Corporations

 

People

A feeling deep in your soul
Says you were half now you're whole
No more hunger and thirst
But first be a person who needs people
People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world

Are Corporations people?

The SCOTUS, in Citizens United v. FEC opined that corporations are people and thus have the right of free speech.  I do not agree with SCOTUS in that case.  Corporations are NOT people.  The Constitution says that the people are enumerated in the decennial census. That census does not list corporations.  Yes, corporations are groups of people, and people have free speech.  But corporations are legally a special group of people.  If a group is liable for an action, then every member of that group is liable. If you are driving the car in a bank robbery and one of your gang kills a bystander during the robbery, then you are guilty of murder even if you never held the murder weapon.  However if the corporation  is sued for a wrong doing, your assets as a owner of that corporation are protected.   Only those assets that you have legally transferred to the corporation ( i.e. the corporation’s assets) are subject to liability.

The question is thus whether you can transfer the right of speech to a corporation.  If you can not transfer it, then a corporation, even though it is a group that includes you, can not own it.  Freedom of speech is an absolute.  Like life and liberty, it either exists or does not exist.  It can not be subdivided.  You can not give your life to a corporation. (You can give your life FOR a corporation, but it is still your life. You can not give your life TO a corporation.)  You can not give your liberty to a corporation.  You can not give your freedom of  speech to a corporation.  A corporation can not exercise what it does not have.  It thus has no freedom of speech, even though its shareholders have freedom of speech.

You dissolve a corporation, you do not execute a corporation.  You penalize/fine a corporation, you do not jail a corporation. There are no corporations on death row in Texas.  This is because while shareholders of corporations are people, society has decided in law that corporations are NOT people. Corporations can NOT both have special protections and absolute rights. You can not have your cake and eat it too!