tl;dr "Unexpected things that share in the concept of corporate personhood when faced with a similar need for an accountability sink: Ships and some public land in the third world"
Unexpected things that are people
301–310 of 312 posts
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand this POV, can you explain what I'm missing? Usually when people say "corporations aren't people" I think they are confused about the need for an abstraction. But you acknowledged the need for an abstraction. I don't imagine you are confused about the status quo of the legal terminology? AFAIK, the current facts are: the legal term "person" encompasses "natural person" (ie the common meaning of "per…
The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept. We should be able to talk about corporations as entities and talk about what laws or rights should apply, without needing to call them people.
> The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept.
but that's not what is happening, there are two concepts: "natural person" and "legal person". you could call them "foo" and "bar" if you prefer, those are just legal variable names.
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it means that someone with more money has a Constitutional right to be louder than those with less money.
Nonsense. The constitution holds that both individuals have an equal right to acquire the same money. People value different things. The constitution does not demand that people have an equal platform. This is like a preacher complaining that his freedom of religion isn't being respected because his congregation isn't large enough. Grow up
This is an absolutely insane take. By your comment, everyone who has a net worth of less than a billion dollars should just sit down, shut up, and let the rich people talk.
We should all have the equal right and ability to have our voice heard ESPECIALLY when it comes to political speech. Allowing billionaires and massive corporations the right to use their wealth to drown out the voices of the absolute vast majority of the population is already destroying the public discourse in this country, and it will likely be looked at by historians in 100+ years as one of the biggest issues that led to the downfall of the United States of America.
Money should not equal speech. Full stop.
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s just propaganda. If we didn’t have due process, Donald Trump would be in jail. Or, if you think he’s the reason we lost it, half the Biden administration would. The idea that the legal system has somehow melted down in the last nine months is just scaremongering. Norms are being violated, for sure, and the courts are being pushed to determine the bounds of the law. I won’t say I’m a fan of most of it, but it’s…
> That’s just propaganda. If we didn’t have due process, Donald Trump would be in jail. Well your country does still offer its protections for the wealthy and powerful. It's just regular people have less of it than we do in freer countries. > Or, if you think he’s the reason we lost it, half the Biden administration would. The idea that the legal system has somehow melted down in the last nine months is just scaremon…
Yeah again, this is all a cartoon. Cops everywhere now have body cameras on nearly all the time. Freedom of speech gives us the right to video them and they can barely do anything in public anymore without five people doing so. Contempt of cop beatings still exist sometimes I’m sure, everywhere, but it’s hardly a thing most people are exposed to. If we were having this discussion in 1975 I’d grant you this point, it’s dramatically reduced now.
I was prosecuted for a misdemeanor when I was 18 and broke. I got a free lawyer (as the constitution says) who did a great job and the whole thing was over in a month. I was not rich. I don’t know what TV shows make you think our government is just locking people up willy nilly, it isn’t. (Our drug laws lock a lot of people up, but they aren’t that different or more draconian than most places, just the number of people who do drugs is, and there are countries that execute people for drug offenses that are misdemeanors here.)
The government cannot pass a law to criminalize you, criminalizing things is never retroactive. I assume by the slavery thing you mean prison labor. That actually is in the constitution, and is crazy. We’re working on it. Same with asset forfeiture.
The idea that because we have some areas in which we are less free than other countries we are less free in total is ridiculous. The fact that you say things like “Americans don’t have due process” is a strong indicator of internalized propaganda.
And I’m not some flag waving patriot American Exceptionalist by any means, I’ve traveled quite a bit more than most. But the one thing we do best is individual liberties. It’s why we’re where we are in the grand scheme of human history and Canada is basically just our suburb enjoying all of the benefits (national security with next to no defense budget, unlimited free trade a short truck ride away) while avoiding the cost.
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#305The title of this blog post is deliberately provocative. If it was titled "Unexpected things that have legal personhood" it would be much less catchy. No one is actually arguing these things are human beings. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person
The title doesn't say human people, it just says people. Non-human persons exist too (usually non-human animals).
[deleted]
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#306The Whanganui river is in fact only the second of three geological features to have been granted personhood in NZ, the others being Te Urewera and Taranaki Mounga (mountain).
Maunga :)
Doh, thanks. I even googled to check my spelling but the first article that came up was from The Guardian which also misspelled it :'(
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you be more specific? What would it mean for the New York Times (the corporation) not to be protected by the first amendment? The government can sue the New York Times Company for what it prints as long as the government doesn’t prosecute the humans who work there? The existence of corporate personhood has been settled law in the United States for over a hundred years, and all nine current Supreme Court justices…
Corporate personhood isn't required for the first amendment to apply to the nytimes.
The NYTimes is a corporation. Corporate personhood is the term of art that we use when the legal person a right applies to is a corporation.
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#308Re: Unexpected things that are people
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Person" in legalese means something specific. It's not the same as the dictionary definition.
I would like to see the law defining that!
Title 1 Chapter 1 Section 1 of the US Code begins:
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—
words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things;
words importing the plural include the singular;
words importing the masculine gender include the feminine as well;
words used in the present tense include the future as well as the present;
the words “insane” and “insane person” shall include every idiot, insane person, and person non compos mentis;
the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
Re: Unexpected things that are people
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NYTimes is a corporation. Corporate personhood is the term of art that we use when the legal person a right applies to is a corporation.
"We"
Ok, there’s the terminology used by the legal community (including all nine justices on the Supreme Court) and then there’s people who dislike the terminology because they saw a misleading speech about the issue on the Daily Show.