Corporate Personhood

I don't understand the "despite." The First Amendment doesn't say anything about being limited to the "speech of owners." I never stated (and neither did the court) that a corporation was an association of owners. You're operating from the assumption that the speech of a corporation qua corporation as an association means that it has to reflect the speech of the owners but I don't see why that is true. A corporation is a lot more people than just the owners; it's the executives and employees, too. And perforce a corporation's speech has to represent the speech of one of those groups of people, otherwise exactly how is the corporation "speaking"? Well, ok. That's kind of what we're getting at. In what ways are corporations treated the same under the law as natural persons in ways that aren't the same because both corporations and natural persons are legal persons? What rights do corporations supposedly get from "corporate personhood" that aren't simply consequences of their legal personhood? Citizens United, to the best of our knowledge, doesn't grant any such rights. From what you've shown they're quite obviously enjoying First Amendment rights not because of their "personhood", but because they're associations of people, and the speech of associations is protected by the First Amendment.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that this interpretation is deeply flawed. I don't see how it can be, or how you can square saying

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I never suggested that Citizens United explicitly declared corporate personhood.

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and

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In the most recent situation, corporations were granted a semblance of "freedom of speech" by the virtue that this is a right we grant to natural persons.

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Seems like a direct contradiction to me. No, what's being regulated is commerce, and regardless of whether your for-retail commercial foodstuffs are sold by a corporation (Little Debbie), a non-profit charity (Newman's Own), a cooperative (Dr. Bronner's castile soap, you know, with that insane label), or a sole proprietorship (there's a local baker who sells frozen pies and cakes to all the local groceries), there's a requirement that retail foodstuffs have nutrition labels. It's not a function of who sells them, but of the fact that they are sold. (Technically at a bake sale you're giving a donation in exchange for a free baked good, like when you donate to NPR and they send you a radio. It's not a "sale.") No, exactly wrong. A corporation wouldn't have to label their cakes at a bake sale, but grandma absolutely would have to put nutritional information on her cookies to have them sold at retail. You've not yet demonstrated this to be the case.

And well they should, since a corporation has no Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. Braswell v. United States, 487 U.S. 99 (1988)

I'm definitely not saying that the right is because the corporation is a person. But I'm saying that the first amendment rights are part of what I would call corporate personhood regardless of the rationale the Supreme Court uses or purports to use.You call the notion that the Supreme Court has granted a new right for corporations flawed, but I don't that you can point to any differences between such a right and the one you think the Supreme Court actually did affirm. Employees don't speak for the corporation unless they are authorized to do so. I don't think this discussion is about some loose cannon mouthing off without authority. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong. There are no rights at all granted to coroprations because of personhood. Personhood is the state of having those rights. People can legitimately object to more aspects of corporate personhood. But the solution is not to take away personhood. It is a flawed approach to think that taking away the right for corporations to appear in court would allow removing corporations right to free speech.

Not only that, but the Supreme Court refused to allow Braswell to use his personal Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because the result would be to give the corporation the same protection.

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Recognizing a Fifth Amendment privilege on behalf of records custodians of collective entities would have a detrimental impact on the Government's efforts to prosecute "white-collar crime." Such impact cannot be satisfactorily minimized by either granting the custodian statutory immunity as to the act of production or addressing the subpoena to the corporation and allowing it to choose an agent to produce the records who can do so without incriminating himself. However, since the custodian acts as the corporation's representative, the act of production is deemed one of the corporation, not the individual, and the Government may make no evidentiary use of the "individual act" of production against the individual.

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Notice the distinction between the way the Fifth Amendment right is treated vs. the First Amendment right. In the Fifth Amendment case, the Court weakens the individual's Fifth Amendment right in order to avoid extending a Fifth Amendment right to the corporation. In Citizens, if we use the association of persons rationale, we find that the Court refuses to limit the corporate right because it would infringe upon the right of an association of people.

That's fair - you can call anything you want anything you like, it's no skin off my nose. But it undercuts the case that somehow corporations have conspired with the courts to usurp rights previously granted only to natural persons. Sure, and that authorization would come from somebody in the corporation who that speech would represent. Then honestly, who cares about corporate personhood? Like I've asked before, what problem are we trying to solve, exactly, when we agitate against corporate personhood?Ending corporate personhood was the key plank of a major third party's bid for the Presidency, for instance. I'm just trying to get at the bottom of what that's all about. From what I've seen so far it's a bit of a liberal phantom.

