News Terminally ill Lockerbie bomber can live on for a decade.

[Cyrus]

Should I post like this to make it easier.
I thought people would be able to figure out recursion for themselves.

CR argued that personhood is limited because a corporation cannot vote.
I argued that if a corporation could vote (had complete personhood), it could vote infinitely with the only requirement being time and money to create a new corporation which it can take ownership of.
ie if corporation A owns corporation B,C,D...Z it has 26 votes since each corporation is a person legally with a right to vote and if corporation B owns corporation B-a, b , c ...,z you can continue this indefinitely, hence corporations could vote infinitely (incompatible with democracy) unless corporations are not allowed to own corporations(a contradiction with a corporation having complete personhood).
Therefore corporations with complete personhood (the right to own corporations and vote) and democracy are incompatible. You can't have both.

Now that simple recursion has been explained to show why corporations could vote infinitely
hopefully you should be able to understand why "complete personhood of corporations happens at the expense of the democracy of the US."


unless ,Cyrus, you are referring to why personhood of corporations is being discussed, in which case ,
you must not have realized the thread has been semi-hijacked at least twice. Once to discuss BP
and another to discuss personhood of a company after russ had qualms about using certain words when
describing corporations. I assume nismara isn't referring to the topic of personhood in the thread since
he has been a party to the hijack to that topic.

My understanding was that he essentially agreed with you, and that you continued to argue the issue with him (a pet peeve of mine). In any event, my comment was snide (due to being peeved ), and I apologize. (As for the whole corporations deal, I'm not arguing about it one way or another.)

 

[edward]

That's not true. The decision to release on compassionate grounds was made by the Scottish Justice Secretary, not by any judge.



The Scottish First Minister apparently wrote to the US yesterday claiming that BP did not lobby the Scottish government regarding the release:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-10720279

BP lobbied the British Government.

The issue has returned to public attention because of the role of current "devil incarnate" BP in securing the deal to release the murderer. The troubled petroleum giant admitted last week that it lobbied the British government in 2007 to conclude a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. This outrage was perpetrated ostensibly to protect a $900 million oil-exploration deal signed with Tripoli that year. London concluded the agreement but the Scottish government rejected releasing al-Megrahi, who was diagnosed with cancer the following year.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/21/bps-terrorist/

Emphasis mine.

 

[Office_Shredder]

BP lobbied the British Government.

In 2007 to sign a prisoner transfer agreement that did not preclude this guy from possibly being sent over. He wasn't sent over because of the PTA (and in fact the transfer request was denied anyway, so certainly BP did not cause him to be released), and whether or not it was signed he still would have been eligible for compassionate release, which is not related to transferring prisoners to other countries

 

[CRGreathouse]

Should I post like this to make it easier.
I thought people would be able to figure out recursion for themselves.

CR argued that personhood is limited because a corporation cannot vote.
I argued that if a corporation could vote (had complete personhood), it could vote infinitely with the only requirement being time and money to create a new corporation which it can take ownership of.

CRGreathouse: "Corporations are limited; they can't do X."
j93: "If corporations could do X, it would be bad, so they can't do X."
CRGReathouse: "So we agree, corporations are limited in that they can't do X."

 

[pongo38]

When you have a very emotive issue such as this, it helps if there is a process to follow, a process that was established before the event. Just like a court of law has a process to determine guilt. In this case the Scottish minister with responsibility for this says he rigorously followed the process. At some point we have to trust him and verify what he has done. If he is right, we have to respect that even if we (who don't know all the details) disagree. Courts of law sometimes get it wrong. That's why we have appeal courts etc. In this case, there appears to be no means for anyone to appeal against the decision.

 

[nobahar]

BP lobbied the British Government.



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/21/bps-terrorist/

Emphasis mine.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...transfer-scheme-but-not-Lockerbie-bomber.html

Hello!
I was wondering:
Has anyone seen any evidence for any of the claims?
I don't think newspapers count as evidence.

 

[cristo]

BP lobbied the British Government.

As Office Shredder said, that lobbying was two years before this event, and was not regarding the release on compassionate grounds.

Also, note that I said BP did not lobby the Scottish government: the Scottish govt and the British govt are different entities.

 

[j93]

CRGreathouse: "Corporations are limited; they can't do X."
j93: "If corporations could do X, it would be bad, so they can't do X."
CRGReathouse: "So we agree, corporations are limited in that they can't do X."

Oh sorry, The word limited usually seems to have a negative connotation so I misinterpreted it as such.

 

[nismaratwork]

As Office Shredder said, that lobbying was two years before this event, and was not regarding the release on compassionate grounds.

Also, note that I said BP did not lobby the Scottish government: the Scottish govt and the British govt are different entities.

Oh man, that's the kind of mistake that makes Scots turn red and kick a man in the haggis! I'm more interested at this point that the compassionate release was so unwarranted by the government, regardless of any lobbying by BP. I don't see the need to show a mass murderer the mercy of dying at home.