Constitutional Amendment Introduced in Congress Ensuring Rights for People, Not Corporations

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: Asktheanimals

Restoring the democratic process would restore the Republic. You guys get so frickin hung up on that word.

Yes, we are hung up on that word and for good reason; namely that a Republic guarantees rights whereas Democracy is open-ended and guarantees nothing more than majority rule. Having a Republic ensures that our rights will remain inviolate and cannot be changed or eliminated by any number of votes.

Would you prefer that your rights are negotiable?

a reply to: Asktheanimals

This nation was founded to practice the democratic process of electing our lawmakers, we're a representative republic which is a form of democracy.

Does no one remember that an amendment has to be ratified by 3/4 of the states. That means a vote by the people. They can't just change.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

I have to ask, why just corporations?...the biggest killers are the FED and Wall Street.

The FED and Wallstreet are multinational corporations. This amendment effectively limits the unrealistic power of the multinational so that as a legal contrivance, it does not enjoy any Rights.

It isn't just corporations making a mess of the USA and the world. Corporations are a mere instrument in that regard, and we mostly have only vauge and circumstantial evidence as to the identity of the great puppeteers, leading to discussion hubs like ATS where we come together to intelligently watch and speculate.

Outlawing lobbying outright would take away an important vocal outlet for the good-intentioned citizenry, as the route Move to Amend has utilized to bring the 28th amendment to the House.

I can not condone violence of any kind, so any armed revolution would never get my support.

They should get the language right first. The way it is written now is basically useless, and leaves FAR too much room for contrary interpretation by future Supreme Courts. Other than that this would be a major step toward re-invigorating our failing democracy.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

The real problem with a constitutional convention is that it allows all those representatives who are not representing the public's interest to really screw up the constitution and put the boots to everyone, to the benefit of their corporate and international banking masters.

It sounds more like the general problem of government.

If we get the minarchist government we want, and find ourselves back in the same position in 100 years--what do we do then?

Just continue through cycles of liberty and tyranny for all of eternity?

This nation was founded to practice the democratic process of electing our lawmakers, we're a representative republic which is a form of democracy.

No, a representative republic is not a form of democracy.

Voting isn't even a form of democracy.

Democracy is simply the rule of the majority. You can employ democracy as a tool within a republic or system of voting, but these things are not mutually inclusive.

What would it be called if you had a representative republic where, to arrive at a decision, voting was employed--but the vote had to be unanimous?

That wouldn't be a democracy. That would be a pasocracy, or, the rule of all.

Seriously, democracy is a horrible tool.

a reply to: Boomorangatangarang




"To The Hilt"

Now I know that you can see that demon
As he rests in his towers on high
Makin' us run after his pennies
Most of our lives
There ain't nothing we can do now
'Cause we all got to survive
Sittin' down here rotting from deep inside
I'm singing dream
Just dream for me
I'm singing dream
Just dream for me
I'm singing dream
Just dream for me
'Cause I believe
That these chains, they are growin' weak
Yes I believe
That these chains, they are growin' weak
They are growin' weak
They are growin' weak

Now I know that you can hear them screamin'
From those cubicles deep inside
As they sit just now wonderin'
Always that question why
And I know you can hear them whisperin'
Why they can't get what they need
Strapped down to the table
They're injected with that greed
I'm singing dream
Just dream for me
I'm singing dream
Just dream for me
I'm singing dream
Just dream for me
'Cause I believe
That these chains, they are growin' weak
Yes I believe
That these chains, they are growin' weak
They are growin' weak
They are growin' weak

I like this, but for the life of me I seem to remember something I read once about having a social security number makes one a corporation, not a person. So, could this actually be something more nefarious, or do I have my reading materiel and my poor brain messed up?( Been on the road since february, kinda zoned out right now)

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
End Corporate Rule, Legalize Democracy...?
Um, I want the Republic restored. If you need a reason how about the Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are pushing democracy all over the world?

That aside, yes! get money out and the public back in!
Corporations are not people and have allowed many crimes to occur under their protection.
It encourages lawlessness by it's anonymous nature since you can't put a corporation in prison.

Corporations are not people, it's a myth used to perpetuate the ruling class and guard against intrusion upon their wealth by circumventing the tax code.

The fourteenth amendment provided equal protection under law, it was not meant to serve as a quasi legal theory guaranteeing these protections to corporations. However, in less than eight years after the ratification, railroad barons began surmising methods and legal hoopla to incorporate corporations into the legal status and protections the 14the amendment provided.

Basically equal protection without responsibility of what a citizen is required to do.

"Hugo Black, considered one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in the 20th century, said “Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during the first 50 years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50% asked that its benefits be extended to corporations.”

Source

And in his dissent in the 1938 case of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson, Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In 1886, this Court in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, decided for the first time that the word ‘person’ in the amendment did in some instances include corporations… The history of the amendment proves that the people were told that its purpose was to protect weak and helpless human beings and were not told that it was intended to remove corporations in any fashion from the control of state governments… The language of the amendment itself does not support the theory that it was passed for the benefit of corporations.”

