What Do Tea Party (got it right this time) Members Think Of The SC Ruling That Corps Are People Too? (companies, money)

[GregW]

The entire concept that a state authorized legal entity designed to limit financial responsibility is considered a legal person is completely wrong and tantamount to saying a government is a legal person with all the rights but not the responsibilities that implies. Corporations are different from citizens in many legal and financial matters such as voting, borrowing, bankruptcy and, if properly run, immortality.

Corporations are made by the state, regulated by the state and can be killed by the state with or without judicial review. They are NOT people.

[workingclasshero]

Originally Posted by GregW

The entire concept that a state authorized legal entity designed to limit financial responsibility is considered a legal person is completely wrong and tantamount to saying a government is a legal person with all the rights but not the responsibilities that implies. Corporations are different from citizens in many legal and financial matters such as voting, borrowing, bankruptcy and, if properly run, immortality.

Corporations are made by the state, regulated by the state and can be killed by the state with or without judicial review. They are NOT people.

but what about the concept of freedom of speech????

it you say they are not 'people' then they cant have an OPINION...therefore a corporation like the New York Times cant ENDORSE a candidate. therefore a CORPORATION like the DNC cant give their candidate ANYMONEY


are you saying that corporations (even big bad BANKS) should have NO OPINION or VIEW (ie FREEDOM OF SPEECH) as to what laws politicians are making that WILL EFFECT THEM?????

are you saying that move-on.org(a corporation) should not have the RIGHT to take out a full page add in the New York Times(another corporation) staing their OPINION or View of a certain political subject????

if a "corporation" shall have no rights or 'personhood' then it there by ELIMINATES that corporation, which LIMITS freedom of speech....IE if I (a person) want to take out an ad in a newspaper (a CORPORTAION), then I would not be allowed (ie loss of rights), because said vehicle(newspaper) is a corporation..............

I am not saying that I like it, but you do understand that once you start limiting RIGHTS(even to a corporation), then you are EMPOWERING the GOVERNMENT and leading to totalitarianism......1984 rings a bell

[kovert]

Once again, this is NOT a debate thread. I'm looking to better understand the viewpoints of those categories of people I wrote of in 1-3.

workingclass, I will look at your sources later, and will respond to them in the other thread I mentioned if I feel the need.

[mossomo]

What Do Tea Party (got it right this time) Members Think Of The SC Ruling That Corps Are People Too?

Since the majority of the Tea Partiers are the wealth creators, the entrepreneurs and the educated middle class - the concept of corporations being an entity is not alien to us, and is not what was decided by the recent Supreme Court ruling btw.

My public high school business class taught me three basic models of business: sole proprietors, partnerships and corporations. One of the huge advantages of a corporation was the limited liability it offered its owners/investors because of how the gov't saw the corp as it's own entity.

Does high school teach basic business anymore?

[GregW]

The PEOPLE that make up the corporation have all the legal and constitutional rights as any other citizen. They may take out political advertisement, contribute to campaigns and vote like anyone else. The corporation they had the government create in order to limit their debt liability to their investment instead of their entire personal fortune does NOT have any of these rights. This is the price of limiting their liability.

For example: The President of GM may have and express a political opinion by speaking his mind in any publication or by purchasing an advertisement anywhere he desires with his OWN and not corporate funds. This does NOT limit an individual's personal freedom at all.

[kovert]

Greg, this is not a debate thread. I and plenty of other posters have contributed to threads where you can debate the SC ruling.

Lets stay on topic.

[workingclasshero]

Originally Posted by GregW

The PEOPLE that make up the corporation have all the legal and constitutional rights as any other citizen. They may take out political advertisement, contribute to campaigns and vote like anyone else. The corporation they had the government create in order to limit their debt liability to their investment instead of their entire personal fortune does NOT have any of these rights. This is the price of limiting their liability.

For example: The President of GM may have and express a political opinion by speaking his mind in any publication or by purchasing an advertisement anywhere he desires with his OWN and not corporate funds. This does NOT limit an individual's personal freedom at all.

