I ain't gonna hold my breath, Roger.

Good thread.

Me neither Frank. Thanks.

Awesomeness!When I saw your title, I wondered which direction you might wander in. It is Rated!

i was also going to agree that i won't hold my breath, but sometimes you just want get right down in the image created and just wallow in it for awhile.

Unfortunately, it's AGAINST THE LAW for them to act human, 'legal' or 'natural'. Their sociopathy is mandated.

I guess I'm more afraid their parental model would be the cowbird - laying eggs in other birds' nests - absenting themselves from all responsibility - but still managing to proliferate and expand their kind.

Thanks for this, Roger

I couldn't agree more. I am a fervent supporter of free speech, but I had trouble with this one because money should not be allowed to talk louder than it already does--which is surely in the sonic boom range. I say you have something here--let's see the corporation's individual members or the corporation itself, depending on the circumstances, exercise all of a citizen's responsibilities as well as enjoying all of an American's rights. Let's see each board member willing to face sentencing when a company is found responsible for a death. Let's be sure that each corporation in the city or county must pay the appropriate school tax. I could go on for days.

Yeah, don't hold your breath there, Roger.

Anyway, McGarrett says we got this ruling all wrong. It's a great day for the first amendment. The corporations always try to sell us their shyte with the constitution, don't they?

While I wouldn't hold my breath, Roger, I agree with your point. The underpinning thinking behind tort law (not to mention public outrage) is definitely moving in this direction. Just give it another 50 years or so.

Thanks all.

Perkins1986Perkins1986 you've presented me with a dilemma. You are probably a corporation, which means you have the right to free speech, but I, as a real human, also have those rights. The question is, do I have the right to delete your comment, therefore impingeing on your rights? Hmmm, what to do?

Wonderful take on a reality that shall not come to pass.

Corporations are not people and should not be granted such status, since this is just another loophole they will jump through when questioned on their "parenting".

Jay, yes the humcorps use this "human status" when it comes to free speech but many ignore it when it comes to human decency. Otherwise I might not get a $20.00 fine if I'm 1 day late with a credit card payment. By the way, the $20.00 fine is part of the "reform."

If corporations are parents, they are perpetrators of Munchhausen Syndrome.

Its a judgement call. Yet, we can't hold our breath. Great post. Very inquisitive. Rated.

Well, yes. And they'd have to have a moral compass, to be good humans, right?
Thanks, Roger. Great writing, nice angle. Rated.

Humans are people like you, Roger. The mere mention of the supreme court and corporations sullies this decent and humane piece of thought. Rated.

It appears as though Karin (very nice person) thinks you may be the old wise man? Yet not so old?

Maybe you are simply the wise man?

Excellent!!

Dennis, good point:)

Bonnie, thanks for stopping by and I'm glad that I made you smile.

TheBarkingLot4, it is a weird decision. The concept that high-risk investors and job creators can protect their personal assets by incorporating has always been perceived as giving corporations human rights, but this is going too far. Wait until an AlQuada billionaire spends enough money to influence a senate race... that is legal now.

Thanks N.Jordan. I'm not holding my breath.

Hey Karin, like Jay says, watch that "old" crap" :) (Okay, I am old)

Thanks Gail. It would be nice if they had a moral compass on their own wouldn't it?

Thoth, thank you for your nice compliment.

Thanks Jay. I feel old much more often than I feel wise.

Karin, nice save!

Great question Stellaa! At least life with no parole.

Thank you Lois. Much appreciated!

Major thread, here...thank you for this. xox

"Depending on how this Supreme Court ruling is interpreted, maybe deadbeat dads and deadbeat corporations will face the same fate... removal from society until they learn how to become better citizens."

Arthur Andersen?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen

Thank you Robin!

MJR, yes very much like Arthur Anderson. Thanks for the link.

Freakin brilliant. If only... Except, of course, if their parental model is Palinesque or modeled on Barbara Bush.

One thing that occured to me has to do with the phrasing of the firs t ammendment. There is a principle interpretation which states that no part of a statute, particularly a constitution, is ever meaningless.

