Hired Guns and Moral Mobs

The primary purpose of any "for profit" corporation is to make money for it's owners. If they try to provide the best products at the lowest cost, it's only because they figure they can make more money that way. In a "public" corporation, the owners are the stockholders. The board of directors usually consists of the biggest stockholders, so anything that profits the corporation profits them more than anybody. The board would be stupid to pay their employees, from the janitor to the CEO, any more than they had to, because that would increase production costs. Those increased costs would either reduce corporate profits or increase the price of the product, which would have a negative impact on sales, which ultimately would also affect the profit margin. The reason the janitor is paid less than the CEO is that it's easier to fill the janitor job when an opening occurs. If there were more qualified CEO candidates than janitor candidates in the labor market, then the janitors would be making more money than the CEOs. Okay, that's just in theory. In practice, people are people. Some people are pricks and some people are nice guys, some people are crooks, and some people are virtuous. The pricks and the crooks are in it for themselves, they don't care about what's good for the corporation, or the government, or the rest of the people, except maybe their close friends who are pricks and crooks just like they are.

Cops and soldiers are hired guns whose job is to protect the good guys from the bad guys. Most of them are hired by the government, but they can also be hired by corporations or private citizens. Of course cops and soldiers, being people, are subject to the same human frailties as everybody else. The people who hire them try to weed out the crooks and the pricks but, some of the hirers must be crooks or pricks themselves, because they are people too. I suppose some cops and soldiers start out as good guys but turn into bad guys later because they can't handle the stress of the job, or for some other reason. The cameras are probably a good idea because they should help determine who was right and who was wrong in a confrontation, but only if they are used responsibly and effectively. A camera can be misused like any other tool, which brings us back to the people problem. If everybody always did what they're supposed to do, we wouldn't need cops, soldiers, or cameras. We would still need corporations, though, unless you want to go back to the days when everybody had to make all their own stuff, which didn't leave them much time to invent things like the internet, without which we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I read about that Oregon thing on Face Book over the weekend. I couldn't find anything on Wiki about it, but I clicked on the link provided on the FB post. It seems that Clive Bundy and his son are heavily involved in this thing. Remember Bundy? He was the guy who backed down the Feds when they tried to confiscate his cattle for non-payment of grazing fees. I said at the time that he should be in jail, and you said the they would pick him up later after all the publicity died down. Well, he's back, or maybe he never went away. There was also mention of some guys who were charged with arson on federal property. I wish I knew what that's all about. Maybe Wiki will have something in a few days.

I haven't been following the Trump rallies, but you're probably right about those particular faceless hordes making spectacles of themselves. Good luck with those FHs in Chicago, I hope they are able to maintain their focus and keep out of trouble.