It isn't an arbitrary line.
Looking at a dictionary definition, you are right. It was not a single individual that made the decision.
It can be drawn elsewhere though. 1%. 2%. 0.5%. It's still a drawn line.
Aaah, good old reductio ad Hitlerum.
OH MY GOD! I MENTIONED HITLER!I'm not trying to get emotional responses here, it is what it is. A ruler rises to power by blaming a small minority for all the problems and then persecutes that minority afterward in a large scale. I don't know any American who doesn't immediately see that and go "Oh, It's Hitler and Nazi Germany." Maybe I need to broaden the group of people I know. This even beats out the Witch Trials. Maybe I need to know fewer witches that are WW2 nuts? Perhaps I should poll second graders, since when I read the above statement omitting the last part about what most Americans say to my sixth grade nephew, he immediately responded with this:
"It's the German guy who killed Christians. Wait, not Christians, Jews. It's Hitler. Hitler is who you are talking about."
He does say he watched some discovery channel episodes, so maybe the average sixth grader is different?
If you bothered to actually read ... but screw them, they deserve it all.
This is my point. There in is the danger of any us against them mentality, and the smaller the "them" in relation to "us", the bigger the problem. I agree with the main aims of the Occupy Wallstreet movement, but I don't approve of them taking this attitude. I don't believe in having streets run red with the blood of rulers. I would rather see rulers sweep the streets that they used to own. Hard to do that when their heads are busy occupying pikes. There are people in that 1% who support the 99%. Lines generally don't work. 1% means 1 out of 100 people, just to remind people that there is a reality behind the words used.
...It's not even radically different...
There is the problem. The form of government was responsible for the current state of affairs. What you are talking about is the individual voters having problems with the people involved. This became a Government Corruption issue very quickly and ceased being a "Corporate Governance."
Corporations don't actually govern, instead they rule our politicians. The difference between the US and Sweden is just the degree of power that the corporations have over slow erosion of laws. Sweden isn't Immune, it just isn't in the stranglehold that creates the same feedback loop just yet. Prosperity can easily wipe away Sweden's superior position while you aren't looking. Prosperity like what the US had so long. Also, Quick Google Search of Sweden Government Corruption spat the name of Systembolaget out.
Here's a link.It might not be as bad as ours, but all the precursors to serious corruption are there.
The constitutional convention wasn't a rebellion. It was a peaceful assembly.
That's why the people standing on street corners is such a great thing. Hopefully they stay a peaceful assembly even as crackdowns increase in intensity and frequency. Sooner or later support will be greater for them than the desire for staying out of the cold.
As for OWS's end goals, it smells a lot like Socialism. In fact the people in my local group talk about achieving Utopia. He did this while hiding his mouth from me with clasped prayer hands and repeatedly bowing. Quite an odd fellow.
I CERTAINLY don't want Communism. I don't want Socialism either. I like owning the fruits of my efforts, and it just makes sense that I do so when you boil it right down to the basics. The problem is, when I am producing surplus fruits and only harm comes to others from me having these fruits, we have a problem. I think ideally what we need is a form of altruistic capitalism. The problem is I can't even fathom what a system like that would look like. A place where there is a cap on max wealth, probably, but still allows people to succeed on merit. Without handouts, but greater "hand-ups" I don't have any clue how to make such a thing, but it seems to me to be better than the unfettered capitalism we have.