7mo ago

I finally found a rule worth posting

I don't think my lurking counts as breaking the rules, I'm just fulfilling my commitment late.

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52 comments

Thankfully corporations aren't people.
- Amazing how many don't get that.
  
  Pretty sure the US law doesn't even understand that. Don't they have 2nd amendament rights?
  
  Citizens united and some other cases mean that:
  Cooperations have first amendment rights
  Donating money is a form of speech protected by the first amendment
  therefore bribery is legal as long as it goes through PACs and is not obviously quid pro quo
  
  They don't have the right to emancipation though. Like they are literally chattel. Weird how that part of personhood was overlooked, almost like the law was made ad-hoc to give their owners as much power as possible and not according to any real set of principles.
  
  Corporate personhood is mostly for convenience. Otherwise a company would need an individual to buy and sell corporate property, and they would have to rearrange stuff like that whenever that person dies, retires, or does something else that restricts property use. And it means an individual wouldn't be able to be a tyrant for everyone else working at the company just because everything is in their name.
  Importantly, it makes it much easier for customers to sue, since they only need to show the company wronged them in some way rather than an individual being personally responsible. Usually they would have no way of knowing who makes which decisions and has which responsibilities, and by suing the company as a whole. they don't have to. The same applies for governments, police departments, school boards, etc.
  
  If it's just for convenience then why were they given the right to speech which also happens to be a right to financial participation in the electoral process? You don't need those things to run a business, but you absolutely can use them to accelerate the corruption of society.
  
  For free speech, that would be similar. A company can have a social media account or make broadcasts or advertisements, and having to have an individual as a proxy would just be cumbersome. And yes, that includes things like lobbying. Otherwise, you could have a company pay for private individuals for the service of lobbying on their behalf and essentially have no cap or regulation. Formalizing what they are allowed to do also allows you to go after them for things they aren't, again without needing to prove individual culpability. And if we decide they have too much influence in politics, it gives us a lever to pull to reign them in.
  
  Otherwise, you could have a company pay for private individuals for the service of lobbying on their behalf and essentially have no cap or regulation.
  Or how about this: lobbying should be tightly regulated so that nobody has the amount of influence that corporations currently have.
  And if we decide they have too much influence in politics, it gives us a lever to pull to reign them in.
  That is never going to happen, because they have too much influence in politics.
  
  Then why does Delaware keep giving them the right to vote?
  
  In Delaware they do have the right to vote in certain municipalities.
  
  what the fuck
  
  Idk about that but they can for sure vote in some US cities.
  
  How many people? Or corporations? Or did you mean politicians?

52 comments