-=> Bob Ackley wrote to DAVE DRUM <=-

 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.

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

An "artificial person" is not a real person any more than a robot
is a person
no matter what some may read into the "law". Therefore it is a
fiction that an
artificial person is a real person - a legal fiction. 
 
 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."

 BA> Actually, companies as such existed before the US was founded.

Well, of course they did. The East India Company, for example. But, that has
nothing to do with them not being the same as an honest to actual humern bean. 

 BA> Two things in particular differentiate the corporate 'person' from
 BA> a human; one is that the corporate person cannot vote, another
 BA> is that the corporate person can exist forever ("in perpetuity"
 BA> is the usual terminology).

True enough ...  
 
 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.

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

And what difference will that make? None that I can see.

What we need to do is limit all political offices to two terms - then the
office holder has to go back and live under the laws that s/he enacted. No
cushy pensions, no extended health care, no lifetime sinecures. Make political
office a duty, not a lifetime career. So that Adlai Stevenson, Jr's famous
quote "In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of
the risks he takes." may have some relevance to real life.

ENJOY!!!

From Uncle Dirty Dave's Kitchen
Home of YAHOOOOAHHHH Hot Sauce & Hardin Cider 

 

... Politics may be the only profession for which no preparation is necessary.
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