Constitutional Amendment Petition - Corporations are not people. | Hacker News Reader

Constitutional Amendment Petition - Corporations are not people.

wolf-pac.com

13 pointsnalbyuites10 comments

Which rights exactly are you wanting to take away from corporations?

The provision of making corporations people gives them the rights to not be subjected to searches without warrants, to not be spied on by the NSA, to not be punished for speech, to own private land. Are you really in favor of taking these away?

By the way, this would not only effect the big evil corporations that you despise but the mom-and-pop shops that you love and all non-profit organizations, PACs, charities, churches, etc.

Is their corruption in corporations? Yes. Does that mean we should take away their rights? No. Just as lots of people say really dumb things that we don't like, we don't take away everyone's freedom of speech.

This would have much bigger consequences than most people realize.

I agree that this amendment would be bad, it does generate needed discussion.

What I don't like about the current state of corporation rights right now is that they can't be punished if run by halfway competent people. Case in point: patent trolls use shell companies to carry out their shenanigans while it's convenient and vaporize them the moment they're no longer convenient. Real people can't do that, if they do something wrong they can't just disappear and reappear later as a different person.

Edit: I'm not saying that patent trolls are always legally wrong (perhaps morally), they are just good examples of how vapor corporations work.

The problem is...they are people because they are composed of people. The logic you use to defend the idea that groups of people shouldn't be able to participate in the electoral process extends just as easily to unions, non-profit political organizations like MADD, and even political parties. The fact that they exist for making money is irrelevant, unless you would like to argue that making money is not a legitimate human interest.

That is a fantastically stupid thing to say.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of your arguments trigger infinite recursion.

What rights should be given just because people work in a corporation? Flawed argument. Personhood is quite important in our Republic. Only living and breathing humans that are American citizens should be allowed to take part in our politics. Giving corporations a seat at the table is just reinforcing a class-based system like you have in Britain but without hereditary titles. Wealth is power in a market based society. The other is influence and military might. Corporatons have two inhierently because there first use was to concentrate capital (wealth) and limit liability.

No rights should be given nor taken away by virtue of organizing in any way.

Because people have freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly, but FSM forbid they speak while assembled!

Corporations should be economic engines only. People can and should be forced to organize independently of a corporation. That preserves the balance in a democracy. I would also add that liability protection for the officers should be recinded. These two changes would have a profoundly postive effect on society.

LJ Miehe

E-gads. Is this what HN has come to? Regurgitated political tripe of the week?

Flagged.

Kudos to the other commenters who are trying to un-fuck this. I just don't have the time or patience for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com