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Corporate Personhood

Should Corproations have "personhood" rights?

  • Yes, corporations are just like a person

    Votes: 6 9.4%

  • No, corporations are not just like a person

    Votes: 58 90.6%
  • Total voters
    64
I still don't see what's wrong with the public being taxed X amount of dollars ($5) to fund elections. PERIOD. Radio and TV should be forced (since they are public airwaves and they are supposed to provide public service) to allow each candidate an equal amount of campaign ads and run them back to back.

Let's get the money out of our elections so that we can get the money out of our government and return control to THE PEOPLE.
 
jamesrage said:
I am not sure about actual person hood but under the first amendment we have the right to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. A corporation would technically be an assembly of people much the same way unions,religious groups, NRA and other lobby groups and other groups of people. So therefore the first amendment applies to them as well. This is why I think the real is issues is campaign donations not personhood.

I however do not believe that donating money is speech seeing how speech is verbal and or nonverbal communication(written,typed, sign language and etc) with words(this also means that flag burning is not speech) nor is donating money a form of addressing grievances to the government since money is not communication. I could be wrong but I do not ever remember in history class of any of our founding forefathers saying that donating money to politicians is a form of speech or addressing grievances to the government. Also we should keep in mind our constitutional rights only apply to American citizens,so no foreign government,foreign company/multinational companies should have the right to petition our government for anything. So I do not believe limiting campaign contributions is a violation of the constitution(unless there is a amendment that specifically says there is not limit to campaign contributions ) and if one person is limited in donating money then so should everyone else.
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I believe you are GREATLY stretching the meaning of "assembly".
 
NoJingoLingo said:
I still don't see what's wrong with the public being taxed X amount of dollars ($5) to fund elections. PERIOD. Radio and TV should be forced (since they are public airwaves and they are supposed to provide public service) to allow each candidate an equal amount of campaign ads and run them back to back.

Let's get the money out of our elections so that we can get the money out of our government and return control to THE PEOPLE.
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Who has proved that radio and tv are public airwaves and so are supposed to provide public service? That's not self-evident.

The amount of publicity you get is proportional to the amount of support that you have. What's wrong with that?
 
NoJingoLingo said:
I still don't see what's wrong with the public being taxed X amount of dollars ($5) to fund elections. PERIOD. Radio and TV should be forced (since they are public airwaves and they are supposed to provide public service) to allow each candidate an equal amount of campaign ads and run them back to back.
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Because with the fund, you still have all the same Bill of Rights issues.

Let's get the money out of our elections so that we can get the money out of our government and return control to THE PEOPLE.
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Suppose they did. THEN what are you going to blame the problems on?

(Not to mention that pretty much whenever someone says something about "giving power to the people," they have a pretty solidified idea of what "the people" will do . . . and when "the people" inevitably don't do that . . . )
 
phattonez said:
It would be an arbitrary limit though. Have you ever thought about why politicians get a salary for their work in government? It's not the way it always used to be.
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sdfl;jfs;lfj;skd

every limit is an arbitrary limit if you put it that way

what does politicians getting a salary have to do with anything?
 
Chuz Life said:
I do believe that a corporation has the same rights as a person. But I'm perplexed by the fact (in the eyes of some people) that a corporation has more of a right (claim) to personhood than a human pre-birth child does.
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Can you explain why you think an entity that the government creates and can terminate at will, for the purpose of shielding the entities owners from liability, should have the protected the same rights that I have?
 
NoJingoLingo said:
I believe you are GREATLY stretching the meaning of "assembly".
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He's not, but if he is, that's OK, because reading the Bill of Rights as expansively as possible strikes me as very the right thing to do.
 
Areopagitican said:
I think that's because corporations A: respect the laws of the country B: don't attempt to kill civilians. Of course, to my knowledge. Once Apple starts bombing crowded subways, and Microsoft starts ignoring the laws of this country as a matter of course; please tell me.
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A) You're wrong
B) You're wrong

Does it have to be Apple and Microsoft or can we use other examples? :roll: I can name MANY.
 
Chuz Life said:
Yes,..

And even more so than just metaphorically.

When you incorporate a human egg cell with a human sperm cell,.. You create a new "person."
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In your opinion. In reality it's a zygote. Let's not derail the thread.
 
nerv14 said:
sdfl;jfs;lfj;skd

every limit is an arbitrary limit if you put it that way

what does politicians getting a salary have to do with anything?
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Well, most government imposed limits are arbitrary.

Without a politician's salary, they would be dependent on companies for their livelihood. They would basically be corporate representatives in government because no one else could afford it.
 
NoJingoLingo said:
In your opinion. In reality it's a zygote. Let's not derail the thread.
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1) His post was tangentially relevant.
2) You responded to his opinion with an opinion of your own.
 
phattonez said:
Well, most government imposed limits are arbitrary.