Holy cow dude. Does anyone believe anything like that? Why can't I just believe that in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that the dissent had the better argument? Generally what they are complaining about is corporate lobbying of the legislative and executive branches and influencing elections by corporations.If you don't believe that corporations have undue access to government policy makers,then you won't really care about that stuff.And it isn't just a liberal thing. Many conservatives believe that corporations have undue influence of immigration policy.

Indeed subbie, yet the participants within these corporate scandals effectively navigate their paths of collusion around provisions such as these. This is simply business as usual, or so it seems, which is why I first identify (Message 62) the electoral imbalance as presenting itself as a more formidable opponent with regard to the topic op.And while your point is well taken, it’s seems worth noting the ambiguity introduced within that case through the dreaded, yet fascinating, ‘’footnote 11’. With this ‘lil doo hicky, the potential opportunity for a corporate records custodian to oppose certain corporate documents subpoenas was left exposed by the courts - providing the suspect could effectively demonstrate how a jury may no otherwise, but inevitably, conclude that they manufactured the records personally (i.e. as with a one-person corporation, etc.). The question has yet to ever receive another visit from the court fairy.Finally, though perhaps a bit aside, the fairly recent decision on behalf of those responsible for overseeing a large (failed) corporate venture tasked with copperfielding a tisk over 500 million in taxpayer funding into a black hole may perhaps speak volumes. When they were asked for directions to the black hole during an intimate witness-badgering session, the handlers certainly exercised the Fifth amendment right against self incrimination, but not until first agreeing - in print, to testify as to its GPS coordinates under oath before the committee's investigative subcommittee. However, I digress ..As I said in Message 68, I most always refuse to answer questions providing no wrongdoing took place One LoveEdited by Bailey, : sp.

Are you reading my posts? Like the one you just replied to? Yes, people believe it. That's exactly the viewpoint I opened a thread to explore. I think corporations have undue access to government as a function of having a lot of money, not as a function of "being people" or whatever. I've yet to see any evidence to disabuse me of that notion, but people keep saying they can provide it.

People seem to be more or less attempting to articulate their displeasure with the liberalization of corporate access to politics when they begin suggesting various corporations have questionable access to government. There does appear to be a hue of irony present in that corporation’s indeed don’t appear to have undue access to government as a function of ‘being people’ (or whatever), however it rather appears their manifest access to government may have lent a hardy assist in legislating their status regarding ‘personhood’, as a function of being a Federal corporate citizen.I’d concede your sentiment as fairly objective otherwise, considering the 2010 Supreme Court repeal was obviously heavily funded and this competent level of funding directly relates to any alleged or potential ‘undue’ access toward the governing bodies which may have been accomplished. However, while I agree the success seems - and likely is, intimately related to the finance, it is the success which is determining the liberalization of the concept of what a ‘person’ may legally consist of.In this sense, I may consider whether having a shit tonna money often appears to be simply the function of forming corporations. In the end, the law differentiates between ‘people’ and ‘artificial people’. Where human beings (i.e. natural people) are consistently identified as people and the statute term may, with the right inclination, include associations, corporations, labor organizations, legal representatives, partnerships, receivers, standard trustees or trustees in bankruptcy and such - all but the former will conform to the lawful definition of an artificial person as one created and devised by human laws for the express purposes of society and government.This is what distinguishes the corporation from the natural person.It is, in legal speak, what begins to differentiate the Federal or U.S. citizen (i.e. corporation) from the American or Constitutional Citizen (i.e. your mom). Ultimately though, I think people get pissy when the definition of person appears elevated to the status - by seemingly being given the rights, of Joe Sovereign Shit-taking Tax-paying Citizen. Perhaps some feel as though there's a bit of a sleight of hand at play as the bait appears to be switched.However, the 14th Amendment goes the distance towards creating and defining citizenship within the U.S.. These are matters of being recognized as a ‘citizen’ with certain civil rights afforded by government or a ‘Citizen’ with specific inalienable rights as endowed by another than a bureaucrat. A long standing contention which no one had yet the inkling to judicially decide to the contrary was held by many for eons which suggested there was no such thing as a ‘citizen of the United States’, except by first becoming a citizen of one of the states which had come to form such a spectacular union.A citizen of any one of the States of the Union was, and still is, then thought to be held - if not first called, to be a citizen of the United States, although technically and abstractly there is no such thing. Much like 'god' or 'country' wind up, they are all legal constructs; that is, they exist in our mind as arguably useful (or useless) legal and philosophical concepts. Just as countries don't exist without imaginations, neither do Federal corporate citizens, which is why the framework of their existence must be established before they can be observed.Not only is it totally foreign to the idea's established within the Constitution to conceive a citizen of the United States who is not a citizen of some one of the states, it's completely inconsistent with the proper construction and common understanding of the expression as used in the Constitution. The fact that there are now both Federal citizens and Constitutional Citizens, with respective fundamental elements, and that this is too little known - much less properly understood, seems to stir the fear of the unknown.This is where the phantom chasing derives as far as one can tell, and Citizens United really has little to do with it other than rekindling ol’ flames in my view. I'm not suggesting I have it all figured out by any stretch, but I'm wise enough to understand arguing the rules with criminals is a losing proposition.One Love

