America is a large conglomerate of corporations not a democracy.

1. Pro failed to define a conglomerate. "A conglomerate is a large company that consists of seemingly unrelated business sections." http://en.wikipedia.org...(company) A "company" in turn, is "Any entity engaging in business, such as a proprietorship, partnership, or corporation." http://www.investorwords.com... Pro specifies that his contention is that he believes corporations are the component. 2. The governing document of the United States is the Constitution. The Constitution defines three branches of government, including an independent judiciary. (a) The Constitution bears no resemblance to a corporate charter. (b) There is no mention of corporations in the Constitution, and no corporations as components, (c) No corporation has any structure resembling an independent judiciary. 3. There is in fact no contradiction between being a corporation and a democracy. The ordinary structure of a corporation is governance by a board of directors elected by stock holders. Thus even if it were deemed that the country was a corporation, the resolution fails because it is nonetheless a democracy. 4. Pro's main contention is that many things occur which are driven by desire for wealth. This is true in every country of the world under every form of government, with the possible exception of the Vatican, and I'm not so sure about them. The concern with wealth derives from basic human nature; people seek security. The desire has nothing to do with corporations as a root cause. It is expressed equally as well in primitive tribes and Communist states, in democracies and dictatorships. Therefore, a general desire for wealth is not evidence that the country is a corporation. 5. "If you act up in school they force feed you [R]italin or aterol or some other kind of screw you up pill but if you get caught with marijuana the rest of your life is screwed up ..." The move to put children on drugs is derived from a move to feminize the country. This is a social goal counter to free enterprise, which encourages bold and independent behavior. Con has it completely backwards; the goal is not to make money, it is to quell ambition that leads to making money. There is a strong financial motivation in pushing marijuana and other drugs, however the money goes to drug lords outside the United States. 6. "Our DMV's and traffic courts use a drivers license like a leash, instead of actually making sure people on the road aren't too stupid to be driving they just say "if youre going this fast pay us"." Pro fails to provide any evidence that a corporation profits from traffic fines. Fines are an appropriate way to discourage people from bad behavior. How does Pro expect the courts to keep "stupid people" of the roads? Repeat offenders routinely are deprived of their driver's licenses, but that does not effectively keep them from driving. A local TV station documented people driving out of the courthouse parking lot right after they had their licenses suspended. It has nothing to do with a profit motive. 7. "when a kid gets pregnant she goes to a state taxed abortion clinic where you can kill the baby ... Im saying they allow it because for one it is profitable and it also helps control the population which means less work for the government." Are there any abortion clinics that are profit making? Most are independent non-profits. Government, of course, does not want less work, they want more work. Bureaucracies prosper only by growing. 8. "if you dont fit the image of the middle of the road Southern baptist, middle class white kid (not saying you must be white Im saying you must seem to be culturally white) then you aren't treated as equal," If true, it is not plausibly related to corporate conglomerates. It is common for people of every nation to be ethnocentric, whether or not the have corporations or not. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Darfur had nothing to do with corporations. The US does far better than most countries. We just elected a non-stereotypical President. 9. "As for voting, if you really believe in this day that your vote has anything to do with who is in office you are as naive as they come." In Minnesota, candidates Franken and Coleman are separated by fewer than two hundred votes. Franken is a screaming moonbat who hates everything and everybody to the right of Trotsky. Coleman is a right-of-center Republican. I challenge Pro to explain why a vote in that election would have nothing to do with who is in office. American elections frequently offer starkly contrasting views that come down to narrow voter differences: Bush/Gore, Bush/Kerry, and so forth. With the primary system now picking the candidates, the democratic process extends to the choice of candidates. Pro offers no evidence or data that it does not. 10. Pro in each instance he cites speculates about motivation, but provides no proof. One might equally well speculate that all bad things are the work of the devil, an international communist conspiracy, terrorists, or creatures from another dimension. If in fact the motivation is as Pro says, he should produce documents, testimony, newspaper reports, or some other evidence that shows linkage to his postulated "conglomerate of corporations." He as offered nothing. Pro offers a long list of things with which he is dissatisfied. There is no problem with offering up such a list. I have my own list. The problem is that Pro then offers up an ill-defined implausible explanation that is supposed to somehow explain all the things he doesn't like. This is an enormously common and erroneous tactic that fails because not a single causal connection is established. All the ills can be put to virtually any wild theory, depending upon whoever you want to blame. No proof of causality is offered, you are just supposed to imagine it then believe it. ------------------ The resolution fails as incoherent, ill-defined, unsupported in structure, and unsupported by evidence.