Greta wrote: ↑May 15th, 2019, 4:32 am
GE Morton wrote: ↑May 15th, 2019, 1:51 amWould you say a football team is people? A garden club? A marriage?
Of course not. They include people but they are not people - they are legal or formal structure around which actual human beings organise themselves. Obviously.
Apparently the distinction I drew in the last post between the categorical and compositional meanings of "is" did not make an impression. Let's go over it again.
"
x is
Y" in English can mean several things:
1. Identity meaning:
x is identical to
Y (i.e., "Venus is the Evening Star," or, "A dozen is twelve").
2. Categorical meaning:
x is a member of category
Y (""Powderpuff is a cat," and, "Cats are mammals").
3. Compositional meaning:
x is composed of
Y ("The Holy Trinity is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," or, "A boilermaker is a pint of beer with a shot of whiskey," or (my favorite) "A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
4. Predicative meaning:
x has the property
Y ("The light is green," "This lemonade is too sweet").
You seem confused that I'm referring to reality rather playing rhetorical games.
Well, you seem to be the rhetorical game player here. You're denying that "A corporation is people" is true in the categorial sense of "is," which is trivially true, but that is not the sense commonly intended when that sentence is asserted, which is the compositional sense. In general, when
x is any group word ("team," family," "club," etc.) the "is" intended will be the compositional sense, and the
Y will be the components, i.e., the members of the group. E.g., "A string quartet is two violinists, a viola player, and a cellist," or, "The Beatles are John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr."
So --- do you deny that "A corporation is people" is true in the compositional sense?
And of course, that proposition must only be true in the compositional sense to make "corporations have rights" true. I.e., if John, Paul, George, and Ringo have rights, then The Beatles have rights.
Do you disagree?
Corporations not paying a fair share of tax is, of course, parasitic. They have been taking far more than they give.
Really? What is the basis for that assertion? MacDonald's gives me a Big Mac; I give them $4.00. In my judgment the burger is worth $4.00 (had I thought otherwise, I wouldn't have bought it). What are they taking without givinng something in return? From whom are they taking it?
But with respect to taxes, the relevant question is, Are they consuming more government services than they are paying for? That is, after all, what the taxes pay for. A "fair share" of taxes is the share proportionate to the share of government services from which you benefit. Any other share is unfair. What services do you think MacDonald's consumes for which it is not paying?
Lefties think taxes on corporations and "the rich" are "unfair" because they assume taxes should be based on "the ability to pay." That assumption is absurd and morally indefensible; it is unfair
prima facie. It is an assumption applied only to taxes. Alfie is not expected to pay more for a loaf of bread than Bruno, no matter what their differences in incomes. What the baker will charge depends only on his costs and the competitive situation at the moment. He has no interest in how wealthy Alfie and Bruno are; it is none of his business. He will charge them the same price. Alfie has no more duty to pay more than Bruno for the same level of government services than to pay more for a loaf of bread.
I love your defence of lobbyists. The politicians develop cosy relationships and nice perks on the side to keep them sweet, maybe a cut on the action or a promise of campaign donations. Lobbyists have bought democracy - which is, thanks to your political tribe, now close to death.
You're blaming the wrong parties. The person who offers the bribe is merely trying to advance his interests. He has no duty to advance anyone else's. The politician who accepts the bribe is the wrongdoer; he does have a duty to advance others' interests, namely, those of his constituents.
The only way to reduce corrupt influences in politics is to reduce the powers of government. If it has little power to advance anyone's parochial interests, there will be little interest in trying to buy it.