CNN fails to understand “pro-business”
Covering the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, a CNN anchor today was attempting to enlighten her viewers regarding Sotomayor’s judicial decisions regarding business issues. The anchor said that we could determine if the judge is “pro-business” by looking at how often she’s ruled in favor of “huge corporations” (or something along those lines). Apparently, this anchor (and probably CNN in general) fails to grasp an extremely basic truth of reality: that government policies and rulings that favor large, powerful corporations are very often detrimental to business overall. The extensive taxation and regulatory powers of our government result in larger companies expending great resources to persuade politicians to write laws that favor established players (and sometimes even specific companies) and hinder smaller companies or newcomers to the market. That’s why so many “safety” and “quality” rules for consumer goods are pushed by the big players in a given industry–they want to use the government to crush their competitors. And, ironically, the ‘pro-consumer’ Ralph Nader’s of the world come out in force in support of these anti-competitive and anti-consumer regulations.
Since CNN seems to have trouble with such concepts, maybe they’d be less confused (and confusing) if they used more appropriate terminology. They should ask whether a judge’s rulings are pro-free-market or pro-government-control.
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