I agree that an individual person wont see there rights taken away

but you are taking about corporations

when move-on.org (a corporation) took out a full page ad ('gen betrayus') in the New York Times...it wasnt snuffy smith of move-on, it was the corporation

when NYT endorsed candidate obama, it wasnt editor john doe, it was the corporation

when UAW (a union)(a corporation) endorsed obama it wasnt 30(or 30,000) different members endorsing him, it was the corporation

when PEOPLE donated millions to the DNC (a corporation) and it gave that money to one candidate, it was a corporation giveing money to one candidate, even though the PEOPLE gave the money to the PARTY, not a specific candidate

do you see now.......

[summers73]

Everytime I hear the term "teabagger" I assume people are speaking of Anderson Cooper.

[FinkieMcGee]

Originally Posted by workingclasshero

I agree that an individual person wont see there rights taken away

but you are taking about corporations

when move-on.org (a corporation) took out a full page ad ('gen betrayus') in the New York Times...it wasnt snuffy smith of move-on, it was the corporation

when NYT endorsed candidate obama, it wasnt editor john doe, it was the corporation

when UAW (a union)(a corporation) endorsed obama it wasnt 30(or 30,000) different members endorsing him, it was the corporation

when PEOPLE donated millions to the DNC (a corporation) and it gave that money to one candidate, it was a corporation giveing money to one candidate, even though the PEOPLE gave the money to the PARTY, not a specific candidate

do you see now.......

It isn't endorsement, it's donating money to that campaign which is completely different.

Would you say me giving 100 bucks to Obama's campaign and stating "I'm voting for Obama" are the same thing?

[kovert]

For those that posted on this thread that consider themselves Tea Party members and those on the ideological right who oppose O's bailout, I would like to pose the following to you.

Originally Posted by kovert

It is quite the coincidence that after recently making a thread to find out how Tea Party members felt about the SCOTUS ruling that I happened to stumble across this gem of an article.

I was curious because the Tea Partiers were fuming over the continued Wall Street bailouts under Big O while he left Main Street to fend for themselves.

Perfectly understandable grievance. Yet I have yet to hear a peep from the Tea Party members on the SCOTUS ruling that basically equates corporate political campaign ads to the 1st Amendment Right Of Free Speech. Thus freeing corporations to spend as much money as they deem fit to support (or attack) a candidate of their choosing.

If they thought government favored Wall Street before, now the SCOTUS ruling has allowed corporate money to quite literally OWN the government.
Yet, where is the outrage from the Tea Party? Why are they not out protesting and marching? Perhaps because it was the majority right wing of the SCOTUS that made the ruling? I find it so strange, how silent they seem to be on this issue and apparently I'm not the only one.

"Not much has been heard on this alarming topic so far from the "tea party patriots" or any of the other usual right-wing suspects, however. Their flag-flapping ire tends to be directed against Democrats and liberals only."

This is not the only glaring examples of hypocrisy.
Remember the Dubya years, the years where if "You were not with US, you were against us." They were the True Blue American Patriots led by the GOP and Fox News, while the unAmericans were anyone who disagreed with them. They were protecting our sovereignty from the dreaded foreign Axis Of Evil. They also protect us from the folly of socialism, the threat of communism, the fanaticism of Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. Those must never be allowed foothold on our soil. That was the line they gave us.

But wait, surely the right wing judges would always look to protect the sovereignty of our political system from foreign influence. We surely can not expect the bleeding heart liberals on the SCOTUS to care.

"Actually, the Republican attorneys and the justices themselves reviewed this issue, at least glancingly, during the course of argument in the landmark case. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens, who happen to have been appointed by Democrats, asked whether foreign corporate interests would be able to funnel money into American elections through their U.S. subsidiaries if the court struck down law and precedent to allow unlimited corporate political spending. The reply came from Theodore Olson, who first gained notoriety as the lawyer for the secretive anti-Clinton Arkansas Project and has lately distinguished himself as a libertarian advocate for gay marriage. "I would not rule that out," he admitted."

