It’s time to end the War on Corporations. A good place to start would be to stop lashing out at treasonous non-state actors like some kind of economic police force, and start addressing the root causes of this phenomenon. Ideally, we would also try to stamp out Corporate-phobia in America, an ugly sentiment that ignores the legitimate grievances of corporations, and in some cases drives them to engage in economic treason.
Anti-corporate hostility reached new heights this week following the announcement that Burger King was acquiring Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons in order to relocate its headquarters to Canada for tax purposes, a process known as an "inversion." The move comes a month after U.S. pharmaceutical company moved its headquarters to Ireland via inversion in order to enjoy a lower tax rate.
.@BurgerKing Latest Anti-American Traitor Talks to Buy Canadian Chain @TimHortons To Shirk Taxes http://t.co/nVV7sA2aBR
— Warm Southern Breeze (@WSouthernBreeze) August 25, 2014
Corporate desertion has to stop! No more Burger King stops. Boycott is in order if inversion moves an inch. http://t.co/u2VM2hksoD — Dave Domina (@DaveDomina) August 26, 2014
This Burger King tax dodge thing is making me sputter. Just outrageous: http://t.co/p7y0PQEsiV — Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) August 26, 2014
It's official. BK is a traitor to the country that started them. http://t.co/NvLE5lZHWC — Bill Binan (@whitepants) August 26, 2014
Next time ur @BurgerKing order a Whopper w extra tax avoidance and a side of Traitor Tots #inversion #unAmerican #unPatriotic — Dave Geller (@KllrDave) August 25, 2014
Burger King to Buy Tim Hortons & move to Canada for tax breaks. Not cool. http://t.co/qc6LiuWbbS — mia farrow (@MiaFarrow) August 26, 2014
I will NEVER step foot in a Burger King or Tim Hoton's again. NEVER. Corporations use resources from the public, they MUST pay some taxes. — Oregonemom (@Oregonemom) August 26, 2014
If corporations are people, how can Burger King buy Tim Hortons? I thought slavery was illegal. — Liberal Dan Radio (@LiberalDanRadio) August 26, 2014
Prominent lawmakers, including the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, piled on:
.@BurgerKing wants your money. Now they want you to pay their taxes too. Time to ditch the Whopper? http://t.co/BYwXsEuVQs
— Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) August 26, 2014
Senator Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) called for a boycott of Burger King. There's a lot of hate flying around right now, which is understandable. After all, President Obama has called for a new era of "economic patriotism." Why won’t the corporations just suck it up and do what he says? That's a fair question, but perhaps we should be asking a different, more profound question: Could U.S. policy be driving corporations to treason? U.S. policies toward corporations are nothing short of dehumanizing. For example, they are subject to the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world and are routinely denounced as less than human. 
The government's efforts to attack corporations, as opposed to reaching out and trying to understand what motivates them, are reflected in American society at large. Corporations are "othered" by intolerant segments of the population, and their beliefs labeled "evil" by scaremongers, which can present a dangerous moral hazard, especially when all corporations are lumped into one group, rather than differentiating the traitors from the vast majority of peaceful corporations. 
As Michael J. Boyle, an associate professor of political science at La Salle University, recently explained in the New York Times, such behavior "tends to obscure [a] group’s strategic aims and preclude further analysis. Resorting to ritualized rhetoric can be a very costly mistake if it leads one to misunderstand an enemy and to take actions that inadvertently help its cause." It's time for the United States, as a government and as a society, to admit that our policies and our rhetoric have played a role in driving American corporations from our shores. If we are to ever know peace, maybe we should stop waging war against a faceless enemy, and start embracing the views of Hollywood celebs.
The new Canadian Burger King is a good example of how high tax rates kill business and, ultimately, American jobs. — Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) August 26, 2014