Big Sky Cairn

In the same way that Conservatives fear the unchecked power of government, Liberals tend to hate the perceived unchecked power of the evil Corporation. For a Conservative, this vitriol toward a key byproduct of capitalism can be hard to pinpoint, but generally I think it’s the pursuit of profit that is the source of this mistrust. Profit is the cause and means for the rape of the environment, the exploitation of the working class and the failure of mankind to achieve their altruistic communal utopia. It’s simplistic but then so is the reflexive distrust of all things government from the right.

Sometimes the anti-corporate reflex sort of misses the big picture though. Liberals are set on suing the pants off major telecommunication companies for perceived violations of Constitutional Rights. They are so determined to give their trial lawyers a shot at evil multi-million corporate devils that they have allowed important intelligence modernizations expire putting all Americans at risk. Never mind that the Constitution restricts government action, not private. Never mind that the act of suing preemptively renders a guilty verdict by cost of defense, regardless of a court verdict. Never mind that the evil corporation is also the source of the payrolls and benefits of the very people the Liberals purport to defend.

What is ultimately baffling though is that the action the telecommunications companies are being raked over the coals for is precisely the sort of action that Liberals would like to encourage. It is action driven by motives other than profit. It is action driven by a deeper sense of community - of social consciousness. The telecoms didn’t stand to profit from helping the federal government spy on terrorists, but by doing so they did stand to make America safer.

The irony then is that the liberals are helping to create the single-minded profit-driven companies that they fear the most. If you want a company to abdicate social responsibility, the best way to accomplish that is to attack them when they are socially responsible.