The good people of Washington D.C. would like a word with you.

ABE:I must say Dr. A, when I hear the term ’good people of Washington, D.C.’ the irony of the ‘supreme’ courts verdict with regard to the Dred Scott case is what initially smacks me - the dirty, rotten, racist fargan iceholes. I humbly request your forgive my bitterness in this regard please, as it's in no way directed towards those whom fate has since destined as natural citizens of that specific territory at all.I hear ya Doc, but are we talkin about the good natural ones or the good artificial ones Seriously though, providing such things (i.e. Kris Kringle, ‘good’ people of Washington D.C., etc.) aren’t merely other useful fictions, I’d reckon they - having had their say in the Dred Scott case, wouldn’t take issue with my reasoning so far. And while the Slaughter-House Cases may be seen as due some well deserved credit for overruling at least a portion of that ‘supreme’ - and so one would think good, verdict via the virgin interpretation of the relatively new (at the time) Fourteenth Amendment, I don’t think I’ve observed - for what it’s worth, where the Supreme Court has actually ever explicitly overruled the Dred Scott case.Nevertheless, had you suggested the folks enjoying words more than chocolate cake or plain sense remaining within the District - apart from those you’ve characterized, would like to have a word, it’d be easily envisaged. Perhaps they may have done just that as they out voiced those towards the opinion of the former in those pesky matters relating to the intricacies of corporate slavery, as well as the bizarre notions encountered when considering the potential legal and social - not to mention financial, ramifications of naturalizing perhaps cattle or a corporate assembly of cattle farmers and even various stock (i.e. imports descending from African territories, etc.) as U.S. citizens within the boundaries of one of the States of the Union or perhaps one of the Federal territories like D.C. as you mentioned (it's no wonder Scott was so dreaded).Most rhetoric aside, there simply doesn’t seem to be any legal definition of a ‘citizen of the United States’ prior to what presents itself as the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, primarily because everyone (presumed a natural person) to which the Constitution was understood to apply had primary Citizenship in one of States of the Union. And not to mention, secondly, that without the later concepts (i.e. corporate assemblies as artificial persons, slaves as natural people, women as voters, etc.) there existed no plain justification or opportunity to develop the language at the time.In this sense, rather than anybody else (i.e. property such as slaves, entities such as corporate assemblies, etc.), the language of the Constitution is directly referencing the sovereign state citizen as a ‘citizen of the United States’, for no other particular reason then there wasn’t anyone else as to which such a document may obviously or specifically refer outside of the sovereign States of the Union. It was this term which found use identifying state Citizens eligible to hold office under the suffrage laws, providing the requirement to have primary allegiance to one of the several states impressed upon such a candidate under the Constitution was met.It’s also one reason Goldman Sachs, while perhaps running the presidency to a degree, can’t actually run for president (yet) One LoveEdited by Bailey, : ABE ..

Presumably you mean inconsistent with the Constitution prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly defines who is a citizen; our current Constitution does not require citizenship in any state as a prerequisite for US citizenship.As Dr. A points out, DC residents are U.S. Citizens who clearly are not a citizen or resident of any state.

No need to be presumptuous good man, I was just noting in Message 85 how ...

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the 14th Amendment goes the distance towards creating and defining citizenship within the U.S..

