I'm stealing this.

Never thought of it that way! Thanks for the insight!

Like the thread and the jokes were good. However, overall I feel like this is just ranting in the dark... Then again and partly as a response to this thread, I created a petition for something Congress could actually do to help fix the broken relationship between corporations and the rest of American society: Put human rights OVER corporate rights.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/support-constitutional-amendment-stating-human-rights-have-strong-priority-over-corporate-rights/5npNyRlc

There's also the short URL of http://wh.gov/OBF3 that points at the same place.

Just to clarify, the current situation is that most businesspeople are fine and upstanding folks. They are NOT the ones causing the problems. What we have now are the LEAST ethical and GREEDIEST businessman (legally) bribing the CHEAPEST professional politicians to write the WORST laws. The rules of the business game in America now require your company to grow like a malignant cancer just to survive. This is a sick game, and the cancer always kills its host. Dead with the most toys is still dead.

It is insane to claim otherwise. A corporation is a legal fiction, created BY the state solely as a creature of legislation and with perquisites inherent in that legislation. The SOLE authority behind enforcement of those perquisites is the power of the state, as granted BY THE PEOPLE. Absent the laws and enforcement powers of the state, a corporation does not exist. That is, quite literally, the very meaning of an 'entitlement.'

The very notion that the people, under whose rights and authority the state operates in even creating a 'corporation,' have no primacy with respect to those corporations is insane and beyond contempt.

I actually agree that corporations are legal fictions, but the problem is when they participate in contracts. I don't believe that they are human beings, but some slimy justice on the Supreme Court (I believe it was actually another slimy chief justice like Roberts), slipped the claim of corporate personhood into a ruling, and no one has been able to throw it out since then. Actually, it was slimier than that. He just claimed out of thin air that the status had already been created--and it didn't even matter for the ruling that was under consideration.

That's why I think this indirect approach would be an effective approach, though of course I'd like to see a better one. However, I think there are two reasons in favor of this approach. First, I think it would be difficult for any politician to stand up and claim that corporations should have superior or equal rights to corporations. That's not to deny that lots of them feel and act that way, but just that they can't say it. Second, that kind of Constitutional Amendment would basically force the Supreme Court to overturn themselves in the most convoluted and contorted way possible, which should be amusing. The masters of pretzel logic should be hoist by their own petards, so to speak.

If ANYTHING is within federal power under the Commerce clause, it's the unhindered authority to establish, by STATUTE, limits on the entitlements that can be granted to corporations by ANY state. It is beyond question that a 'corporation' is engaged in interstate commerce... indeed, in international commerce. The SOLE rationale for the very existence of a corporation is to enable people with assets to engage in some specified project or enterprise without exposing their personal assets to any liabilities stemming from the behavior of that corporation. Thus, at its very core a 'corporation' IS "tort reform." It is a "license to steal" (like a Letter of Marque) ... or do whatever it's chartered to do without exposing its owners to liability for that behavior.

Thus, the statutory liberties granted to those legal fictions can, and should, be steadfastly limited by federal statute. No greater authority need be granted to the Federal government than is already within its power under the Constitution. By raising the bar to that of a Constitutional Amendment, the power of our government is being unnecessarily weakened. SCOTUS, in effect, was merely observing that no such limitation on the activities of corporations were ALREADY established and that EXISTING laws (state and federal) permitted corporate 'speech' without limits inherent in the "license" they have. So, rather than addressing political activities per se, it is only necessary to limit, by federal statute, the legal entitlements that CAN be granted to corporations by any state.


Caveat: IANAL ... but I play one in my imagination.


Afterthought: It's interesting that most folks (sheeple?) think (assume?) that the entitlements granted corporations actually EXCEED the rights of human beings. That is, of course, impossible. The government can only operate with DERIVED authority ... the authority of The People themselves. Thus, the "political speech" we see under the 'protections' of a corporate entity have to be within the rights of people themselves. Thus, there's NOTHING to prevent Sheldon Adelson, for example, from engaging DIRECTLY in the political 'speech' he's funding by proxy to some protection from personal liability inherent in a corporation ... nothing, that is, but the LIABILITY itself.

Could you be a little more condescending?

The OP and your rant are addressing two different concerns. Both are valid concerns.

Last edited Sun Jul 8, 2012, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

including your post, so why bother posting at all?

You have to do these things quickly.

It's incredulous how Republican members of Congress have behaved during the past 3-4 years and how that behavior is not only being encouraged but (largely) being REWARDED at the polls. IMHO they need to start paying a political price for their behavior but they could very well hold the House, win the Senate, and, potentially, the WH because of (or in spite of) this sort of behavior!

I've never thought about it in this way. You're 100% correct. You couldn't get away with any of this in any company anywhere.

Whereas government is to "provide for the general welfare..."

and, unfortunately, the guy the Republicans are running isn't even all that good at making profit. Lining his own pockets, sure. Making the companies he bought profitable? Only in about half the buys he made.

to choose you for the job either.