Some citizens of Vermont are preparing to strike a blow for real liberty, as opposed to the plastic-wrapped, corporate-sponsored “liberty” — artificial flavors, no preservatives — the teabaggers are, well, teabagging for. See “Vermont Is Gearing Up to Strike a Major Blow to Corporate Personhood.”
This needs to be a national movement.
While I’m sympathetic to the Vermonters, I wish their resolution were written differently. Rather than stating that only humans are persons (then where does that leave corporations, which, from their earliest days act like persons and are treated as artificial persons in the eyes of the law?), I’d rather two classes of personhood were defined: human and artificial, with the rights of each stipulated.
The point shouldn’t be that corporations are not persons, the point is that they have overstepped their bounds as actors, acting like full fledged human beings, and so their rights need to be clearly stated and limited.
Also the resolution is heavy on leftie-speak, enumerating all the ills of corporations (many of which I agree with), but which makes it hard to swallow by anyone living in a less enlightened state. And this or a similar resolution is going to have to accepted by lots of unenlightened states, if it ever hopes to be more than just a vanity protest by the Green Mountain State.
I’d lose the leftie rhetoric and get more focused on the nuts and bolts of what this really means. The recent marijuana legalization proposition in California lost, because it was written by activists and not attorneys familiar with how the state works and the consequences of the language in the prop – this gave politicians an out, they would not commit to a poorly written proposition.
Wow, this should REALLY confuse ‘the stupid!’
And by that, I mean every Conservative, Republican, and Teatard. How do you spin the fact that a Saudi company can spend more on an election here in the US than any other company, and no one’s to know? What’s to stop Osama Bin Laden from buying an election here?
Have fun spinning that. (And I’m sure that there’ll be mental midget’s who’ll buy whatever BS that their Luntz’s and other putz’s will come up with).
So yes, it’s time. A Corporation cannot be considered a person. A new Amendment. Apply the Shylock method:
Do I not bleed?
Slightly OT – Please read the following letter written by an 82 year-old former College Professor to Speaker John Boehner:
http://open.salon.com/blog/david_cook/2011/01/21/the_problem_with_conservatism_to_john_boehner
It’s long, but God is it good!
Agree with moonbat; the wording is problematic.
Having said that, the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court was not only made a mockery of the Constitution, but directly injures every citizen by giving unchecked powers to already powerful, faceless organizations. It is not only an awful decision; it is DELIBERATELY awful. They made it broader than the original case ON PURPOSE.
Unfortunately, a GOP-heavy federal legislature will never let anything that restrains their corporate masters through.
Thanks for the link, ‘Gulag.
Thanks for the post, Maha!
moonbat’s right – as usual!
I didn’t notice because it spoke my language.
“…to define persons as human beings…” It will be interesting, if it comes to pass, to hear Scalia etal define persons as corporations. Off the top of my now addled head, the task for them will be to define human beings as not persons.