[moshegramovsky]

It really makes me wonder why someone with that much wealth needs to go around making life worse for other people. At this point, it feels like a sickness.

It's interesting that the constitution prevents America from having a king, or at least it used to, but maybe the founders didn't think about other kinds of kings.

Because we're in a place, or we're getting to a place, where that's exactly what we have.

[resters]

I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that the nuisance that a middle class person might feel from an urban tent city or a rat infestation is quite similar to the nuisance that an extremely wealthy person would feel from the entire middle class.

[k8sToGo]

Usually these people are wealthy because of the type of person they are and not the other way around

[ryandvm]

Bingo. You don't get to be a billionaire by being chill, live and let live kind of guy. You take whenever you get the chance.

[pbhjpbhj]

They generally got their wealth by making life worse for other people - isn't it just more of the same.

[givemeethekeys]

Their customers are governments. People keep voting for politicians that will happily trade freedom for security.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

> the constitution prevents America from having a king

This is only true until SCOTUS invents a new interpretation of the constitution that not only allows for a king, but asserts it must have a king (provided they are republican). I mean, who is going to stop them from doing that? Really though, who?

[asacrowflies]

We the people.

[wartywhoa23]

Vampires have to do with blood only tangentially. It is vital energy in a broad sense that they're after, and stomping on people's freedom and privacy is but another way to suck it out.

[righthand]

The constitution just enabled “many kings” through commerce rather than answering to a single king. Now the many kings take turns rotating into the leadership roles as they own the representation (the other thing the constitution enables) and snack on other kings.

And when one of the favorite many kings fail they have the representatives say “this king is too big to fail, don’t let the small kings eat him, prop him up with money from the masses”.

[b_e_n_t_o_n]

I doubt he sees it like that. Plenty of authoritarians think authoritarianism is best for society.

[sizzzzlerz]

'long as they're the authoritarians-in-charge.

[stirfish]

I genuinely think he's trying to sell more storage

[majormajor]

"Concentration of power on the scale of today's mega-companies is bad" is an idea that would've resonated with the founders of the US. But it wasn't the immediate issue they were fighting, so it's not what got written down.

The greatest trick of the elites has been convincing people that the Constitution is a holy religious artifact at this point instead of a document that will still need major patches as the world changes around it.

Or maybe it's encouraging holy wars over the words of the Constitution while simply ignoring it - and especially the overall suspicion of power - whenever convenient. And thus we get a world where criticism of agents of the government is treason instead of patriotic oversight; where the police don't police their own but close ranks against external complaints.

[ottah]

The constitution was written by the wealthy elites of society, for the wealthy elites of society to be free of the tyranny of a monarchy. It was not created to grant equal rights to all people. I.E., see the 3/5ths personhood of enslaved people.

[alexgieg]

That's a misunderstanding of the intention of that provision. Back in the day slave owners had as many "votes" as they had slaves (the slaves themselves didn't vote), under the assumption they "cared for" those slaves and were representing them. This gave them immense political power.

To curb the power of slave owners the anti-slavery States managed to approve, against slave owners' interests, the rule their slaves didn't count as full votes. This way slave owners had less total votes, strengthening the abolitionist camp.