"Unsurprisingly, the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy simply failed to address the problem. Why draw attention to the bad news when you're overturning a century of precedent."

WTF, . Okay, calm down, take a breath. I mean c'mon, corporations are people too right. And these are American corporations, so it can't be all that bad right?

"Justice Samuel Alito noted during the September arguments that foreign-owned media corporations have the same First Amendment rights that American companies do."

Oookaay. Well you know, maybe its my leftie bias coming up. I mean c'mon, how did O raise all that money when he campaigned. I mean he HAD to have gotten paid by a lot of foreign dough too, right?

Wrong.

Well, okay its a little far fetched to think any high ranking politician would ever deliberately allow foreign money to influence politics, (oh please be) right?

"Haley Barbour, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, hatched a complicated loan scheme that laundered $2 million from a Hong Kong businessman through a GOP "think tank" and into his party’s congressional campaigns.
Barbour clearly knew that the money came from foreign sources and appeared to have lied to the committee about the matter. When the Senate hearings began, John Glenn, then a Democratic senator from Ohio, offered a pithy summary of Barbour’s behavior: "As far as I know, [this] is the only [case] where the head of a national political party knowingly and successfully solicited foreign money, infused it into the election process, and intentionally tried to cover it up." The Young scheme used a Florida subsidiary of his company -- which boasted Gerald Ford as a director! -- to conceal its foreign origin.
Today he is governor of Mississippi, where his penchant for influence peddling has served him well – and he is now a widely touted prospect for the Republican ticket in 2012."

Okay, no more rationalizations, no more weaving and dodging. Enough of the smokescreens, enough of the theatrics. Its reality check time.

Where is the Right Populist outrage? Where are the angry party members now? Where are the Patriots?

The right wing majority of the SCOTUS has just put America up for sale to the highest bidder. Are Limbaugh, Beck, Fox News blasting the SCOTUS ruling?

Well at least the threat of an attack on US soil has finally been neutralized.

Communist China, socialist Europe, oil rich Venezuelan & Sharia, fundamentalists Islamic regimes can now all legally buy their own piece of the American pie.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bin laden and the rest of Qaeda willingly turn themselves in. With his rich Saudi oil connections, he would not only be pardoned (after a substantial brib,..,er,.. contribution to Presidential candidates of course), I bet the court would reward HIM with the ransom money for turning himself in.

God Bless America, the best pasture totalitarians and dictators can buy.

Originally Posted by kovert

It appears even one of the judges who voted for the SCOTUS ruling last week acknowledges that unrestricted money and campaigns are not a good mix.

So why no peep out of the anti-Wall Street party going members, the impartiality of judges goes back to the very roots of our democracy.

"From our nation's beginning, the independence of judges has been a source of national concern. When the colonists separated from England, they listed King George's attempts to restrict the independence of judges as one of a long list of offenses enumerated in the Declaration of Independence." (http://www.centerjd.org/archives/news/2000/001114.php - broken link)

But just because corporations lend money to campaigns that does not necessarily mean they would receive any favors in return, does it?

"In Caperton, the court decided 5 to 4 that a West Virginia supreme court justice whose candidacy was aided by millions of dollars from a coal mining executive should have recused himself when the executive had a case before the court."

If the below is not sufficient grounds for some protests, I don't know what is.

"We actually talked to a lobbyist in Texas on record, on camera, willing to go on camera to talk about how--it's a lobbyist for the Texas Medical Association who boasted that he had succeeded in reshaping the philosophy of the Texas supreme court through an all-out political campaign and very large donations. They took [control of the court] from the trial lawyers who had been making contributions and had influenced the court to the other side of the, of the aisle. What does that say about the perception of independence?
Even at the local level some judicial candidates have to raise $250,000 to win and spend a great deal of time not only raising money but making television commercials, being coached by media advisors to walk into the room and look judicial."

Well, democracy does come at a price, as they say.