Are corporations people?

The Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision seemed to say yes, at least in so far as free speech rights go, where money is equated with speech. And the McCutcheon vs Federal Election Commission Supreme Court case that will be decided next year might open those doors even wider.

It looks like the Supreme Court is now also taking up a case where they will decide if corporate persons have religious liberties too. If that is what is decided, how far could it go? Could you not cover vaccines on religious grounds? Could you not hire women on the corporation's religious beliefs? Could you not serve African American customers based on religious grounds?

Could you pick and choose which laws to follow based on religious grounds? Could you decide that religiously your organization won't pay taxes because some of those will be used for national defense and war efforts and that goes against thou shalt not kill? Could your organization religiously believe that animals were made to serve humans and thus humane treatment standards don't apply?

I heard that in the lower court decisions leading up to this Supreme Court case that part of the arguments for allowing corporations to have religious liberties was using the Citizens United precedent of corporate personhood.

What do you think? Are corporations people? Or does incorporating, with the tax, legal, and public interaction implications mean it's okay to have the organization subject to a different set of rules that you accept when asking for government-recognized corporate status than the rules for individuals?

If corporate personhood is a reality, what other rights do individuals have that corporate people are being denied that might end up at the Supreme Court down the road?

11/26/2013 8:58:00 PM

Citizens united did not establish that corporations are people no matter how many times you fucking morons want to blatantly ignore the ruling and make up whatever stupid shit fits your talking points.

Corporations aren't people, they are groups of people. Any rights a person retains as a member of a group can be extended to corporations. Freedom of speech is a good example of this. Group speech is protected and up until citizens united, this freedom was arbitrarily denied to corporations and unions for no real reason other than political parties didn't want competition.

Now with the new healthcare law we see a for-profit company wanting to exempt itself from having to cover birth control on religious grounds. So lets look at it both ways.

First, lets take the retarded fucking morons point of view and incorrectly assume that corporations are people: Do people have the right to exempt themselves from the law for religious reasons? Well obviously fucking not. If that were the case I'd start the Church of We Aint Payin Taxes Oh And Also Hookers and Blow tomorrow. So even if we were idiots that assumed that corporations were people, they cant be exempt. It would break the system.

Now, lets take the non-idiotic point of view that corporations are groups of people. Do any GROUPS of people have any right to be exempt from laws for religious reasons? Well, yes actually. Non-profits are ALREADY allowed to claim the very exemption from this very law for the very reasons in this case! This is actually what the case is about. We already grant special privilege to established religious organizations and now this for-profit corporation wants the same treatment on the same grounds.

The real question is: "Why the fuck do established religious organizations get exemptions from the law?" I don't think they should get exemptions to any law, but if they are going to get them than it must be for all organizations, not just those with certain tax filing designations.

Really the problem is that the established tradition is flawed. Established religious groups have more freedom than individuals and this is wrong. Either those freedoms must be granted to all groups and all individuals, or they should be eliminated. Personally I vote for elimination of those special freedoms.

[Edited on November 26, 2013 at 10:13 PM. Reason : r]

11/26/2013 10:12:20 PM

I concur with everything Shaggy said here. Bravo.

11/26/2013 10:14:53 PM

Quote :

"Any rights a person retains as a member of a group can be extended to corporations."

What about the right to vote? The individuals certainly have it, just like the individuals have the right to free speech or religious exercise.

Quote :

"this freedom was arbitrarily denied to corporations"

Is it arbitrary to try vest the power in democracy in individuals rather corporations?

11/27/2013 10:01:03 AM

I think we should put BP in jail.

11/27/2013 10:22:20 AM

Quote :

"The real question is: "Why the fuck do established religious organizations get exemptions from the law?" I don't think they should get exemptions to any law"

I agree that is an important question, and I would think it would lead to much the same conclusion on corporations not having religious exemptions to the law.

11/27/2013 12:32:23 PM

Quote :

" What about the right to vote? The individuals certainly have it, just like the individuals have the right to free speech or religious exercise."

A group cant have a right to vote. I want to think you're smart enough to understand the difference between an individuals right to cast a single ballot and the concept of group speech, but I cant tell if you're being purposefully obtuse or not. Maybe you've read too many talking point memos from your party.

Voting is very different than speech. Everyone gets 1 vote, but everyone has theoretically unlimited speech. You can be as active as you want in voicing your opinion and its really your personal resources that are your limit. (hint: pooling resources is why people join groups to promote their agendas).

I mean I guess you could maybe set something up where individuals could grant their vote to an organization and let that organization vote on behalf of the individual (essentially formalizing the party line ticket), but the group itself would never have a distinct right to vote outside of its members. This system would also require tracking of what individuals were part of the group in order to prevent duplicate votes (you'd only be able to authorize a single group to use your vote) and to guarantee the number of votes is accurate.

Quote :

"Is it arbitrary to try vest the power in democracy in individuals rather corporations?"

