Big Bad Corporations (and other nasty words)

      "Corporations."  It's one of those words that leftist-liberal-progressives love to use a lot because it has a negative ring to it.   As leftist-liberalism continues its rise in popularity here in America, especially among the millennial crowd, expect to hear the word a lot more in the coming months.

      Technically a "corporation" is any organization that has incorporated itself.  It is a specific type of legal entity, and could be a for-profit business, a non-profit, a charity, or even a municipal government.  It could be a one-person outfit, such as an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation), or it could be very large.  Being incorporated shields the organization's owners from liability.  If you think that's a bad thing, well, that's a separate topic for a separate article.
      But I suppose that when a leftist uses the word, what he/she is really referring to is a for-profit BUSINESS.  Leftists HATE for-profit businesses.  Why?  Well, because they make profit, and use some of their profit to create jobs, hire people, and pay them salaries.  How awful! 
      Remember that a for-profit business could a tiny mom-and-pop shop, and all the employees could be family members.  No matter!  They make a profit, so that makes them evil, and thus instead of calling them "businesses", leftists call them "corporations."

     If you're a leftist and reading this, you're probably screaming:  "No - a corporation is NOT a mom-and-pop shop.  A corporation is a BIG business!"  Which of course begs the question of what exactly constitutes "big".  Ten employees?  A hundred?  More than a thousand?  

      So lemme get this straight:  a mom-and-pop shop that creates a small handful of jobs (if any) is Ok, but a business that creates thousands of jobs is evil?

      Actually, if you hate large, incorporated businesses because they hoard so much profit, YOU can get in on the game too, you know.  Most of them are publicly owned, which means you can buy shares of their stock, and easily become filthy rich also, and you don't have to lift a finger! 
      Oh, so you have no desire to be filthy rich?  Well it's your life, your call.
      Anyway, bottom line:  use the correct term "business", not "corporation", when spewing your vile and hatred for entrepreneurs who start up companies and make a profit.

      And while we're on the topic of calling things by their correct name, let's delve a bit into the term "socialism".  There's a lot of heated debate out there over whether or not the United States or Denmark or Norway are "socialist" countries, or becoming thus, as the right-wing claims.  The semantic "purists" insist that no, they are not technically "socialist" because "the government does not own the means of production".
      The whole debate misses the point.
      The debate should be regarding which is better:  big government, or small government.  The terms "big" and "small" are, of course, relative, and somewhat subjective.  But it's fairly straight-forward to determine if some proposed government action or legislation is making it bigger or smaller. 
     So whenever a right-winger proclaims that some new government program such as a health-care system is "socialist", stop quibbling over the technical definition of the term.  What the right-winger is saying is that this program makes the government BIGGER.  Then you can argue the pros and cons of it.