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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
Are you saying TV and internet broadcasters have no rights too?

They should be held accountable for their actions yes. To spread lies such as Fox or Rush does should carry responsibility. FREEDOM of Press doesn't mean one can lie and get away with slander.


I think the founding fathers were smart enough to know that technology would change and we wouldn't be so literal and inflexible that we'd go to such ridiculous extremes. By your logic, only old-fashioned printing presses are protected, and newspapers that use computers and laser printers have no right to a "free press."

I never said the ForeFathers were dumb. As far as them knowing we would progress. You do realize most of our Advances have come in the last 100 yrs. Meaning life in 1800 wasn't much different then life in 1700. I never mentioned computers and such as not being allowed as press. Please don't play the role of Anal.
 
Just jumping into this thread here after I noticed something that raised a couple questions in my mind.... I noticed that the votes are 16-0 against corporate personhood (at the time).

Let's assume this is representative of the perspectives of people around the world... not necessarily unanimously against, but the vast majority.

- Why would the supreme court go on and STRENGTHEN corporate personhood, when people are typically against it?
- How is it that a majority of supreme court justices would hold opposing viewpoints with the majority of people?
- What would it take to overturn a ruling coming out of the supreme court, if the people are against it?

I could go on, but don't want to get into the other tangents...
 
Two people are more likely to agree on something in an exact manner than 1000's or millions.

It's none of your business if they agree, or how much they agree. Freedom of speech is not conditioned on how much people agree on something. If I don't agree with a group that speaks on my behalf, I can quit.

It is my place if it positively hurts me.

No it's not. Rights are not conditioned on whether you are hurt either.
 
It's none of your business if they agree, or how much they agree. Freedom of speech is not conditioned on how much people agree on something. If I don't agree with a group that speaks on my behalf, I can quit.
So it is perfectly O.K. for corporation X (whose stockholders live primarily in China or India) to spend a guzillion dollars to elect candidate Jo Schmo, the candidate that the C.E.O. views as most likely to lessen the regulatory burden on toxins in their products- sold mostly in the U.S. ?
 
So it is perfectly O.K. for corporation X (whose stockholders live primarily in China or India) to spend a guzillion dollars to elect candidate Jo Schmo, the candidate that the C.E.O. views as most likely to lessen the regulatory burden on toxins in their products- sold mostly in the U.S. ?

Yes. If the voters choose that candidate, it's their choice.

Imagine you are considering who to vote for, and a TV ad appears, and I quickly turn of the TV and say "sorry, you can't see that, it's from a corporation so it will corrupt your thinking, and you can't be trusted to handle it." What would you say?
 
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So it is perfectly O.K. for corporation X (whose stockholders live primarily in China or India) to spend a guzillion dollars to elect candidate Jo Schmo, the candidate that the C.E.O. views as most likely to lessen the regulatory burden on toxins in their products- sold mostly in the U.S. ?

Corporations aren't voting, from what I can tell. They can just donate. Last I checked, donations don't equal votes.
 
Corporations aren't voting, from what I can tell. They can just donate. Last I checked, donations don't equal votes.

Quite true. And this isn't even about donations, which are still limited, it's about corporations simply expressing their opinions about candidates directly.

If we think can't trust voters to hear free speech, we are a failure as a democracy already.
 
No they are not a person. Yet they still should enjoy freedom of expression, I dont see why a small business has a right to put a Pro candidate sign in their window but Walmart cant run pro candidate advertisements.
Really, you don't see a difference?? :shock:

Here's an easy one, people walking by as opposed to millions watching TV. :doh
 
You are the second Corp owner I know that believes that. My fellow reservist has a small business is stanchly against any business having the same rights as a business. He thought that many many many years ago a business license had to be re-applied for every few years and that if the business couldn't prove they provided a needed good or service they were denied a re-issue of their license. He is of the belief his business excists to provide for him and his wife/children and if his children want to take over some day great, if not thats fine too. the idea that a business can excist for 120 yrs is wrong to him.

Make me small business owner number three. ;)
 
And it does a great job of that. But the First Amendment does more than that. It protects free speech. All free speech.
And who has the ability to speak? I'll just go to the local Wal-Mart and ask it... which wall should I speak at? Or maybe it's the doors that can speak, how about the carts?

Corporations are subject to the laws too. Just because you can't treat them the same as persons sometimes doesn't mean they aren't. Of course, you can send corporate execs to jail when appropriate.
:rofl You can treat them as persons even though they aren't... isn't that what we are discussing?