That wouldn't be arbitrary, but that's not what we're talking about. You're talking about vesting power in individuals AND groups that you approve of and excluding groups you don't approve of. I, and the citizens united ruling, are saying your picking and choosing of which groups are approved is arbitrary and wrong.

It would be practically impossible to vest power in individuals instead of groups. You cant ban news orgs or political parties, let alone associations of like minded friends. I mean its a completely silly idea that runs counter to the core concepts of society and democracy.

Quote :

" I agree that is an important question, and I would think it would lead to much the same conclusion on corporations not having religious exemptions to the law. "

Right. The lack of individual exemptions on first amendment grounds means there should be no such exemptions for groups of any kind.


Getting back to citizens united I understand where you're really coming from. You don't want someone who has more money than you having more of a voice than you do. I get that, but previous attempts at controlling it were arbitrary and wrong. That's what the ruling said. As long as you fight against and misrepresent the ruling, you're only going to come off as silly.

If you want to talk about limiting ALL group speech then maybe that's doable idk. Its a tough problem. Ultimately , though, is that it didn't really matter. Political parties still have way way way more of a chokehold on the process than any external organization could hope for. 3rd parties and independents still aren't very viable and even when they make it through all the rules of the machine force them to essentially pick a side. That, to me, is far more concerning than what someone might spend on some ad that i'll probably never see.

[Edited on November 27, 2013 at 1:43 PM. Reason : a]

11/27/2013 1:41:33 PM

Quote :

"Is it arbitrary to try vest the power in democracy in individuals rather corporations?"

Is it arbitrary to vest the power of democracy in individuals rather than political parties?

11/27/2013 1:42:42 PM

Quote :

"Now with the new healthcare law we see a for-profit company wanting to exempt itself from having to cover birth control on religious grounds."

That's what really prompted this thread. Since religion is such an amorphous thing, and since the government isn't typically in the habit of choosing which religious beliefs are real and which ones aren't, it seems like the legal exemptions could get pretty out there over time depending on how SCOTUS decides.

Quote :

"Really the problem is that the established tradition is flawed."

The Citizens United decision is a precedent that makes me worry about how they will decide this though, because I don't think they are going to break with the religious traditions you're referring to.

11/27/2013 2:14:34 PM

...so how does Hobby Lobby fit in the confessional?

11/28/2013 10:21:22 PM

Regardless, we now live in a Plutocracy.

11/29/2013 8:13:04 AM

Quote :

"Shaggy: It would be practically impossible to vest power in individuals instead of groups. You cant ban news orgs or political parties, let alone associations of like minded friends. I mean its a completely silly idea that runs counter to the core concepts of society and democracy."

Not to mention running counter to the First Amendment too:

Quote :

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

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Quote :

"Supplanter: ...the government isn't typically in the habit of choosing which religious beliefs are real and which ones aren't, it seems like the legal exemptions could get pretty out there over time depending on how SCOTUS decides."

Not sure your premise is accurate at all. SCOTUS has weighed in on religion plenty of times for decades; see, e.g., its various holdings relating to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or cases on religious foods, or on observing the Sabbath, and on and on and on. The federal circuit courts have also done so in even greater detail for the same length of time.

The general legal terminology is that beliefs must be "sincerely held" and "religious" to qualify as a religion under law.

On the "religious" prong, while the word "religion" itself hasn't been explicitly defined by the courts, lower courts apply factor-based tests to make that determination. For example, does the belief system address "fundamental and ultimate questions," is it "comprehensive in nature," and does it present "certain formal and external signs"? (Those snippets come from Africa v. Pennsylvania, 662 F.2d 1025, 1032 (3rd Cir. 1981), but see also Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929, 931-32 (4th Cir. 1986) -- the latter governs the 4th Circuit, which includes NC).

On the "sincerely held" prong, the courts will look at things like how long the beliefs have been held and how consistently the person (or group) has followed the tenets of their belief system. See, e.g., Sourbeer v. Robinson, 791 F.2d 1094, 1102 (3rd Cir. 1986) and Vaughn v. Garrison, 534 F.Supp. 90, 92 (E.D.N.C. 1981).

And even if something is a religion, its adherents must still nonetheless comply with any "neutral" rule / statute / etc of "general applicability". See Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990).

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On a tangentially related side note, the Citizens United decision didn't significantly alter election law. The case itself only addressed McCain-Feingold, which wasn't even enacted until 2002, was already on shaky legal ground following the flotilla of concurrences and dissents in McConnell v. FEC in 2003, and was substantively gutted by FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life Inc back in 2007. To this day I still can't comprehend how so many liberals attach so much importance to that case...


[Edited on December 1, 2013 at 1:10 AM. Reason : I also don't remember ever agreeing with Shaggy before this thread. Weird.]

12/1/2013 1:04:44 AM

I for one hope The Kroger Company runs against Steve Chabot in 2014; everybody loves Kroger in this area, and it's headquartered in Cincinnati, so it only makes sense for them to represent us in the House.

12/1/2013 5:07:07 PM