"A fundamental rule of statutory construction requires that every part of a statute be presumed to have some effect, and not be treated as meaningless unless absolutely necessary." Raven Coal Corp. v. Absher, 153 Va. 332, 149 S.E. 541 (1929)

The first amendment recognizes free speech and freedom of the press. But if corporations and other collective groups already have freedom of speech, doesn't this make freedom of the press redundant?

Clearly the framers of the constitution meant there to be a difference between freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but where all organizations, including corporations have full freedom of speech, what could freedom of the press actually mean? I really have trouble making sense of how this ruling fits in with the jurisprudence and the supposedly "textual" interpretation American courts pride themselves on.

Good perspective on corporate human relationships...

This also means they can be sued like normal people too, huh? Only multiplied by the number of board members, instead of just one. But, again, our government thinks inanimate objects, and concepts are the enemy, like in terror, and drugs.

Unfortunately, courts have also ruled that corporations' first LEGAL responsibility is to shareholders, and ANY charitable or humane act that might cut into that responsibility in the least, is not permitted.

SCOTUS decision did not confirm that corporations have human rights. They said nothing about human rights. What they confirmed, basically, is that "Congress shall make no law" which limits political speech--not a word about the political speech of individual humans.
Don't get me wrong. I hate the depredations of the corporatists as much as anyone. I decry the influence of money on politics. I despise politicians who work not for the people but rather only for their next run for office. And all of these things are huge problems now, and not likely to get hugely worse as a result of what the court handed down.
Keep in mind that the ACLU and the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Sierra Club and labor unions are corporations.
As long as you're here at Salon, you might as well read Glenn Greenwald's post of several days ago: "What the Court Got Right" and other screeds on the subject.
None of this should be taken to mean that I don't think Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas are corporate shills, but as Greenwald says, judging a decision by the outcomes you fear has little to do with following the law.
When your hair is on fire, wear a hat.

I concur with Bobby, just above. Greenwald got it right (mostly).

But Roger, as for the spammers: the right to free speech is not a right to be provided with a forum. You're perfectly justified in deleting spammers.

But if you feel bad about doing so, you should feel that way because it's a *human* person (one with rights) doing the spamming. The fact that s/he works for a corporation isn't relevant. That's kind of the point of the recent ruling: if you limit the speech of a corporation, you ARE thereby limiting the speech of the real, flesh-and-blood people whose interests it serves.

Your *basic* point still makes sense: if a thing has at lease some rights, we can still ask questions about what responsibilities it has -- in particular, we can ask about what responsibilities it has in how it should *exercise* those rights.

Oh, and one other thing about corporations as human. They must die also. People cash it in after, say, 80 years, so corporations, being human now, should cash it in after, say 100 years max. Then the question is, who gets the goodies?

Brilliant.

As a neglected employee, can I claim child abuse? Somebody call Child Protective Services! (Great Post)

I noticed on another post about this that the conservatives all thought the decision was good & right and nothing to worry about. So I am extemely worried.

This corps-as-humans - the way I learned it, way back when, was that it was a "legal fiction". So giving human rights, any of them, to corporations is sort of like those people who walk around dressed as Klingons and talking Klingon.

I'm with Stellaa - tho, being a good Canadian, lacking capital punishment, I only thought of whether corps could be jailed.

Also, as a good Canadian, I am baffled by the American reverence for the *constitution*, some document drafted by mere humans (of the flesh & blood variety) in some other time. It's like Christians trying to figure out how to live by consulting the bible. (We in Canada go by Common Law and precedents - which may not be a lot better...??)

A great blog, and not as nutz as it appears. Look back in our history to when our Federal and State Constitutions were new. Each corporate entity was chartered, then renewed every 5-10 years on the condition that it served The Public Good! Constant corporate lobbying, dirty politics and outright criminal actions gradually eroded our protections from abuse to the sorry state we have today. For a good and easy read on this topic, you can't beat Thom Hartmann's "UNEQUAL PROTECTION" AND "THRESHOLD". He doesn't drop a load of depressing history in your lap, he provides some very real and practical antidotes to the toxic Greed Is Good koolaid being ladled out daily to us in our corporatist media.

Love this Roger. And wish it wasn't a dream.

What Frank said, but we can hope I guess...
Great piece Rog.
Rated

dang skippy, Roger.

