> This very American attitude of separating "business enterprises" from "consumers", which to me sounds like separating the noble and important from peasants or cattle, is utterly sickening

I'm kind of on the fence about this. My counterargument to your comment is that the iPhone, Google search, global shipping, oil production, etc. could not be created by individuals. These things exist because huge groups of humans organized into things called "businesses".

Protecting businesses is like protecting the economies of states. There are massive effects for lots of people if businesses are not treated well. So yes, businesses get special deals sometimes. Unfortunately, this is a slippery slope, and people often fall down it.

To me, the truth in your comment is that US culture tends to give credit to CEOs for the efforts of all the other people in the organization. And this can be easily conflated with all kinds of other issues like "fines are just things that are illegal for poor people".