We, the righteous of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, declare war to the knife on Glenn Reynolds: this odious, smarmy, bare-faced turd is the cause:

READER DOUG LEVENE has this Enron-related observation:
Forgive me for venting, but here it is: Leftists claim that they are for "people before profits." For Ford to save $10.00/car at the cost of one life/million cars/year is an unacceptable tradeoff. There is no acceptable tradeoff of lives, of personal safety, against mere money, in the Naderite/Anarchist/Socialist weltanschauung. That's OK, I guess, but why then do leftists get so exercised at white collar crimes, such as apparently took place at Enron, which threaten no lives, no one's personal safety, while weeping copious tears for the muggers and other violent offenders who fill our prisons? Logically, if you believe in "people before profits" shouldn't you be more upset at the mugger who steals $5.00 at gunpoint than at the corporate executive who pumps and dumps and walks away with millions?

Beats me. But I'm sure that Nader has a well-thought-out answer that he's eager to share.

Yo - Glenn - us effete leftoidical schnobs (well, me) do not get the vapors over the potential endangerment of life or limb. Nice straw man. And, for that matter, screw Nader too. His belly is stuffed with grass. The deeper principle is that of corruption of power. The laws permit corporations; they are chartered in the public interest. In return for the legal recognition of various fictions of personhood - which I will not argue with - I understand that they are essential to capitalism - corporations operate under certain, essential restrictions of law. Because they can possess great civil power, through the wielding of great economic power, they must be so restricted. Unconstrained, the officers of Enron used their private but law-cloaked power to commit great thefts and frauds. They stole tens of billions of dollars from millions of people. I want to know why Reynolds'chen tolerates and trivializes this fraud and theft because it is private, commercial, unlinked to the demos, when the same fraud and theft in government is cause for lynching.

Spit.

I have Reynold's number now, and all the numbers of all the people who emphatically underline the republicanism of our form of government - legality without the legitimation of democracy, in the service of aristocracy.