This post's arguments are of course logical and amusing and fair. But I wonder if this isn't a petard we can hoist them on. If they want the right, they must have the obligations. Not exactly this, cool as it might be, but surely there are legal minds who can force the issue set now by this infernal court.

Tho it seems to me you are not a citizen if you can't vote. Not quite solipsistic: they can have free speech if they are citizens and citizens vote.

Thanks for this.

I love your mind, Roger. In order to be truly human, corporations would need a SOUL, right? Therein lies our problem.

I appreciate your approach on this, it is a reasoned approach that I hope will not be a fantasy, but fear it will be.

R

A pamphlet distributed by Milwaukee SOUL (Save Our Unwanted Lives) points out that under current U.S. law, corporations are considered legal persons, while humans in prenatal development are denied this moral status.

In her essay, “Life and Peace,” Juli Loesch wrote: “In a revealing article published in Seven Days, Michelle Magar suggests that the New Right’s relationship with Right to Life has been ‘more a marriage of convenience than true love.’ She suggests that the anti-abortion position adds ‘a certain moral luster’ to the New Right, which otherwise has a distinctly different set of priorities (threatening war for the possession of Persian Gulf oil, and so forth). Magar points out that, in a practical sense, the New Right’s concern for the unborn gives it access to the ‘grassroots anti-abortion network of the Catholic Church—a ready-made constituency which they had so far never been able to win.’”

Similarly, in 1989, Presbyterian Minister and environmental activist Richard Cartwright Austin discussed proposals to amend the Constitution:

"It is time to affirm that all creatures within the boundaries of our nation deserve constitutional recognition, and that rights extend beyond the human community to embrace all of natural life. This is the most radical of the proposals because it would give species, natural systems, and natural features constitutional standing and rights of their own--independent of their contributions or lack of contribution, to human welfare.

''To secure their rights within our legal system they would, of course, require human agents willing to argue their case, just as agents now represent the perceived interests of infants, the comatose, and others who cannot speak on their own behalf.

''Corporations, which are legal constructions and not natural beings, have standing in court to protect their interests now. This amendment would grant similar privileges to spotted owls threatened by timbering in the Pacific northwest to marine life in Chesapeake Bay suffering urban and agricultural pollution, and to the beauties of the Yosemite Valley hidden behind too many buildings and vehicles.

"A constitutional amendment to recognize the rights of a vast new constituency--all God's creatures--will not succeed without broad popular support. Animals ask us for considerate treatment and the earth cries for loving care."

Austin's words reflect the rising tide of environmental concern in America and the emergence of an animal liberation theology.

By 1991, seven medical schools in the U. S. had stopped using animals to train their students. In 1991, fur imports and trappings were cut in half. Seventy-five firms stopped using animals to test their products. A Gallup Poll, paid for by the Restaurant Association of the United States, found that one-third of all patrons in American restaurants in 1991 would select a vegetarian option, if it were on the menu.

In 1992, Congressman Ron Dellums called for a halt to all animal experimentation in the military. Presidential candidate Jerry Brown said, "The millions of animals used in scientific experiments should be replaced by other methods."

In a letter dated March 26, 1992, Presidential candidate Bill Clinton wrote to Don A. Jones of Marietta, GA: "Thank you for writing to express your concern for the rights of animals. I have always loved and respected animals and abhorrer any cruelty toward them. Please be assured that a Clinton Administration would be extremely sensitive to these issues and concerns."

Animal rights are gradually becoming a mainstream political issue. In letter dated October 6, 1992, Congressman Pete Stark says he supports H. R. 3918, the Consumer Products Safe Testing Act.

He writes:

"Animals should be treaded humanely. As I was in the last Congress, I am a co-sponsor of this bill which declares that Federal policy shall encourage the development and use of product testing procedures which accurately reflect the acute health effects on humans of certain products, but...do not rely upon animal testing."

Stark, along with Congressman James Scheuer, is also an original co-sponsor of legislation to ban the use of the steel-jaw leghold trap--banned in over 66 countries. Stark also supports the Endangered Species Act, without weakening its provisions; an immediate ban on the importation of wild-caught birds for the pet trade; a prohibition on sport hunting and trapping in the National wildlife Refuge; non-animal toxicity tests for non-medical products; making medical research more accountable for tax money spent and animals used; and more humane methods of raising animals for food.

