Posted on 09/17/2009 2:09:37 PM PDT by Admiral_Zeon
What if the Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Communist China, or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia?
Should that corporation have the same right to influence elections as an individual citizen of the United States?
Just asking.
Bad answer on my part: The USA already funds elections around the world so maybe it is fair if we allow the same (I am not happy with this solution but it is a fair point you made) but as long as everyone knows the origins of the money we should be OK.
Exactly
and their freedom of association rights with campaign finance laws targeted against corporations, right?
Not necessarily.
Does the government have the constitutional power to target campaign finance laws against corporations if such campaign finance laws prevent individuals from exercising their freedom of speech rights and their freedom of association rights?
Personally I don't want any foreign corporation or any American corporation which is owned by foreign citizens or controlled by foreign citizens or foreign countries influencing the elections by donating money to candidates for election in the United States. Period.
I don't want to have to compete with the Communist Chinese or the Saudi Arabians for influence in who gets elected and which laws are passed. Every nickle that a foreign country contributes to our election process is a nickle that dilutes my own power as a citizen of the United States.
I don't think there should be any limits on donations made by individual citizens of the United States, but clearly that right belongs to the individual citizens and not to some entity created by statute that can be controlled by foreign citizens or foreign countries.
My concern is that this case - if I recall - involves a documentary movie that was anti-Hilary funded by a corporation.
When is a documentary movie funded by a corporation seen as a political ad and not a movie? Was Moore's F911 a political ad and should have been banned?
Bad form on my part to answer a question with a question. But that is all I got for now.
“The fact that so many American corporations are owned and controlled by foreign citizens or even foreign countries should make you think twice about whether you want corporations as business entities having the same rights as individual citizens of the United States.
Giving Corporations the same privileges and rights as individual citizens sets up a system where our country and our representatives could be unduly influenced by the likes of Communist China or Saudi Arabia.”
Precisely.
If? No.
But whose individual freedom of speech rights is violated when the government limits the ability of corporate business entities from donating money to candidates? The individual owners of the corporation (if they are citizens) would not be affected, nor would the individual employees of the corporation (if they are citizens) be affected.
I think you are trying to equate an "association" of individuals with a corporation. They are two different things altogether. A corporation is a creature of statute. It exists solely at the pleasure of the legislature that allows it to exist. An "association" is a creature of contract between individuals and thus the government would not have the power to limit the free speech of an "association" since it's existence does not derive from statutory law, but it derives from the common law and from the right of assembly guaranteed to the citizens of the Unites States by the Constitution.
Corporations by statute have limited liability and additional rights and priviledges not granted to individual citizens or even unincorporated associations. Since they exist under the authority of the State, then the state has the authority to limit their rights as well as to grant them priviledges. Nobody is required to incorporate their businesses. But if they do so to gain certain priviledges, they must also know that by incorporating they may be surrendering certain rights which are individual and not corporate.
Should a corporation owned and operated by the Communist Chinese government have the same right to influence elections as you? Should you as a citizen of the United States have to compete with foreign corporations for the attention of your elected representatives?
If? No. But whose individual freedom of speech rights is violated when the government limits the ability of corporate business entities from donating money to candidates?
The individuals who are in the corporation, their freedom of speech and freedom of association rights are violated.
The individual owners of the corporation (if they are citizens) would not be affected, nor would the individual employees of the corporation (if they are citizens) be affected.
I don't agree.
But if you think there is no effect on the individual when campaign finance laws targeting corporations are passed, then what business is it of the government to pass such unconstitutional laws if as you say it has no effect.?
...And campaign finance laws of any kind are unconstitutional.
Since she’s not familiar with US law, I’m inclined to think that she just made this up on her own.
Wrong. By statute there are no individuals in a corporation. A Corporation is not an association of individuals, it is a separate entity altogether unto itself. It may have stockholders and employees who all have individual constitutional rights, but the corporation has no constitutional rights (at least none that are mentioned in the Constitution). Corporations are not people, nor are they associations of "people". They are business entities created by statute.
For whatever reasons, the Supreme Court ruled over a century ago that corporations are "persons" under the Constitution. That ruling was an example of judicial activism and very liberal constitutional interpretation with no basis in the orginal intent of the founders. It was the same kind of judicial activism that ultimately brought us Roe v. Wade.
I agree with your comments. And yes, it is important to point out that Congress must stay out of the way of the first and other amendments. What I am referencing is how corporations are recognized by the courts. There are times when they are recognized as individuals. They aren’t. It’s during these judicial rulings that I think things can get out of hand to the detriment of sane policy.
