“Based upon Citizens United and Mitt Romney, corporations are people, too, so why couldn’t Apple run for president?” Bambi Brannan asks for Mac360. “The company was born in the U.S. Apple is more than 35-years old. Money isn’t a problem and an entire campaign – if not an entire Apple Party — could be completely self-financed, or, in the alternative, funded by an iPhone app that simply took donations from your iTunes account.”
“That brings me to voters, which might be at the heart of the immense political discord that threatens the country. From my perspective, voters don’t know how to choose a candidate, instead, their decisions and support are formed more from a odd blend of media exposure, perception, and loud noise, rather than bothering to ask a candidate exactly how they will fulfill campaign promises,” Brannan writes. “That infection seems to exist on both sides of the aisle.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A U.S Presidential candiate can only state what they believe. In most cases, they need a lot of help to “fulfill campaign promises.” If they have a willing Congress (almost always of their own party), chances are likelier that some of the candidate’s platform will be fulfilled.
A U.S. President is not a king, but, for some reason, too many U.S. voters, people in other countries, and the media act as if the President is a king. It doesn’t work that way, thank the founders! Checks and balances are a good thing. It stops the country from going off the deep end, regardless of the side of the pool. Gridlock is not necessarily a bad thing. The founders expected it and built it into the system. Too many U.S. voters just aren’t as well educated as they should be and so the most “media friendly” personality, the candidate who has “momentum” as deemed by the media, or who looks/speaks the best on camera more often than not seems to win national elections.
An elementary school teacher once told us how to vote (not sure if they’re allowed to do so today in U.S. public schools, but they should be): Decide what you believe and then vote for those candidates who most closely match your beliefs.
It doesn’t get much simpler.
We’re pretty sure a company can’t be U.S. President (never say never in today’s America), but there are plenty of very capable people who could be U.S. President but who would never subject themselves to the absolutely ridiculous process and endless vitriol that comes with running and holding the office.
The process of running for U.S. President today is the problem. It is not conducive to returning optimal results.
I agree with MDN. Probably the best comment they’ve written. I would add that the presidential process should be replaced by vote of all state governors and confirmed by congress.
What an insane suggestion. Basically just give all power to the worst and least trusted people in our society.
well said MDN
MAKE A STAND FOR YOUR RIGHTS AND STAND BEHIND APPLE TODAY AT AN APPLE STORE NEAR YOU!
Hmm… corporations running the country… kind of reminds me of the TV show continuum…
Not all “people” are qualified to run for President.because of citizenship and other requirements. Read the Constitution.
The only qualifications are: Natural Born Citizen over the age of 35. Nothing more. Due to Citizen’s United and other court rulings that say corporations are people, Apple would seem to be legally eligible to be The President of the United States. This is one of the reasons we need to amend the Constitution to make it clear that corporations are NOT people or citizens, but are property.
Eliminate current system of campaign financing. Everyone gets X dollars and that’s it. They spend it wisely or foolishly. Eliminate PACs, and their independent spending.
We have to take money out of politics. The system of donations and favors ruins good candidates and prevents good candidates from considering to run.
This is where it starts. Get the junkies out of office.
If “corporations are people” Apple should run and get the vote.
5th Ave.Store – NYC
Corporations are people. Why is this so hard to understand? Corporations are made up of people. I am a corporation. Apple has about 110,000 people working for it.
If corporations had been judged to not be people, no groups could have been considered “people” include labor unions, or even political parties.
If corporations are people, then the corporation should have the right to vote, but with a catch. One vote for the entire corporation, including all employees and shareholders who cannot vote again separately. 🙂
Apple has people working for it but that does not make it a person, any more than a public park is a duck because it is full of ducks.
My bathroom often has people in it but it is not a person.
My underwear often has a person in it but I don’t want my skivvies to be given the vote.
I think you get the idea. Basically I’ll believe a corporation is a person when one is sent to prison for breaking the law.
Or executed
The structure of our Federal Government’s checks and balances is truly remarkable. The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches can go round and round, but ultimately, the one and only “king” we have is The Constitution.
It is the only part of government that shields us from the whims of our “representatives.” The United States is a well designed machine, and The Constitution is the operating system.
The President is not a king, that is true. The President is elected based on established political ideology, promises, and intangible qualities we all love or hate. Most importantly, The President then becomes the personification or embodiment of The Constitution.