Author Keith Akers concludes in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983):

I"n the long run, we are all going to be vegetarians. Doubtless through further exploitation of the environment, we can prolong the period in our history in which we think it is necessary to kill animals for food. But the ecological limitations of this procedure will soon make manifest to all that a vegetarian economy is both necessary and desirable.

"Only a small minority of the world's citizens will ever be able to consume meat at current American levels: the resources to support a more intensive livestock agriculture simply don't exist. To continue to maintain a meat economy can only make matters increasingly difficult for everyone, and can only adversely affect the goals of health for everyone and world peace."

Since the justices who made the ruling are owned by the corporations who got them on the Court, they could hardly vote otherwise. One might even say that those judges are more corporate than human.

Would people please stop saying "human?" I mean, it's fine as a joke, but it misrepresents what's at issue, here. No one tried to claim corporations are human.

On another note (in reference to Greg Correll's comment), the link to citizenship is off-target. All kinds of non-citizens have the right to free speech, as I understand it. I'm a Canadian, but when I visit the US, your government is not allowed to prevent me from speaking. So citizenship, voting, etc., are irrelevant.

Great poke in the right direction, Roger! Thanks.
Vasu, notice that the post option is labeled "comments" not "encylopedic infinite digressions." You must learn to edit yourself. No one else has the time!

Chris McD: You make a good point and change my thinking. My comment was a bit glib.

But there are two big differences that keep my idea alive,if tenuously:
First, you can, in fact, vote, in your country. In other words as a human being you are vote-capable. Corporations are not and should never be vote-capable.
Second: the real issue of difference is money. A corporation can fund on gargantuan scales, and with increasing subtlety of effect, not simply because of money, but because of how money purchases layering of effects and a divorce from personal accountability. When T. Boone spends his wealth and stands there, on TV, saying in effect I paid to say I think we should do thus and so, there is accountability. When dozens of astroturferes and swiftboaters and semi-visible PACs are sustained by networks of lobbyists and corporations, who do we disagree with? who do we take to task and debate with?

And when they pay to present messages as if it came from Everyman, from the Right And True Americans, how do we preserve ourselves from propagandistic effects?

I know. I'm still simplifying. But corporations are legal entities, and profoundly NOT human, and thus have no Voice. All individuals in these entities have their own voices, no one person is being denied if we reverse this, and we must.

(and Vasu, get a blog. This is so tiresome the way you post reams of quotes on everyone's blogs, as if you were really thinking about something, and steer the topic to your PETA/Jainist whatever. Either engage and respect the Comment process by writing briefly and to the point, go write on your own blog, or STFU. You don't persuade, and you do a disservice to your own "animals are equal to human" cause or whatever the hell it is. Stop w/ the soapbox, it's tedious).

Thank you all very much.

Other human responsibilities we need to recognize for corporations:
1) They cant marry (merge), because they are the same (I know of no gender corps, unless Mary Kay merges with one of those "male enhancement products" companies.
2) They cant do hostile takeovers (slavery and all that).
3) At age 65 they must retire.
4) They must pay the same tax rates the rest of us natural types do.
5) They cannot move headquarters or incorporate outside the US without giving up their "citizenship." If they do, they dont get to come back. Bye bye Halliburton.
What did I miss?

Um...you're kidding, right?

Kill them ...... kill them all ....

"Late Again" nailed it in the fifth comment above:

"Unfortunately, it's AGAINST THE LAW for them to act human, 'legal' or 'natural'. Their sociopathy is mandated."

For historical background, read up on "Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad." The wikipedia entry is at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad

*Strategically* one of the major points of possible intervention is in regaining meaningful control over the process of the granting of corporate charters, through which corporations are granted their "existence." Charters were originally issued only when there was clear public benefit from their activities - e.g., creation of canals, railroads, etc.; that was the basis for granting limited liability to their holders. And "profit making" was understood (correctly) to be insufficient justification in itself.

Giving the corporations complete power over the Senators was the murder of our voting power. It's dead. This is clearly a war against America. We no longer have a voice in politics or morals.