I appreciate the comments.
Dave, if you read my posts, you’ll note that I stated that I believe the issue is worthy of discussion. I did not say she was right. Looks to me like you’re guilty of over-enthusiasm here.
I am not against corporations per se, but I do want to make sure that laws in this nation are not devised so that corporations stifle the rights of the individual.
If at the end of the day laws devised to protect corporations don’t infringe the little guy’s rights, I’m okay with things.
You are granting Marx entirely too much credit in this one.
I think that pretty much covers the ball park.
You aren't talking about some esoteric right in the sky created by judges for evil corporations, but rather you are talking about MY RIGHTS, and MY NEIGHBORS RIGHTS, and among those are the RIGHT TO FREELY ASSEMBLE, to get together for barbeques, to create a corporation, to seek rezoning, etc.
There's just all sorts of things here ~ millions of things ~ we can even have a buyers club made up of the young mothers.
“Even defense contractors were named in the Constitution!”
-
Citation, please.
My point is that with arguments like So-So is making, i.e., Corporations should not be considered “people”; they argue out of the other side of their mouth that animals SHOULD be considered “People”.
IOW, typical liberal hypocrisy
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy; "
Isn't that amazing ~ "grant letters of marque and reprisal" ~
Just look up "privateer" ~ by necessary implication for a "Letter of Marquis" to have use there must also be a "privateer" to provide the service.
We simply call them "defense contractors" these days, but they're still bound by contracts, and if we were in a war, e.g. with Japan for instance, on Wake Island, and the island were overrun the employees of the defense contractor might be granted POW status ~ which, alas, with the Japanese wasn't all that good a thing.
And, oh, yeah, Maintaining a Navy has always involved the use of civilian ship builders and companies of people skilled in outfitting shops, building weapons, and so on.
Rights are negative, not positive.
You have the right to assemble, but not the right to force others into your assembly.
Maybe more Ayn Rand will help you understand this key concept:
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 97.
There is no such thing as “a right to a job”—there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him. There is no “right to a home,” only the right of free trade: the right to build a home or to buy it. There are no “rights to a ‘fair’ wage or a ‘fair’ price” if no one chooses to pay it, to hire a man or to buy his product. There are no “rights of consumers” to milk, shoes, movies or champagne if no producers choose to manufacture such items (there is only the right to manufacture them oneself). There are no “rights” of special groups, there are no “rights of farmers, of workers, of businessmen, of employees, of employers, of the old, of the young, of the unborn.” There are only the Rights of Man—rights possessed by every individual man and by all men as individuals.
It's human nature. It's in our God given existence to be a SOCIAL BEING.
In fact, there are two higher level groupings that have considerable bearing on how society and culture are mediated among men. One group consists of the women and children. They gather. They need and maintain permanent campsites. Another group is the men's hunting band. They hunt. They protect the women, children and the elderly. They need the trail to go to the game.
In the old days when life was very difficult the men would go on the hunt all winter and the women and children would stay behind and live on the stored crops and meat. In the Spring when the men's hunting party returned, and someone was missing, they would remarry with all new wives.
The Iriquois were doing this right down to the 1600s which is why we know we were doing this.
The foundational creation myth of the Sa'ami, the ancestors of tens of millions of Americans, says that in the Spring a young man comes to stay with Herb Woman and she becomes his wife, and he her husband. In the Fall he returns to the herd ~ the reindeer ~ and runs in the ice and snow away from the wolves.
I'm pretty sure that's the truth because that's pretty much the way life occurred for most Sa'ami and all Skolt Sa'ami for thousands of years.
It was the Way they lived and the Way they survived in the Great Ice Age at the foot of the glaciers.
As I said, it's built in ~ and as men or women we have rights that extend beyond those which may be exercised by a single individual.
Wrong. By statute there are no individuals in a corporation. A Corporation is not an association of individuals, it is a separate entity altogether unto itself. It may have stockholders and employees who all have individual constitutional rights,...
It's absurd that you think the Constitution allows government the power to limit the free speech of a corporation. What other powers do you think the government has over a corporation?
Are you going to tell me that the Constitution allows for the government to deny due process to a corporation? Are you going to tell me that the Constitution allows for the government to confiscate private property of a corporation? Are you going tell me that the Constitution allows for the government to ban companies from owning guns?
I know Obama -- and Sotomayor would tell me that.
The government have no constitutional power to limit campaign contributions by corporation. I asked you earlier in this thread to find me that authority delegated by the Constitution to the government and you have yet to do that.
I'm waiting.
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