Still The President, as our chief executive, sets direction for the nation. The stronger and more effective a president, the stronger the direction. A president can guide us to putting human beings on the moon, or guide us into war, or set us at one another arguing over our differences rather than cooperating.
Not every president is equipped to deal with every issue. Most are equipped to deal effectively with one if we’re lucky. Most seem to be equipped to deal with none.
And you never know what luck is going to throw at the President. Kennedy had a very clear adversary in the Soviet Union. George W. Bush got tossed a pile of shit on 911 and I’m sorry to say, showed us all very clearly how not to deal with it. I.e. a President may never get to do what he intended to do, and he may be lousy at what he’s forced to do.
I’ve got no hope for rational change with this current crop of candidates. No horse in this race. I am however confident that the American Machine will continue to hold the country together until the next scheduled controlled “revolution” in 4 years.
I found it absolutely remarkable that during the 2000 election fiasco, where we did not know the outcome of the election for over one month, not one bullet was fired over political cause (that’s a good thing btw). The machine’s wheel just kept on turning…
Now that’s stability!
I’m not sure that I would be celebrating the obvious corruption. Gerrymandered districts and political appointees picking leaders is a sham.
And no, corporations are not endowed with the rights of a citizen. They are chartered entities that are allowed the right to do business under the law. That law can, and should, be changed to better clarify their role in society. Sadlym the unelected corporate overlords have successfully brainwashed the public into believing that consumerism = freedom. A republic cannot stand strong while being undermined by multinational companies who care nothing for the health, education, and well-being of the citizenry.
I’m with you on all fronts. It’s why I also called the election a fiasco, and I was being quite sarcastic with my comment on “corporations as people”.
However, US society is remarkably stable on the political front. To the point is inertia.
of inertia.
The “King” is the American people. The Constitution has unfortunately become an afterthought to most. The founders knew the country could only survive and thrive with a moral, educated populace. It was a good run, but one or two more generations of several million socialist-minded immigrants to the US every year should finish things off for good.
Properly done, a socialist government should be the highest expression of the Constitution, “a Government of the people, by the people and for the people”. What we’ve got going right now is a government of Money, by hired Lackeys and for the Rich.
We need to get back to the constitution. The first step would be to eliminate all pay for Congress except reimbursement for travel and lodging expenses associated with going to Washington when Congress is in session. When Money loses its power over the income of Congress, Congress is freed to do the work of the People, not just try to hang onto their paychecks.
Wow MDN! You just sent a thrill up my leg. (Do you like that Chris Matthews reference?) But seriously your commentary is spot on. The problems in today’s America are less with the President and more with the People. Strict constitutionalism is only possible with a mostly self-governing and moral populace and we don’t have either. When families fall apart around us it leaves a void that must be filled by communities and governments, both of which have other interests beyond the interest of the child. What we are seeing today is the rise of populism in which Clinton, Sanders, and Trump can thrive. They promise us that they will fix our problems as long as we vote for the. But here is a wake-up call America, it is not the government’s job to fix your problems. Our great Experiment was established to limit government power while still giving it enough power to “provide for the common defense” and to protect our liberties. Now that our government has grown beyond those bounds, the precedent has been set for the government to give to the majority whatever they want, at the expense of the minority. Progressivism has shifted the source of our rights from God to the Government. Now our rights are fluid and change as the wind according to the popular belief of the day.
“Now that our government has grown beyond those bounds, the precedent has been set for the government to give to the majority whatever they want, at the expense of the minority. ”
should read
“Now that our government has grown beyond those bounds, the precedent has been set for the government to give to the rich whatever they want, at the expense of the poor. ”
Get Money Out of Politics NOW!
Or:
“Now that our government has grown beyond those bounds, the precedent has been set for the government to give to the powerful whatever they want, at the expense of the impotent.”
Exactly. Whenever I read of the GOP harping about the “takers” and how bad the rich have it, I have to laugh. The rich and powerful have been making out like bandits since the age of Reagan. Part of their success always complaining and establishing this mythology that they are being victimized and the poor and underprivileged are somehow taking from them.
“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920)
As of April 1, Apple will be 40 years old. So why not? 😉
How about no big corporations, no attorneys that have been life ling politicians, just people, regular smart patriots that want to do whats best and right for the country and not for any small group.
Could be accomplished to a degree through term limits.
But the politicians who make the laws will never term limit themselves. Newt Gingrich and the GOP promised to do just that with their Contract with America in the 90’s and never delivered on that promise.