Ron--
You wrote:
>>Actually, the MNC poses a risk to any number of governmental systems, including our own. Corporations are not democracies. In fact, they are almost totalitarian in their structure, with a priviledged few (shareholders) deriving the benefit of their activities. The corporation has no other mission except to build shareholder value and anything that stands in the way of achieving that is either overrun, by-passed, or bought off.
>>But there is simply no guarantee that capitalism will lead to insuring the human rights of individuals. Capitalism can thrive as easily under dictatorship as it does under Democracy.
Yes, I agree with you and that was my point.
>>>You have no idea how contradictory the phrase "world govt. based upon the values and principles of the US constitution" sounds. You also have now idea how truly frightening that "idea" is to the "others" you so casually assume would be in favor of this.<<<
>>Well..you and others may prefer to view it that way, but I think that is because you have not thought it through fully.
>>The Constitution is not a document that is exclusive to the US. It was derived from the best examples of republican government that existed in pre-dictatorial Rome, and the newest thinkings by Hobbes and Locke on the issue of personal and property rights.
>>It is a document that many nations subsequently used as a template for their own constitutions (Spain, Latin America... etc). But alas, without a dedication to observing and preserving those ideas, and most primarily the first 10 amendments, that constitution becomes nothing more than a piece of paper.
Oh no Ron, I have thought it through.
When people spout that the U.S. Constitution is a workable model document for world govt. they forget that the original Constitution and what we have now are two very different things. Our founding fathers had those first 10 (out of 12 proposed) amendments forced upon them as a condition for passage of the core document which protected property and profits rather than people. The American Revolution as conceived by our founding fathers was hardly a "revolution" at all...until the states stuck it to them.
It took a civil war and a world war to extend simple freedom and voting rights to blacks and women and then a "civil rights war" to insure that extension became a reality.
Given the way this country originated "we the people" will always be at war with "our government" to insure our rights...as it should be. This experience is exclusive to the U.S. and not a commodity that can be exported abroad.
The most glaring example I can think of to highlight this is an interview I saw with one of the Chinese student dissidents during the "Democracy" Movement in Bejing. The reporter asked him why he joined the fight for democracy. This 20 something university student replied that he wanted to wear bluejeans, Nike shoes...he wanted to drink Coke, go to movies and spend more time with his girlfriend. That's what "democracy" was to him.
My reaction was un-f*cking-believable. I was stunned. All this little jerk wanted was the fruits of capitalism not the pain of democracy...so easily confused in this century.
Let's make no mistake. What's going on with the WTO has nothing to do the the Utopian Democratic World Government you envision. It has everything to do with those Totalitarian Multinational Corporations you and I find threatening and our Chinese university student has confused with democracy...hence the danger.
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