Yes, if the exec is complicit in some wrong doing but if the corporation facilitated whatever legal infraction shouldn't it at least be held as an accomplice? :lol:
 
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Yes, I did.

Is the press a person? Is a newspaper or TV station a person?
And that's the point, it was specifically mentioned where other "things" are not. This should tell you that other things are excluded.

Yes. Congress is also forbidden from passing laws restricting the free speech rights of trucks. If you ever need to protect that right, call the ACLU.
I don't see "trucks" mentioned under the 1st amendment.
 
If they have no legal rights, they have no legal obligations so they can do whatever they want.

NOBODY would ever argue that corporations have no legal rights at all. That's ridiculous. They exist in order to have legal rights.

The law doesn't just go one way. It obligates, and also protects.
A corporation has the rights and privileges outlined and granted to them by each state that they petition to exist or function in. Again, personhood must be granted to anything not defined as a person. The supreme court granted them free speech. That kinda proves the point because I never had to have my right to free speech decided by the SCotUS.
 
Even though I believe that corporations shouldn't have the same rights as people, i want to play the other side a little bit because there doesn't seem to be much back and forth on this issue now.


I have wondered that if we do get rid of the personhood of corporations then that will vastly harm the confidence that stockholders have to invest in corporations.

My point is that especially with this economy, I wish there was some way to value the drop in the stock market and the effects of even less investments in corporations. Those secondly effects of less protections for corporations would be even worse now with the poor economy as it is.

the only argument you are making is that corporations have the public held hostage. "do what we want or we'll make the stock market fall".
 
No however, our ForeFathers NEVER could have dreamt a day of TV NEWS, Internet NEWs and such. The press in their days often relied on the PEOPLE to send letters to the PRESS to publish in their paper. Thus freedom of the PRESS meant the Freedom for ME to question the GOVT, write a letter to my local newspaper and having it PRINTED for all to see.
You're absolutely right. What the 1st amendment really does for the Press is to prevent government from censoring the voice OF THE PEOPLE. The Press today is not much of a voice for the people and more of a way to get out their POV.
 
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Yes. If the voters choose that candidate, it's their choice.

Imagine you are considering who to vote for, and a TV ad appears, and I quickly turn of the TV and say "sorry, you can't see that, it's from a corporation so it will corrupt your thinking, and you can't be trusted to handle it." What would you say?
T.V. ads for cigarettes are illegal. I don't have a problem banning T.V. ads for things that corrupt the democratic process.. I would say that this ruling is like promoting vascular growth to a cancer simply because it looks similar to a regular cell. I admit, the country already has the cancer. We should starve it, not encourage it.

Yeh, I totally disagree with you on this. Ads work. Most people are poorly informed and easily manipulated. The longer they are exposed to the steady drum beat of ads, the more they are likely to vote based on superficial or misleading information OR become so disgusted they do not vote at all. The sheer quantity of cash required to be a viable candidate excludes independent candidates. The end result will be that Dems and Repubs just resemble ea other more than ever in practice if not in rhetoric.

Maine's campaign finance law has been a huge success as far as I can see. Even I could afford to run for office. Reps are much more accessible to their constituents than any other state I have lived in.
 
And who has the ability to speak? I'll just go to the local Wal-Mart and ask it... which wall should I speak at? Or maybe it's the doors that can speak, how about the carts?

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.
 
Should Corporations Have Personhood?

Under US law, a corporation has many of the sames rights and responsibilities as a person. This has been upheld by the Supreme Court going back to the Railroad Era. Now personally, I've never quite understood why a corporation, as an entity, should have personhood. Anyone want to explain the logic here?
 
Re: Should Corporations Have Personhood?

Corporations don't have the same rights as people. Otherwise, it would be legal to hire and fire people based on race and sex, since individual people have every right to decide who enters their property based on race and sex.
 
Re: Should Corporations Have Personhood?

Corporations don't have the same rights as people. Otherwise, it would be legal to hire and fire people based on race and sex, since individual people have every right to decide who enters their property based on race and sex.

They don't have every single right, but they have most of them.
 
Re: Should Corporations Have Personhood?

They don't have every single right, but they have most of them.

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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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?

The New York Times has freedom of speech to print what they want.

However, if the New York times were to have an article blatantly criticizing Hillary Clinton for instance... then they should not be able to do that.


But when it comes to strict Constitutionality, I agree with you though. in that the New York Times can print whatever they want, but I don't care about that as much as the practical issues of government censorship.
 
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