The 28th Ammendment: Corporations are not People. Spread the word! n/t

[Scuba]

[rurallib]

1. Link?

[Scuba]

2. Sorry. Here's some...

http://openleft.com/diary/20942/voters-support-constitutional-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united-decision

http://washingtonindependent.com/106541/following-citizens-united-minnesota-democrats-want-constitutional-amendment-to-clarify-%E2%80%98natural-person%E2%80%99

http://lmgtfy.com

[RickFromMN]

3. If corporations are people, and people die, be it old age or what, when do corporporations die?

I'd like to see an amendment that says the corporation "dies" when they change the Chairman of the Board,
and the Chairman of the Board must be a human, not an artificial life form.

The "new" corporation that rises, with the incoming Chairman of the Board, is the "heir".

I'd like to collect inheritance taxes when this happens.

Of course somebody will do their best to get rid of inheritance taxes so what I like won't matter anyway.

[Scuba]

4. Again, illustrating the ludicrousness of Citizens United. n/t

[indepat]

24. I love the term ludicrousness 'cause it's so descriptive of the utter contempt for America conveyed

in nearly every 5-to-4 decision rendered by the majority comprising a group sometimes dubbed the felonious five. :applause:

[Bettie]

8. Also, if a corporation owns another one.....

...isn't that slavery?

[Shiver]

11. Hmmm...

If corporations are people... and people pay taxes... then corporations should pay taxes!

[RickFromMN]

17. I have a radical, probably dumb question, can labor unions incorporate?

I was thinking of the privileges we give corporations.

They deduct lunches and meals as business expenses.
They deduct travel and entertainment as business expenses.
I accept there are limitations to these deductions, but the fact these deductions exist at all....

We have temp agencies that provide "workers" to businesses.

What would happen if workers created a "union" corporation?
This "union" corporation would act like a temp agency to generate revenue.
This "union" corporation would gives its employees buying power to get good prices on products.

If old-style corporations don't want to deal with our "union" corporation,
our "union" corporation wouldn't want to buy the products of old-style corporations.

I'm not sure if this idea would work.

Please criticize this idea...please find holes...please shoot it down.

I feel sorry for the next generation; I am in my fifties.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, my parent's generation worked for the same company,
cradle to grave, through the course of their lives.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, my generation works for different companies,
over time, but stayed in the same industry, through the course of our lives.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, the next generation will work for different companies,
in different industries, through the course of their lives.

I think the next generation will have it harder than we had it.

[RickFromMN]

19. I thought people would want to limit political free speech to those who can vote?

Do we want people from foreign countries funnelling lots of money into our campaigns?

When will the day arrive when corporations get to vote?
Won't the rich create dummy corporations for the purpose of having those dummy corporations vote?

When will a machine act like a human, to such an extent, we say its a living "person" with the right to vote?
Won't the rich create lots of these living machines for the purpose of having these machines vote?

My head is spinning. I hope you get a good laugh from this speculation.

[Zorra]

18. When people kill them for oppressing them. nt

[Historic NY]

5. Yeah, where's their long form?

[Snoutport]

25. would arson now be murder if you burned down a corporate headquarters?

could a tack in a corporate bulletin board now be assault?

[2gabby]

6. what i dont get

Sure I don't get a lot of things, but, corporate personhood is bizarre. What I wonder is why isn't a "person" defined as having, or having had, a living brain, a single person. I just don't see how rights can be granted to non-living entities. How can the opinion of a group of people, like corporate interests, can be seen as free speech, for example. How can a brainless entity have a "thought"? Since when are group agreements the same as free speech? Isn't that the reason WHY we need free speech in the first place? Was it just the government against which we needed this freedom? I'm not even sure if other nations have similar court decisions, but I know it makes us look like brainless idiots, just as I'm sure many well educated individuals feel smugly superior in explaining how it is legal, and even logical.

[Siouxmealso]

7. Be careful what you wish for

If "corporate personhood" is reversed, by what authority will the government have to tax them? Name another inanimate object that is subject to taxation. Do unions pay taxes? I don't know.

Corporations use 1st Amendment rights to advertise. They're not allowed to lie in their ads but they are allowed to pitch their product and even bad-mouth their competitors in their ads. Would that go away too?

[Siouxmealso]

9. What I meant to say was ..

Name another inanimate object that's subject to an INCOME tax.

