Corporation are now considered a Person!

Corporation are now considered a Person!

It was that key if erroneous decision which led Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomajor, in dissent this time, to declare that the Court should recosider this imisguided ruling, which “gave birth to corporations as persons.” She continued:” There could be an argument made that that was the Court’s error to start with.” Her suggestion would have killed off this “radical action by conservative judges” to expand the First Amendment rights of corporations. THAT was surely precisely what they feared. All down the days since then --more than a century ago-- corporations have manipulated, maneuvered, and mandated massive lobbyist “management”; (read: Bagmen basicaly banging on legislator doors and desks.)

Passage of the Act will reverse this Supreme act of rejection for a fundamental principle of democracy -- ”One citizen, one vote”-- substituting “allowing Wall Street to tap its vast corporate profits to drown out the voice of the public in our democracy”, as Common Cause president Bob Edgar stated the isssue. What YOU CAN DO, to protect your own human right under the First Amendment, is to sound off loud and clear and continuously to your Congressional and Legislative contacts.

Does that mean if you form a corporation you get two votes.
One in your name and one as a corporation.

It only cost 125 dollars in Nevada to form a corporation.

If everyone formed a corporation it would dilute the power of big companies.

its very hard to tell the size of a Nevada corporation.

Nevada is a anonymous corporate ownership state meaning you do not have to publicly list the ownership of a company.

It would take a federal court order to unseal the ownership records of a Nevada corporation.

If you are not using the corporation for criminal acts or tax scam the government would not have cause to apply for a court order unsealing the records.

i have registered cars under a Nevada corporation.

Calif Cops hate this because they can not run the nevada plates and find out who is driving. then run a records check on the driver.
and since they have no idea how big the corporation is they are afraid of corporation lawyers if they hassle the driver.

If you have money corporations can get lower interest rates on loans and credit.
www.crimes-of-persuasion.com...

[edit on 13-2-2010 by ANNED]

[edit on 13-2-2010 by ANNED]

reply to post by misfitofscience

Corporation are now considered a Person!

Corporations have been considered persons since at least the 1800's.

reply to post by ANNED

Does that mean if you form a corporation you get two votes.

No, because an artificial person such as a corporation does not qualify for citizenship, and therefore does not qualify to vote.

Words in legal language do not always means the same thing they do in non-legal language.

EDIT:

Trying to find the actual text of the changes being referred to. It's possible that if somebody made a grammatical error or used the wrong word in the wrong place and it went into law...it's possible that it might be technically legal for a corporation to not only vote...but also to get married, run for political office, etc.

Can anyone source the actual text of the change? I'm not seeing it at the link in the original post. This might be a real mistake, or it might be a journalist misunderstanding.

It looks to me like they're simply referring to the campaign contribution changes...and this whole thing about corporations as persons is a metaphor taken totally out of context.


[edit on 13-2-2010 by LordBucket]

it's possible that it might be technically legal for a corporation to not only vote...but also to get married, run for political office, etc.

one company maybe trying to run for office or its a joke.

murrayhillweb.com...
www.youtube.com...
www.facebook.com...

Originally posted by misfitofscience

Corporation are now considered a Person!

Really? What were they before now?

Corporations and other business associations have existed as collections of men (with an indeterminate lifespan) for the purpose of owning property, doing business or carrying on trade for centuries.

By way of example, the "East India Trading Company" was an early English joint-stock company formed for pursuing trade under a charter granted in 1600 to the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies."

The American colonies adopted English common law as their legal standard, and many early American colonies were, in fact, settlements underwritten and funded by these companies.

However, since the Constitution makes no mention of corporate charters, it is a power reserved to the States. All American corporations must be chartered according to the laws of a particular state or states; although they may seek to do business in other states as a “foreign corporation,” usually for a fee after registration.

American common law, or “case” law officially recognized corporate status as a “legal entity” for general business purposes as early as 1819, when the Supreme Court recognized a corporate charter as a contract protected under the Constitution from official interference. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819).

Subsequent cases have elaborated on the extent of these corporate rights, even extending the right of property ownership to foreign corporations in Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts v. Town of Pawlet (1823)

The basic rationale for this recognition of the “corporate fiction” was explained by Chief Justice Marshall: "The great object of an incorporation is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men." Providence Bank v. Billings, 29 U.S. 514 (1830)

The recent FEC decision does not create 'corporate persons', or bestow on them any right to vote. It restores their rights, taken away by Congress, to spend their money as they see fit, including advocating for or against a candidate or party.

The Supreme Court did not extend their ruling to direct funding of candidates, or eliminate existing limitations on corporate contributions to specific candidates.

In short, corporations have been “persons” as long as there’ve been corporations. All the SCOTUS did was allow them to buy ads, like any other "person."

jw

reply to post by misfitofscience


The histrionic and completely erroneous op-ed piece by Henry Clay Ruark of the Salem-News, is endemic of current left wing ideology and either betrays profound ignorance of the law, which is in no way an excuse, or willful deceit in an attempt of push forth poisonous propaganda. The totally bogus claim that SCOTUS has:

"...given unlimited, license-less and very lavish latitude to ALL corporations --including foreign flag formats controlled from other capital cities-- to buy outright any and all forms of communication necessary to shape and then control each and every level of our democratic government."

Is typical left wing propaganda. The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to do any such thing and most certainly did not do so with what was held in Citizens United. This typical lawless attitude by the left is fairly represented in the O.P.'s quote of this overly dramatic rant by Ruark, when he insists that SCOTUS acted to "expand the First Amendment rights of corporations".

Absolutely no expansion of any right happened by the ruling of Citizens United. The real problem with this outrageous attitude is two fold; First, it represents the left wing agenda where rights are something that are granted by governments, and are functions of legislation that can be expanded or contracted, rather than being the natural inalienable rights that they are.

Secondly, it reveals a willful disregard for the actual language of the First Amendment, which is not a Bill of Grant for certain rights, but is an Act of Prohibition upon the government, preventing Congress from making any laws that would abridge, among other things, speech. In no way does the language of the First Amendment make any distinctions as to whom or what has these rights, as its focus is on prohibiting Congress from creating legislation that would abrogate and derogate rights they have no jurisdiction over.

The amusing irony of Ruark's little temper tantrum is that he is clearly relying upon this Act of Prohibition placing certain restraints upon Congress, to rant and rave against "conservative Justices", while simultaneously attempting to undermine the very nature of inalienable rights by implying they can be granted by Supreme Court Justices and by extension other branches of government.

I worked for a Canadian company where the owners and upper management got caught paying off an American customs agent. It was so that the agent would make it difficult for the competition to get across the border. It was a criminal offense. The owners of the company actually got caught handing the envelope of money to the agent in a greasy spoon restaurant. The customs officer went to jail and the owners of the company should have too but they had good lawyers and the judge held the company responsible instead, fining it thousands of dollars. That's like when someone gets murdered the gun is blamed instead of the person that pulls the trigger.

OMG and just yesterday i found out that it was illegal to murder... What is next the moon is not made out of cheese?