Replying to a message of DAVE DRUM to EARL CROASMUN:

 DD> How about understanding that a "corporate person" is a legal
 DD> fiction limiting liability of the actual persons involved
 DD> in that corporation. That however is not guaranteed ... as
 DD> has been learned by several "robber barons" who went bust
 DD> or ripped off their patrons.

It's not a legal fiction, a corporation is in fact an 'artificial person' in
law.  And it is possible to pierce that corporate veil to identify and
if need be get at the owners.

 DD> A corporate person is not the same as a human person as
 DD> addressed in "We the People of the United States, in Order
 DD> to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
 DD> domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,
 DD> promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
 DD> Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and
 DD> establish this Constitution for the United States of
 DD> America."

Actually, companies as such existed before the US was founded.  Two
things in particular differentiate the corporate 'person' from a human;
one is that the corporate person cannot vote, another is that the corporate
person can exist forever ("in perpetuity" is the usual terminology).

 DD> And thus should not be guaranteed the protections granted to
 DD> individual human citizens ... especially since a
 DD> corporation cannot be a citizen, is not eligible to vote
 DD> (altho with the recent mis-guided decision of the supremes
 DD> it may be able to buy votes), and cannot be elected to
 DD> office. 

Non corporate entities also buy politicians.  The decision you disagree
with merely levels the field.  Since all politicians in this country are
bought and paid for, I'd just like to know just who owns which politicians.

---