The plan has been in the making for quite sometime. It would almost appear as if it was an end run around to the 14th amendment for corporations to secure their wealth.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

noun, plural democracies.
1.
government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2.
a state having such a form of government:
The United States and Canada are democracies.
3.
a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
4.
political or social equality; democratic spirit.
5.
the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.

dictionary.com

a reply to: Kali74

democracy

plural de·moc·ra·cies

1 a :government by the people; especially :rule of the majority
b :a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 :a political unit that has a democratic government

Yeah, democracy is majority rule.

As I stated, even if you have a representative republic and are using voting, you are not a democracy if you require votes to be unanimous.

a reply to: Daedal

Corporations are not people, it's a myth used to perpetuate the ruling class and guard against intrusion upon their wealth by circumventing the tax code.

No, this issue is complete smoke-and-mirrors.

We know that corporations are not human beings, and that's not what they have been declared to be.

BODY POLITIC--government, corporations. When applied to the government this phrase signifies the state.
2. As to the persons who compose the body politic, they take collectively the name, of people, or nation; and individually they are citizens, when considered in relation to their political rights, and subjects as being submitted to the laws of the state.
3. When it refers to corporations, the term body politic means that the members of such corporations shall be considered as an artificial person

All businesses have been a body politic since the invention of business.

a reply to: Boomorangatangarang

YAY!!!!!

That's awesome. Thanks for posting it! About time....now, if only the TPP idiocy would be rejected.

I was all gung ho when NAFTA first came out, but had no idea how it would spiral out of control and reduce us all to serfdom.

a reply to: Kali74

No, actually this country was founded as a Constitutional Republic. But eventually turned to a democratic process to pick and choose our leaders. So in the end, we're all right. Hence the end of my quote.
Quoted from Wikipedia

Constitutional republic-
A constitutional republic is a state in which the head of state and other officials are representatives of the people. They must govern to existing constitution.
In a constitutional republic, executive, legislative, and judicial powers can be separated into distinct branches.[1]
That a constitution exists that limits the government's power makes the state constitutional. That people can choose by election the head(s) of state and other officials (rather than those officials inheriting their positions) to represent them and make the laws makes the state a republic. The United States of America is a Constitutional Democratic Federal Republic.

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle
a reply to: Boomorangatangarang

What's wrong with the Constitution the way it is, sans the non-ratified 16th amendment. The present Constitution only needs to be enforced and the rule/statute concerning corporations as people and money as freedom of speech, repealed or struck down as law.

Bill Clinton famously defended his lying about his affair with Monica Lewinski as...
"It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

We are facing much the same molestation of the English Language with the SCOTUS declaring corporations (legal entities whose very foundational structure is designed to differentiate them from an individual) as actually being people...

And further more deciding that since this apparent new class of life-form and citizen lacks a physical mouth or brain, then their money must be "Speech".

Point being...yes the constitution is fine written the way it is, but ironically corporations have successfully looked at the constitution and convinced the SCOTUS ...."It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is."...or in this case "Speech".

We need to win back our government.

From the dissenting justices in Citizens Untied
Legal entities, Stevens wrote, are not "We the People" for whom our Constitution was established.[30] Therefore, he argued, they should not be given speech protections under the First Amendment. The First Amendment, he argued, protects individual self-expression, self-realization and the communication of ideas. Corporate spending is the "furthest from the core of political expression" protected by the Constitution

These legal entities, he argued, have perpetual life, the ability to amass large sums of money, limited liability, no ability to vote, no morality, no purpose outside profit-making, and no loyalty. Therefore, he argued, the courts should permit legislatures to regulate corporate participation in the political process.

a reply to: Blackhawk0044

LOL! Regardless we do use democracy... period. That doesn't make us Democratic State was my only assertion.

This will be a good start to end elitist/corporate control over the U.S.

Do Public Employees Unions count? Aren't they an artificially created legal entity? What about the other unions? Thay do every bit as much to lobby and launder money for politicians as any big corp ever did.

The Citizens United Ruling just ticked off the left because they lost the exclusivity of the Union laundering game as the Super PACs arrived on the scene.

a reply to: ketsuko

Oh please, enough with the partisan BS.

What pisses people off is the fact that anytime the super rich start buying up government and using it against the populace for their own benefit the people take notice to it and realize they're being ignored at best and enslaved at worst.

Big money politics puts all the decisions and power in the hands of the few. Those few are also looking out for themselves and nobody else.

Just look at it honestly. If allowing such huge amounts of money to sway politics was a good thing then why must so many of those organizations behind it also have to produce such massive disinfo campaigns at the same time???

Maybe because that is what it takes to convince people that Good is Bad and Bad is Good. Because it takes that much effort to try and manipulate people into doing what isn't in their best interest???

If they were doing good things it wouldn't cost so much just to barely sneak some of this stuff through. People would see the results and be happy to see more of it. But that isn't what is happening is it??? Everything is collapsing faster and faster and things are getting more and more intrusive and abusive in order to keep it all under control. Eventually, it will collapse under the pressure and explode and no amount of money will stop the waves of that explosion.