Lemme ask you this: did the US government cover up Watergate, or was it just some guys in the government who did it?
Having the board of directors in on it would be a start. If the vast majority of an institution (including most of the ostensible decision makers) has no idea that something is going on, then you can’t say the organization, as a whole, is culpable.
OK, fair enough. To me, “organizing” has a different implication and involves more planning and independent thought than deciding where to place the cups, but I’ll certainly grant that even attending is odious enough that it deserves comment.
I’d say when the President gets the Attorney General to release some burglars, the US government is acting. So: the US government.
Now you: BP Oil?
ACORN didn’t know about the embezzlement. Those executives were not ACORN.
I don’t say that everuynbody who works for BPO is corrupt, no. But that’s a false analogy. BP did not involve a few execs keeping secrets from the rest of the company. The bad decisions were made with the knowledge of all those responsible for running the company. That’s not the case with ACORN.
And this is consistent with how you feel about British Petroleum?
Really? The board of BP approved the bad decisions? I’d surely love to see a cite for that claim.
Sorry, I don’t know enough about the BP Oil thing to have an informed opinion.
For the former, I’d say we have a difference of opinion on who (or what) was culpable in the Watergate scandal.
To me, it was a few people within the government misusing their offices.
Now the Gulf of Tonkin or Iraq 2003, that was the whole government doing wrong.
I’m surprised that you can’t see the difference between the situations, because to me (and apparently to many others), they are as plain as day.
If your wife robs a bank, did the whole Bricker family rob the bank?
Your logic here is specious at best, to me.
ETA: Nice try at changing the discussion to be about BP oil, tho. I can’t believe anyone is falling for it, but then you’ve honed your diversionary tactics well over the years, haven’t you?
I don’t know who knew what in BP. Are you suggesting the decison to drill in the Gulf of Mexico was made in secret, by a small cabal of execs, without the knowledge of the Board.
Not at all.
Are YOU suggesting that the “bad decision” was simply to drill in the Gulf of Mexico? Gonna be a short trial if that’s all the plaintiff has to prove.
Of course not. But if my wife works for a company, and in the course of her employment, to benefit her company, robs a bank, then her company might be civilly liable for the act. (Vicarious criminal liability is a much higher bar). A family is not a company and a wife not an employee. But the idea that a company is liable when its employees do something wrong is well-known in law.
No, it’s a perfect analogy. You lot want to be able to paint ACORN as blameless, the victim of a few bad apple execs, and simultaneously hold BP Oil, Halliburton, Blackwater, etc., liable as companies for the bad acts of their employees.
Name one major corporation that got “defunded” because of its actions. Hell, name one company that admitted wrong doing. Those companies you cite are targets because of systematic violations, not just one frameup job. BP still gets subsidies. Halliburton still got no bid contracts. Blackwater, oh I mean Xe is still a major if not the major contractor for the State Department’s security needs.
Doggyknees, he suckered you. He’s already conceded the major issues here, and is fighting a rear-guard action on a very minor point, thus allowing him to pretend that this trivial point is as important as the point he’s conceded.
“It’s true, my client did, in fact, push an old lady in front of a bus and then rifled her purse for change. Dreadful behavior, to be sure. But these parking tickets are totally bogus!”
“Whaddaya talking? Those are standard parking tickets, signed and authorized by…”
“Oh? Do you have a videotape of my client parking the car? Fingerprints? Testimony by forensic experts in car location techniques?”
He doesn’t care how minor the point, so long as he wins one. Shrug it off.
What decisions do you think were made without the board’s knowledge?
Um - like I said above the thing that really did ACORN in was private donors losing faith in its leadership. Probably the same way I and a lot of other Republicans lost faith in the leadership of the RNC in the last couple of years. Certainly the RNC say a major dropoff of donations in that time.
Now, I continued to donate politically in that time - just like ACORN donors probably did, to organizations or candidates they felt better about.
You wouldn’t have had the exodus if it weren’t clear that ACORD was getting nailed to the wall. Even BP is getting to avoid the $20 Billion it set aside against costs of the spill.
Private corporations are NOT held to the same standards. Let’s see what happens when the US declares that Corporation X won’t be getting any government business, even for a limited time. BP’s decline WITHOUT that started getting UK intervention.
Only because they were deceived by O’Keefe’s dishonest smear job.
Ohhhhhh. I get it now. You’re trying to play your “liberal hypocrisy” card again. :rolleyes:
The problem is, if you really think that the whole ACORN organization was guilty, then you must also believe that all those other organizations were guilty. But you don’t, do you?
Not going to read the whole thread, so sorry if this was already addressed, but no. From O’Keefe’s own site:
Again it’s possible that you are confused about the difference between “guilty” in a criminal context and “liable” in a civil context. (It’s also possible you were using ‘guilty’ in a non-technical sense to mean civilly liable.)
So let’s be crystal clear. I don’t believe ACORN is criminally guilty. But I believe ACORN is liable for the acts of those employees.
I don’t believe Blackwater is criminally guilty. But, yes, I absolutely believe that they are liable for the acts of their employees.
In other words, I don’t change how I judge the situation based on how much I favor or disfavor the goals of the actors. You have already shown that you do.
Yes, I do think those organizations are equally “guilty” – that is to say, liable – for the actions of their employees.