[Scuba]

12. I would argue that taxation is a seperate issue....

...from unbridled advertising and other funding to influence elections. To allow it to be anonymous is just icing on the cake for them.

A winger posted on another blog recently that unions shouldn't be able to fund campaigns and then negotiate with those they just helped elect. Well, neither should corporations, who do much more than negotiate on the back end of the equation.

Campaign finance reform, in the name of a Constitutional Ammendment is perhaps the most important thing we can do in the name of our democracy.

[zeemike]

10. Well let me reverse the question.

If they are not persons what right do they have to not pay taxes leaved to them?
If the constitution established the rights of persons then non persons should not have those rights unless given to them by the government by charter....which can be revoked at any time for any reason we want to.
That is how it used to be and how the founding fathers intended it to be....CLEARLY

[Scuba]

13. Thank you for your well crafted position on this. Excellent. n/t

[2gabby]

15. yes, i see your point

Those are the kinds of questions I can't answer. I wasn't aware it was personhood that allowed corporate taxation.

Now I think the Libertarian answer ought to be that their taxes don't seem to be helping us much, since personhood seems to have given them more than enough ability to run over our rights, and our people, and other people too. I'm not sure the trouble over getting corporate taxes is worth personhood status, and they should be stripped down, is what they ought to say, but they won't cause I think they lost their way long before everyone else. It just cracks me up, how they worry about a "free" market and government regulation. But this stuff about immortal people who can't go to jail, it just hurts my head, its so twisted. Republican neocons are bad, and I can disagree with Democratic ideas strongly, but the neolibertarisns make me nuts. Issues like this are the worst.

[Occulus]

22. If corporate personhood were abolished, ideally corporations would have NO "rights" as we define it

No right to free speech (to advertise), no right to bear arms (hiring armed security), no right to security in their papers and effects (and thus able to be thoroughly searched/audited at any time, for any reason or no reason), no right against self-incrimination, no property rights, no legal rights to representation, NONE of it.

Basically, since they're not people, they have no rights. At all. Period.

This would mean that a corporation that is a bad actor could be sentenced in a star chamber proceeding to pay 100% tax on all profits for being a "bad actor", such as polluting waterways, abusing employees, etc.

I am all for this. Corporations can live forever, pull off their arms and make a new "person", own other "people", and o and on as things currently stand. It's time, and past time, to start legally regarding them as the tools they are, and nothing more.

[CommonSensePLZ]

14. Agree, but this will be an uphill battle

In Tea Party America. I can just hear it "This socialist regulation of the constitution is why there's no jobs! America must be anti-business!"

[OwnedByFerrets]

16. According to the Supreme Court, they are......whether we like

it or not.

[Cleita]

20. I was kind of hoping they were.

I would love to have insurance corporations arrested and charged with rape. :sarcasm:

In other words, we should start treating them like persons and holding them to the law as such for criminality and other breaches of the law which they practice with impunity.

[Scuba]

21. Why aren't their execs charged with murder for profit? n/t

edited for spelling

[Jim Lane]

23. This is not the way to deal with Citizens United

This amendment would greatly weaken the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, two bulwarks of liberty that apply to a "person".

Right now the Fourteenth Amendment restricts state power: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." If no corporation is protected by these provisions, then consider what a state government dominated by the Tea Party might do. If a corporation owns a newspaper, and the Governor (Scott Walker?) doesn't like what the newspaper is saying about him, he orders its printing presses confiscated. That couldn't happen now because of the Due Process Clause, which protects all persons, including corporate persons. If this amendment were adopted, it could happen.

And don't tell me that Walker couldn't violate the First Amendment that way. The First Amendment says that Congress can't abridge freedom of speech or of the press. It's been applied to the states only through the , which depends on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Incidentally, the federal government is also subject to the due process requirement of the Fifth Amendment, which says that "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...." Do you want President Palin to be able to do whatever she wants to corporations that displease her?

A constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. A better solution would be to clarify that the government may impose reasonable regulations on the conduct involved in spending huge amounts of money on a political campaign. That would also remove the advantage currently enjoyed by rich natural persons. None of us may contribute more than a certain amount to another individual's campaign, but Mike Bloomberg can spend all he wants on his own campaign. An amendment focused on campaign spending would address that problem as well as the Citizens United problem, without threatening to undo basic liberties that corporations should enjoy.