomes politically incorrect. Essentially, this boiled down to when a lawsuit is won determining a word is no longer acceptable. Unfortunately, the offended party is often not of the ilk of the conduct or language but instead enjoys a sense of empowerment believing they hold a moral and ethical superiority over others. The snob effect. Moreover, the inner workings of a person's mind cannot be known and no one else should be accountable for the thoughts of another person. In other times, a person was showing character whenever they spoke out and other persons had thick skins. There was a social grace among people. Today, social skills are lacking in most people and that social grace has faded away. In the place of social grace, there has emerged a need to tattletale based on political correctness conjured up by politicians, technocrats, jurists, and bureaucrats or the administrative state.

Part II will look at the problems that censorship, cancel culture, and the Tattletell Society have caused and then reinforcing founding principles. 
 
This article was ghost-written for the Naked Truth Report

References:

Federer, W.J. (1996) America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations. Fame Publishing: USA.

Friedman, T. (2005) World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Farrar, Straus, Giroux: New York

Unruh, B. (2021) Censorship is needed to stop disagreement, says Aspen Institute. Twenty-First Century Watch, Fourth Quarter, Vol 24, No 4. P 11.

Weinberg, D. (2000) The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. 1st ed. Basic Books: USA.


Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Greed is Eternal?

CommentOver the years, I have noted an increasing movement in industry and social settings towards dysfunctional relationships and personality base character ethics. People no longer dialogue on important matters, value systems are moving towards a corporate morality, and companies are becoming politically centered. The movement has some eerie reflections on  horrors both real and fictional.  

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Most everyone is familiar with the term Gestapo which is short for the German term, Geheime Staatspolizei meaning Secret State Police. Most people in Nazi controlled territory lived in fear the Gestapo. Among the tactics of this organization was a subversive undercurrent in which unnamed persons reported other persons activities, nature, comments, and behaviors to the Gestapo who in turn investigated. As an outcome, people were reluctant to participant in the public sphere and democratic processes for fear of reprisals. In a similar manner, paranoid people, corporations, and governments in Western society utilize similar tactics of the Gestapo.  People no longer dialogue on important matters, debate, or undergo formal argumentation. When someone does not like something, they simply just report another person to HR, the boss, or provide tips to some other institutionalized system such as email tips, drop boxes, or hot lines. Then counter to the US Constitution and US Bill of Rights, one has to answer to some third party regarding the allegations without confronting the accuser. Often the reports are trumped up, unfounded, or partially based in a truth in response to an authority figure or a peer of whom someone finds issue with.  This erodes the status quo identity of the society as competitive identities leverage this method to advance self interest and selfish beliefs.

People within modern Western society often complain about political correctness and adherence to a social doctrine under which nearly every behavior and belief is tolerated to the chagrin of the status quo identity. If a society is to hold any identity then other identities are either not compatible, competitive, and/or hostile. There has to be boundary limits in order to maintain an identity. For example, if people are to be under a republic then socialistic, communistic, kingdoms, cast systems, and other identities are not compatible as well as any elements of those other identities. These different systems are known by their identity to which there are limitations before the identity erodes, becomes lost, or changes to one of the other identities. The issue goes deeper than just clashes of political systems and becomes much more complex when considering corporations that commingle personhood and governance.

In 1886, the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company the United States Supreme court ruled a corporation is the same as a living breathing organism. From this ruling is the notion of corporate personhood in which an organization legally becomes human-like and is the basis for corporate law in the United States.  Complicating corporate personhood is the emergence of the corporate governance that fundamentally changes and commingles personhood with governance. A corporation assumes under corporate governance, at some level, governing responsibilities. Among these governing duties the corporation has a moral, ethical, and economic responsibility to the customer and employees.  This has exacerbated over the years to the point that corporate rights, principles, morals, ethics, etc… now supersede human rights, personal belief systems, and compromise the US founding. Corporate employee policy manuals, codes of ethics, and even national leases in apartment complexes are preventing people from participating in democratic processes and rights. These corporations are advancing beliefs, political ideologies, and other systems often not fully consistent with the domain of commerce for the company.  The post Values Leadership touches on this issue.

In the past, people were adherents to principally one of the three monotheistic theologies but following the Post-modernist movement corporations have assumed the role that religion once played. Scriptural text are being replaced by Employee Codes of Conduct and waivers of rights. People continue to participate in an array of personal beliefs that have little impact on their lives and are more or less an activity in private as they assume the Corporate Code of Ethics in all their dealings. In fact, many policy manuals prohibit some employee activities 7/24 or hold employees accountable 7/24 but pay the employee from 9 to 5. The company policy manuals define the person more than a sovereign deity or god. 

In 1809, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Larkin Smith, "The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Perhaps Jefferson's concern was captured best by the fictional Star Trek characters, the Ferengi, who are known for their enterprising savvy to the point that they are con-artists. In the Star Trek Voyager episode “False Profits”, Figure 1, the enterprising Ferengi posed as gods and established their Code of Ethics based on the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, a Bible of sorts, that have principles of economic vanity. Are humans on Earth to become like the Ferengi on Takar?  Will the next tyranny be corporate demi-gods in a socialized economy after capitalism dies? 


On planet Earth, humans must come to terms with purpose and meaning of their existence. Living by Rules of Acquisition or strong economic vanity, like the Ferengi, reduces life to an economic venture, mere pennies on the dollar.  Humans should reconsider the meaning of work as a component of their lives but not the defining doctrines in their life. Economic influence, wealth, is not available to all humans. Most humans live a modest life and have other focuses.

Interestingly, Jefferson saw commerce as a source of good and a fabric of a capitalist society that lead to the sense of national happiness found in the Declaration of Independence. However, Jefferson stopped short of social justice and viewed merchants as having no loyalty to a country or moral system (Mayer, 1994, pp. 137-138).  America is at juncture. The question is will America retain the capitalist views of the founding or become some sort of socialized economic center of influence? Will our gods become enterprising tycoons and their sense of ethics? Will your ethics, morals, and principles be determined by your paycheck? How much control will you give your employer over you?

References:

Federer, W. (1996). America's god and country: encyclopedia of quotations.  Fame Publishing: USA. 

Mayer, D. (1994). The constitutional thought of thomas jefferson. University Press of Virginia: USA. 

Menosky, J. & Brozak, G. (Writer) & Bole, C. (Director). (1996). Star trek voyager: false prophets season 3 episode 5. Paramount Television