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27 Comments
- diemunkiesdie, on 05/08/2009, -0/+12Salem witch trials thing is inaccurate, Giles Corey wasn't sentenced to death by pressing. At the time, defendants could not be tried if they did not enter a plea, if people refused to enter a plea, they would have large stones placed upon them, slowly torturing them, until they relented and entered a plea. Corey simply did not enter a plea, instead simply proclaiming "more weight" when they kept asking him what his plea was. So they kept on crushing him and he died. He was not sentenced to death by crushing, it just kind of happened.
- inactive, on 05/07/2009, -2/+11Harold McCord FTW!
- ast16, on 05/07/2009, -1/+6You can't handle the truth!
- jamspt, on 05/08/2009, -0/+5I came in here to say just that.
It's hard to have any faith in an article that gets something wrong like that in the first paragraph.
You though, get my digg. - Medicamusic, on 05/08/2009, -0/+5I thought it said Lego history :(
- noahgelman, on 05/08/2009, -0/+4Harold McCord's attempted escape was really brilliant. I'm impressed.
- AgentMull, on 05/08/2009, -0/+4Denny Crane
- LonelyTylenoL, on 05/08/2009, -1/+4Obligatory humor:
http://digg.com/d1nwcB - cybershoplifter, on 05/08/2009, -0/+3For bizarre legal cases, please let me add a no. 11, my divorce.
- buzzd1ggity, on 05/08/2009, -0/+2I want the truth!!!
- gogog0, on 05/08/2009, -0/+2what the ***** is with this new bizarre fad
- jtinz, on 05/08/2009, -0/+2Where's the case that determined that corporations have the same rights as human beings?
- fbass2000, on 05/08/2009, -0/+2that Larry reminds me of leisure suit Larry
- rickcarson, on 05/08/2009, -0/+2Don't think that has happened.
The point is that corporations _don't_ have the same rights as individuals. As an individual, you have unlimited liability, and if you get successfully sued, that is a bad thing (for you).
On the other hand, if a corporation gets sued, the people running the corporation (and the shareholders) have a liability limited to their investment. This is why if you start a small business you should always go for the LLC rather than some kind of "pass through tax dodge but won't stop the lawyers deal" (read as: S corp).
The trick with running an LLC is to never co-mingle your funds with the company funds. If you get caught with your hand in the till, then you can lose the limited liability (goodbye house, goodbye car).
Historically the problem was that entrepreneurs wanted to make risky sailing voyages with potential of huge profits, but the relatives of sailors who died would sue the ship owners, captains etc, so the risk was too great.
Forming a fictional entity and granting it legal powers, but limiting its liability was one way to 'solve' that 'problem'. Another way to approach it was for thousands of merchants/captains to band together into a giant partnership - if you wanted to sue them, you had to sue all of them and that wasn't feasible (essentially a hack that broke the legal system).
One of the earliest joint stock companies was the British East India Company. Think 'Opium Wars', slave trade and invasion and conquest of India (with famines that wiped out 1/4 of the population of Bengal because of bad resource management etc). Pretty much any corporate evil you see today is small potatoes by their standards.
Oh yes, and arguably a little thing called the Boston Tea Party (you may have heard of it) wouldn't have happened if the BEIC hadn't used their massive wealth to subvert democracy and lobbied the crown to have everyone except them charged a big tax on tea imports...
You would think that this would have been a big hint that corporations are a 'bad thing', but no, we apparently don't have any ability to extrapolate or learn from history. Go figure. - gdha, on 05/08/2009, -0/+2Holy cow, those are insane. More than half of these I have never heard of happening!
- ReinMasamuri, on 05/09/2009, -0/+2I'm surprised they didn't have the attempted theft of Lincoln's body.
There wasn't really any grave robbing laws on the books so they pretty much just got a slap on the wrist... - babybearz, on 05/11/2009, -0/+2That "MacGyver gun" made out of paper was certainly quite the stunt to pull of. On the other hand, mistaking a fake or toy gun for a real one have on several occasions led to kids being shot by the police because they thought it was a real gun (which of course is significantly less funny). When a situation occurs very quickly I guess it is impossible to tell the difference between an air gun and a real piece.
- richnojutsu, on 05/08/2009, -0/+1Nah, he just likes history.
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/dillin ... - zeabu, on 10/03/2009, -0/+1That's why we should research and give the police very effective stunguns, that way they can shoot first and later ask questions.
- sooska, on 05/08/2009, -0/+1YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
- singebkdrft, on 05/08/2009, -0/+1Don't know why you haven't been modded up.
Great explanation of the history of corporate "personhood". - Gunsdead, on 05/08/2009, -0/+1 Don't bring a cardboard gun to a Police shootout.
- robbob, on 05/08/2009, -1/+2my lawyer hell began 2 months ago when he keeps bouncing paper work back-n-forth to me instead of aggregating everything into one meeting. Should have taken 1 week max, but he gets paid hourly
/rant - helixhdr, on 05/09/2009, -0/+1"Had enough?!"
"...more weight!"
Bad ass - inactive, on 05/08/2009, -3/+3"Everybody Must Get Stoned" I couldn't agree with that more.
- CJ117, on 05/08/2009, -2/+1Shouldn't one of these be making cannabis illegal? =P
- nepidae, on 05/08/2009, -2/+2The Salem witch trials are quite embarrassing. Lets please forget they ever happened.
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