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I tried my hand at expanding the thought in more detail within Message 87, suggesting

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there simply doesn’t seem to be any legal definition of a ‘citizen of the United States’ prior to what presents itself as the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, primarily because everyone (presumed a natural person) to which the Constitution was understood to apply had primary Citizenship in one of States of the Union. And not to mention, secondly, that without the later concepts (i.e. corporate assemblies as artificial persons, slaves as natural people, women as voters, etc.) there existed no plain justification or opportunity to develop the language at the time.

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I don’t disagree with a thing you’ve presented NoNukes, and perhaps like you, I’ve yet to see anyone at all suggest that a Federal ‘U.S. citizen’ was recognized within the original vision of the Constitution.Just as the traditional American Citizen’s primary allegiance wasn’t given towards the Federal territories nor could the traditional Citizen’s primary identification be viewed as a not-yet-existential ‘U.S. Citizen’, rather the Citizen’s primary allegiance received grant through the sovereignty of their respective state with one’s primary identification coming naturally into view, most plainly and obviously, as a Citizen of their particular State within the Union ...And so then, a Citizen of the Union.Ultimately, citizens are just members of the political community to which they subscribe, which is to say they’re the people tasked with comprising their community. It is citizens who then submit themselves to government dominion within this framework in an attempt to advance their general welfare, as well as the protection of their individual and collective rights. The way I see it, as the American experience continued over time, experience began to suggest in what ways these communities may benefit from a form of national government expressed for national purposes.And it would seem since the separate governments of the distinct States, although bound by the articles of confederation, were apparently found wanting in a number of arenas (i.e. foreign relations, etc.), they ordained and established the U.S. government. These separate states then put their heads together and set out defining the limitations of this latter creations power(s). All this, accomplished by way of Constitution and Amendment, in hot pursuit of a ‘more perfect union’ to establish what would eventually present variant forms of justice, civility, defence, and liberty and the likes.In my view, the Fourteenth Amendment interpretation was advantageous in the sense that, rather then employing the term ‘citizen of the United States’ as used in the Constitution to deceive people with regard to the true intent of the language and meaning of the original document, Congress simply modified the legal definition by employing the latter Amendment to describe a new type of ‘citizen’ whose primary allegiance was to the Federal government (i.e. Washington, D.C.) rather than any one of the States of the Union. I understand this pisses some people off, but I don’t see exactly how it’s unreasonable. Besides, who the hell is Puerto Rico supposed to pay tribute to otherwise?In the end we all seem to agree they’re a later creation, gaining legal form and function through Amendments to the original document. I rarely question the man’s reasoning ...As his charm, knowledge and wit are clearly only surpassed by my addiction to nicotine.One Love

To be sure Doc, I’m not arguing that the general inhabitants residing within the designated areas of any municipal corporation operating under the name United States, in the form of an artificial person, are not U.S. citizens any more than I’m arguing they weren’t created through legislature.When the Federal government is viewed as operating in the form of an artificial corporate person under the legal name United States, it should make sense it’s a corporate municipality created by the legislature and expressed for purposes of government. As with any legal municipal body, it would then consist of designated areas whose inhabitants (i.e. residents of D.C., Puerto Rico, etc.) consent - with regard to such designation, is purely irrelevant; like it or not, they’re U.S. citizens.However, in this sense, though a corporation may act as a citizen itself while maintaining its own agents, citizens and officers - the legal recognition of those accessing citizenry through that corporation no longer exists once that corporation dissolves. Which is to say that, if D.C. was somehow deprived of its status as a sovereign territory through any form of Federal municipal dissolution, the citizenship of those gaining access through their respective Statehood should not be affected; where residents of Puerto Rico, for example, would simply cease to be U.S. citizens.Of course this could be said of any residents in exile whose Statehood dissolved or receded from the Union I suppose.Ultimately, it's up to the good people of Washington D.C. to learn what privileges, regulations and rights they are provided within the particular version of Federal U.S. citizenry which they have been afforded, as there are often distinctions to be made. For example, the residents of Puerto Rico are afforded the legal status of U.S. citizens even though they aren’t required to contribute even a half skekel towards federal income tax. And while they don’t need green cards to live or work within any of the States, they also don’t get a vote in Washington’s election cycle. Just sayin' ..One Love