Jon Stewart proves corporations aren't people

Classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASszn2x8JvY

 

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I get a lot of real news from John Stewart he is brilliant.

 

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Has anyone ever said that corporations are literally people?

They do have similar standing in courts of law. So do governments, non-profit organizations and other things.

If that wasn't true, then it would be impossible to sue them.

The corporation needs to be recognized as having the kind of legal standing that permits it be named as a party in a legal complaint. And once the complaint is served, the company has legal rights similar to if it was a person, such as the right to a trial, the right to be represented by attorneys and so on.

It's a technical thing that people study in law school.

 

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-still-thinks-corporations-are-people/259995/
:facepalm:

 

Yes, Mitt Romney said it publicly. And SCOTUS upheld that definition in the Citizen's case.
But the law used to read "corporations have rights similar but distinct from human persons".

To my knowledge no one ever clarified the term "distinct from" .

However, I like this article very much,

- See more at: http://thehumanist.org/january-febr...storing-the-common-good/#sthash.ALWXb9ZT.dpuf

 

Never seen him before.
Thanks. I'm an immediate fan.

 

Do you live under a rock??

 

OMG!!! "You're not even allowed to do that in Grand Theft Auto!" Funny..funny man.

Hey Ck...this was one of the featured videos from that one. Chicago deep dish vs. New York style pizza. I literally blew snot out of my nose laughing:

[video=youtube;WhORiVsb9Mc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhORiVsb9Mc[/video]

 

He's British. Not all English speakers are American.

 

Then, for entertaining US political commentary I would also recommend to look/listen to Bill Maher, and the Colbert Report in addition to Stewart. Each has a distinct style but their commentary is always relevant, if not hilarious.

 

The recent Citizens United ruling had nothing to do with standing in a court of law - it granted corporations the rights of people in political campaigns, and defined their monetary expenditures as "speech".

So a corporation has the same right to hand a politician large sums of money to influence their behavior as a person has to speak to a politician and influence them in that way.

 

I always found it bizarre to equate money with speech. Money is a "means of exchange" (quid pro quo), thus it can buy speech, but it is not speech in and of itself. Else everything of value could be called speech and there would be no distinction between speech and things of financial value.

Can anyone find a common denominator in these two definitions?

 

What I was talking about, and what Jon Stewart was presumably mocking, is the technical legal concept of an artificial, legal or juridicial person. These are organizations, consisting of an often fluid and changing collection of natural persons, that for legal purposes are recognized as being individuals in their own right. A whole variety of things can have this status, including corporations, companies, cooperatives, governments, international agencies, and whatnot. The European Union is a juridicial person. Juridicial persons have some but typically not all of the legal status of natural persons. They can sue and be sued. They can own property. They can enter into contracts. They possess a whole variety of legal rights and obligations, ranging from the right to legal due process to the obligation to refrain from torts.

The concept of a juridicial 'person' isn't an evil conspiracy and it isn't a joke, it's just elementary law school stuff.

 

bill maher and colbert report are excellent !

 

I agree with everything you say but the question remains if for-profit corporate speech is a personal or impersonal transaction, in which case different ethical rules apply.

Dug this up,

http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/papers/downloads/1187.pdf

 

If you don't hold people at the top of an organization responsible for what they are doing
they will play a double game.

Officially, they will have a company policy which is squeaky clean, and wholly in line with the law.
Meanwhile, they will pressurize their subordinates to produce results which can only be obtained by ignoring that policy.
This pressure passes down the line.
The people ignoring the policy, and committing criminal acts, may be at a menial level.
Occasionally, the bosses will fire one of these stressed-out chimps, and send a memo sounding really annoyed.
Not annoyed enough to stop it happening though.

The people at the top should be responsible for any wrongdoing at any level,
unless they can show that they have made sufficient efforts to make sure that no-one in their company is breaking the law.

Re Jon Stewart clips
Most can't be watched outside the US for copyright reasons unfortunately.
Very talented man.

 

Right. But spending money to promote your message is protected.

Consider parades. They are not speech; the two are different. Public demonstrations are also different than speech. But they are both protected under the First Amendment.

 

Actually, parades and demonstrations are forms of free speech, the parade/demonstration usually has a name and a message including banners, placards, music, speakers, all designed to publicly announce a proposition or an opposition to a public condition in a public forum. It is an expression of motivation and and an emotional support of an idea. It is a voluntary participation by those involved.

OTOH, money is a means of exchange. The exchange of money creates a legally enforcable "obligation" on the other party. Of course that is why PAC donors like to remain anonymous. There is an implied obligatory contract between a person in authority and power and an anonymous benefactor.

Printed money is clearly labeled and marked as a federal "promissory" note. It is a short form contract and promisory note in a quid pro quo exchanges of goods (organizing a parade) or "future" favorable votes on public matters (exemption from Tax or Law) benefitting the donor.

The USE of money creates an "impersonal transactions" , not protected by a doctrine of free speech.

 

Agreed. As is spending your money on billboards and political contributions. Parades, demonstrations and political donations are not the SAME as speech, but to the extent they are used to enable free speech, they are protected.

Of course. And they are often funded by someone with enough money to want to get a message out. The Charlotte gay pride parade, for example, is funded by Bank of America.

"Implied" - in some cases. "Obligatory" - disagree. When I contribute to a cause, I have no expectation that the cause will then do what I want.

Should Bank of America be banned from supporting the gay pride parade in Charlotte? Should a religious group be banned from buying billboards to push their anti-abortion views? Should farmers be banned from buying ads to press for more farm support? Should individuals be banned from contibuting to PAC's?

 

You accidentally cleared-up your own attempt to create a contradiction. Money (a thing) was never claimed to be speech (an action) itself, only a means to buy speech (an action). Hence, "monetary expenditures" (spending money) = speech