Without a politician's salary, they would be dependent on companies for their livelihood. They would basically be corporate representatives in government because no one else could afford it.
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huh? so that means that there should be limits on corporate contributions so politicians will not be corporate pawns... great i agree
 
Dav said:
Okay, so if it's impossible for an entity to have a voice, why are you even concerned about this issue? The Supreme Court, according to you, just gave companies the right to do something that it is physically impossible for them to do anyways.
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Because the people who run the entity already have the right to free speech and now they can use their company's money as well, regardless of the will of all the other people in that entity.
 
NoJingoLingo said:
Because the people who run the entity already have the right to free speech and now they can use their company's money as well, regardless of the will of all the other people in that entity.
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Why, that sounds like what the government does with tax money. Funny, that.
 
nerv14 said:
huh? so that means that there should be limits on corporate contributions so politicians will not be corporate pawns... great i agree
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No, nowhere did I say that. I'm fine with them being able to contribute as much as they want, it's just a part of free speech. However, if their salary depended on the way that they voted then we would have the problem of people having to vote a certain way or losing their salary. Politican's salaries are guaranteed independent of voting records (as long as you keep the people who vote for you happy).

So if you vote the opposite of how a campaign contributor wants you to vote, you'll still be able to live (quite comfortably) without their money. Besides, I'm pretty sure that the public looks down very much so on bribery.
 
Re: Should Corporations Have Personhood?

Dav said:
I suspect it has something to do with Freedom of Assembly, though that's just a guess.

In any case, the First Amendment never limited Freedom of Speech to individual people, as is probably true with many other rights.
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I think I already showed that the 1st amendment ONLY gave free speech to PEOPLE. The Press, at the time the Constitution was conceived, is specifically treated differently and included in the 1st amendment because the Press was seen as the voice of the people.
 
Re: Should Corporations Have Personhood?

NoJingoLingo said:
I think I already showed that the 1st amendment ONLY gave free speech to PEOPLE. The Press, at the time the Constitution was conceived, is specifically treated differently and included in the 1st amendment because the Press was seen as the voice of the people.
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Even if that actually made sense, which it does not . . . you just pulled it out of thin air.
 
Re: Should Corporations Have Personhood?

organizations, such as corporations, have freedom of speech as much as an individual because organizations are comprised of individuals.
 
Areopagitican said:
Corporations aren't people, but the First Amendment doesn't protect people. It's protects liberty. Liberty that should not be limited merely because you disagree with the vehicle in which they express their opinions.
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That's quite an interpretation you have. I suppose you're not one of those Constitutionalists who believe we shouldn't be interpreting it for our own purposes?

EVERY article and amendment protects liberty. It's kinda the reason for it's existence. To limit government so that we the PEOPLE can have liberty.

Corporations existed well before the Constitution was written, as well as money, politics, political speech, elections... If the Founding Fathers had intended for corporations to have free speech then don't you think they were smart enough to have mentioned it?
 
Harshaw said:
Why will no one answer the question?

The New York Times is a corporation.

If you say the First Amendment applies only to people, does the New York Times enjoy freedom of the press?

Yes or no?
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YES. The PRESS has freedom of speech. Is the New York Times considered "the Press"? Try not to forget what "the Press" was back in 1776 as compared to today. I think "the Press" is quite different and should be redefined.
 
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NoJingoLingo said:
Corporations existed well before the Constitution was written, as well as money, politics, political speech, elections... If the Founding Fathers had intended for corporations to have free speech then don't you think they were smart enough to have mentioned it?
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Even if one accepted the ludicrous idea that the First Amendment doesn't apply to corporations because it doesn't mention them, I direct your attention to the Ninth Amendment.
 
NoJingoLingo said:
That's quite an interpretation you have. I suppose you're not one of those Constitutionalists who believe we shouldn't be interpreting it for our own purposes?

EVERY article and amendment protects liberty. It's kinda the reason for it's existence. To limit government so that we the PEOPLE can have liberty.

Corporations existed well before the Constitution was written, as well as money, politics, political speech, elections... If the Founding Fathers had intended for corporations to have free speech then don't you think they were smart enough to have mentioned it?
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I forgot who it was, but one of the founding fathers argued against a bill of rights because it would be used to say that because a certain right isn't listed in the bill of rights that it would be used to deny rights.

So this argument is nonsense, especially when you consider the 9th amendment.

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. "
 
NoJingoLingo said:
YES. The PRESS has freedom of speech. Is the New York Times considered "the Press"? Try not to forget what "the Press" was back in 1776 as compared to today. I think "the Press" is quite different and should be redefined.
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You're just making things up to try to get past a glaring inconsistency in your views.

"The press" is an action, like speech. It's not a group.
 
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