Posted on 09/17/2009 2:09:37 PM PDT by Admiral_Zeon
WASHINGTON -- In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.
During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.
But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.
Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."
After a confirmation process that revealed little of her legal philosophy, the remark offered an early hint of the direction Justice Sotomayor might want to take the court.
"Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions," said Douglas Kendall, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and does not say that it is to be denied any grouping of people (such as a political party, for example; or what we call now a corporation).
That's a nasty slap, dude. But if it takes being labelled a Marxist to assert that capital responsibility IS personal responsibility, then so be it. The downfall of the capitalist system has always been the abuse of the corporation to achieve a Marxist-style separation of the ruling elite from personal responsibility. Limited liability from responsibility is the same corruption in the political realm as it is in the business realm - and it's those same corrupt corporate capitalist elites that have always funded political Marxism, because they're the same thing. Denying this connection has been the single most powerful enablement of the Leftist cause with the useful idiots.
Does that apply to GE, too?
How about the newspapers?
How about the Sierra club and NARAL?
They are ALL GROUPS of people, you stupid, female Latina. And the individuals in a group do NOT lose rights because they form a group.
Lobbies are good things. We join and pay people to represent us to our representatives. It is part of living in a REPUBLIC and NOT a democracy.
But that is what this female, Latina communist really hates. The republic.
Yes, but I think the point is why are there “rights” granted to the collective that consists you and your neighbors? You have a personal vote, a personal voice, and so on, as do your neighbors. What is this additional right that you now collectively have?
So, according to you, someone could move into this housing development and engage in activities which could negatively impact the other people living there and we would have no right as a collective to address the situation?
She was at the Orioles game tonight.
“First they came for the corporations and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a corporation.”
An awful lot of conservatives would agree with what she’s suggesting here.
From the same fool who said that precedent was so important regarding poor 19th century decisions in the 2nd Amendment.
-PJ
End of that story.
Sonja is probably the most fascistic judge we've ever had on the USSC. She's also likely the stupidest one in modern times.
Only those who are fooled by Sotomayor's "Judges created freedom of speech for corporations", strawman fallacy.
The right to freedom of speech and the right of freedom of association was never granted by "judges". It's inalienable.
Indeed, take GE as an example. Not every employee likes the new cozy relationship with this Administration.
Groups, unions, organizations, corporations, etc. don't have rights, they have privileges.
We are a Republic, based on the idea that individuals our endowed by our creator with Rights.
I’m going to point out that indeed, “corporations” do not have rights, as only individuals can have rights, but the individuals on the corporations certainly have rights.
interesting
Anybody who thinks Sotomayor is right of Ginsberg should check their brain brain at the door. Obama surrounded himself with radical communists. Sotomayor will prove to fit right in with that crowd.
Now I say again to all Conservatives who vote 3rd party instead of Republican, is this REALLY what you want all 9 of the SCOTUS justices to be like. Because that is what you are going to get if you keep voting against the Republicans for protest. The Republicans don’t get the message, and we end up with communists on the top bench.
We have one chance. Change the GOP. And that will mean finding Conservative candidates and donating money to their campaigns so they can beat their GOP picked rivals in the primaries. The only chance we have for smaller government, is to back true conservative Republicans and support them with our dollars and our votes. Every other tactic leads to socialism.
Just my 2 centavos.
The “wise Latina” apparently has a problem with private property and private ownership, as I suspect, our president does. This does not bode well.
Well then the government should stop taxing the crap out of
the 78% small business that you folks keep treating like
we were some global concern.
The congress writes the tax laws and spends us into oblivion
but you think the ones (employers) who will bear the brunt of
their cap and trade and socialized medicine should have no say in the matter.
That's called taxation without representation.
When you come around looking for a job remember why
we (business)are not here anymore. Go find work from a poor person.
If she wanted to start with a bang, this is a good way. Corporations are as non-constitutional as are political parties. To make matters worse, the board of directors of corporations may not even have a personal interest or stake in the corporation themselves, but are often professional proxies, paid representatives of other corporations that own stock. Such proxies may sit on the boards of several corporations.
This often creates a disconnect between corporate operations and corporate responsibilities. A corporation is *supposed* to work in the interests of its shareholders, which can mean many things. But what if a corporation is directed by its board to do things neither advantageous to their shareholders, *or* to the corporation itself?
For his innumerable faults, Jesse Jackson had one good idea, once, that I am in agreement with, at least partially. He called it the “corporate death penalty”. In essence, it would be much like a racketeering act specific to corporations. And not just to the individual corporation, but to those responsible individuals within the corporation.
The purpose of the corporate death penalty is for when a corporation commits a pattern of criminal activities, often in defiance of the law, because the penalties are so trivial, and the profits from violating the law are so great, they cannot resist breaking the law, repeatedly.
Today, if a corporation is absolved of misdeeds, either by falling apart or being consumed by another corporation, often the misdeeds are forgotten in the fray. And those individuals responsible for those misdeeds, often proxies, go on to commit the same and similar offenses in other corporations.
Importantly, the major corporations of the US are highly “incestuous”, as far as being controlled by a very small elite cadre of proxies and major shareholders. So in effect, this small group of people are the voice of the “civil rights” of corporations in the law. Perhaps it could be described as their having “super votes”, worth far more than the individual vote of a human citizen.
And this is a great cause of concern.
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