Feb 13, 2011 AD
The Sovereign Immunity of McDonald's
[SOURCE]:
None
If you do not believe that McDonald's should have sovereign immunity then you are NOT a lover of liberty and freedom.
No way, no how!
Indeed, at one time in America's past, McDonald's used to have absolute sovereign immunity to make hamburgers.
When McDonald's was founded in 1940, no one ever told McDonald's when, where and how to build their hamburger establishments. No one told them who they could and could not hire and fire. No one told McDonald's how big or small their hamburgers had to be. No one told them how many calories their hamburgers had to have. No one told them that they could not use the grease from the hamburger meat to cook the french fries. No one told them they had to have clean restrooms and no one even fined them if they gave their customers food poisoning.
That did not mean that an employee of McDonald's could bring a gun to the store and shoot everyone dead. That employee would be arrested for the crime of murder, like anyone else. But in those days, if an employee did such a thing, it would NEVER be assumed that McDonald's would be "arrested" for murder as the responsible party and be forced to pay a $10 million dollar civil fine. Even if the employee's manager may have been his brother-in-law and tried the cover up the crime, our government would not have sued McDonald's in court in order to wipe it out. The manager, a common citizen, was simply an accomplice to murder and was also arrested as an individual, not as an employee of McDonald's, for the crime of murder.
In fact, if McDonald's was even suspected of condoning murder by the public, no one would ever go to McDonald's thereafter and McDonald's would hence be given a corporate death sentence by "the people". No government involved, no appeals, no stay of execution.
However, in those "bad ol' days", with sovereign immunity from government, could McDonald's do anything it wanted to do, other than murder?
Absolutely not!
It was almost more of a slave than slaves ever were.
McDonald's is a slave to "We the People"
If the restrooms were not clean, half their business would dry up.
If the hamburgers tasted bad, the customers would leave and never come back, preferring Wendy's instead.
If customers did not like their french fries cooked in animal fats, before they would sue for bad nutrition, they would find a restaurant that cooked in vegetable oil, and if they could not find one, they would start a healthy-type McDonalds themselves.
You see in those days, the way to get rich was not to sue the rich, but to put out a better product than the rich were making.
And the rich were rich exactly because they were making a better product.
Every youngster knows that Steven Jobs is rich because his computers inspire them.
Reputation is everything to McDonald's and they spend billions of dollars polishing their image through advertising in order to convince you and me to come to McDonald's to eat. So if a manager was ever misaligned with the morals of "the people" they served in their community, then McDonald's would fire that manager in a heartbeat.
Even if McDonald's gave their customers food poisoning, it was assumed that McDonald's wanted their customers healthy and returning for more Happy meals. Nobody would have believed there was "intent" on the part of McDonald's to food poison. And you have to prove "intent", otherwise, it's just an unfortunate accident. No one would have punished McDonald's for food poisoning, because McDonald's was already on top of the situation and wanted to help all it could, so that the customers would know that McDonald's cared and didn't want this unfortunate thing to have happened, making amends that it would not happen again.
If McDonald's did not correct the root cause of the food poisoning, and it kept coming back, there would have been no need for a sheriff's arrest, for everyone would be eating across town at cleaner Burger Kings and McDonald would suffer the ultimate corporate death penalty!!!!!
Blockbuster is currently being given the corporate death sentence for nothing more than corporate arrogance and greed. It's DVD were hugely overpriced, "the people" were angry at being "punished" for not returning the movie the very next day, and Blockbuster made no attempt at making the viewing of movies any easier, as Netflix did with mailed DVDs and streaming movies.
There was no government involved with Blockbuster's death. Just "the people" voting with their feet.
No government taking sides, propping up one business or one religion as "good", at the expense of the other characterized as "evil". America used to be the land of the free where "the people" decided what was good and what was evil. In fact, in the "bad ol days", some of "the people" thought Baptist were good and they went to Baptist Churches while others of "the people" thought that Catholics were good and they attended Catholic Churches.
Evidently, none of "the people" believe that Puritans and Quakers are good anymore, as they are both dead religions.
Back in "Merry Old England", if a religion was deemded "evil", instead of the opposite religion preaching their own religion to the followers and converting them, they called on the government to exterminate it, ignoring the wishes of the part of "the People" who still wanted that religion.
That is why we have religious freedom today and grant each religion sovereign immunity to preach as they believe.
[ Note: I add a caviot to this concept of religious competition. A religion which believes government should squash all other religions, is one that should not be granted sovereign immunity. Today, the Jewish and Islamic religions both support government intervention into people's private religious affairs.]
If you don't agree that McDonald's and Burger KING should have sovereign immunity to make hamburgers as they see fit, then you probably don't also believe that Roman Catholics and Baptists should have sovereign immunity to dispense religious guidance according to their own moral will.
People rail at the Supreme Court making itself "the Sovereign" in any decision they don't like, but then many of them would be the first to run to the courts to have them impose their own will upon the rest of us, thus insuring that the government continues to think of themselves as "our Sovereign" in all things, including how to make hamburgers and how to pray to God.
Article located at:
http://www.thechristiansolution.com/doc2011/399_McDonaldsasSovereign.html
