When Mitt Romney said "Corporations are people, my friend," could this be what he meant? The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Jonathan Frieman, a 56-year-old San Rafael resident and self-described social entrepreneur, failed to convince a Marin County Superior Court jurist Monday after he argued that he was not alone when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over in October while driving in the carpool lane.
Instead, Frieman admitted that he had reached onto the passenger's seat and handed the officer papers of incorporation connected to his family's charity foundation.
So using Mr. Frieman's math, one driver plus one stack of legal papers equals one corporation, not to mention the right to drive with impunity in the carpool lane.
It also raises the legal, if not the existential question, what does the word "alone" really, mean?
By Frieman's estimation, if corporations are indeed persons as was first established in the 1886 Supreme Court case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. and he offered evidence that a corporation was traveling inside his vehicle - riding shotgun, of course - then two people were in his car.
Despite Mr. Frieman's creative take on Citizens United, classical arithmetic carried the day as court Jurist Frank Drago declared, "Common sense says carrying a sheath of papers in the front seat does not relieve traffic congestion. And so I'm finding you guilty."
Corporations? Your personhood struggle continues.
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So the Jurist actually has a working brain - good for him! So now can we dump Citizens United?
Talk about the corporate/entitlement complex!
Wow, now that military spending is sequestered, we'll be fighting for lane space, not outer space - vehicle occupancy, not WMDs!
Mitt Romney has rallied those who wish to travel down a very steep, slippery slope! -Kevo
Obviously corporations are people when it benefits the corporation, not when it benefits the individual. SCOTUS has made it very clear which side it's on.
Further proof you have to have written evidence of having had a prefrontal lobotomy to be a Republican.
Jonathan Frieman 2016
The article I read yesterday about this said the driver was not trying to get out of his ticket but intentionally drove in the carpool lane hoping he'd get a ticket so he could bring up the question of corporate personhood in court. From the HuffPo article:
He apparently got his wish and will probably appeal the ruling.
This puts a better face on it than Kent's article...
I want to see a corporation sue for equal rights to vote.
If they own the judges and legislators, they don't have to vote. By buying expendable, interchangeable stooges, they can run their short sighted, might-makes-right agenda without having to take personal responsibility for the rape they commit.
That's what I thought his intention was: to challenge Citizens United.
#6.2Don't be surprised if corporations are given the tight to vote. I don't know how many votes a corporation would get. I don't see corporations enumerated in Article 1 Section 2 of the constitution. Perhaps if they pay taxes they would count like other people. If they don't pay taxes then they might be like the Indians not taxed. Or, perhaps they could count as 3/5ths of a person like some were. Of course, they already have the keys to government.
@afairhope Corporations may be blackhearted*, but it's people that are slaves to corporations in this day and age, not the other way around.
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*I'm trying to make a punny. Please don't punish me for bad taste.
I need to go read the above court decisions (which I admit, I have not) but it would seem to me no one is saying a coorporation IS A person, but it is made up, run by, represents, people, thus it is an extension of those people. This is why you can sue a corporation. You can't sue a house, or a tree, or a car, but you can a coorporation because the courts have deemed it.
Coorporations are people, but a coorporation is not a person. There is a distinction.
Huh?
Then, by that logic, a corporation is limited to the contribution limits of its employees, since it is representing them and isn't an actual entity of itself. Funny how it didn't work out that way, thanks to the conservatives on the Court.
That sounds nice but it's in fact 100% wrong. Corporations are legal "fictitious persons", which grants them some (but not all -- yet!) of the legal privileges and responsibilities of a so-called "natural person".
Corporations are formed by people, in fact corporations were formed to protect the people who owned the corporation. A corporation separates the company from the person. If you own a non-incorporated company you can be sued for all the company has and your personal assets. If you have a corporation you can only be sued for what the corporation has. Most corporations had LTD at the end which means limited liability. Most now say LLC which means limited liability corporation, which as it states has a limited liability. Many of the large corporations are incorporated in Delaware. I know that the courts say that corporations are people, but I don't believe it.
#7.4 And, like Luxembourg, Europe's Delaware, there are more corporations in Delaware than there are human citizens.
Until it can be executed by a shot in the arm in Texas, it isn't a person and shouldn't be treated as such.
If corporations are people, too, how many people make a corporation?
Is a hostile takeover a legitimate rape?
If it's a small business, as few as one person can form a corporation...
Just ask Stephen Colbert... Not only does he have his own corporation, he formed his own super-PAC ...
What a lazy ruling... It is well accepted that babies and children qualify as additional passengers, but how can the transportation of one who is unable to drive ease traffic congestion?
He has completely ignored the issue at hand.
Wonder if anyone ever said "Jesus is in the passenger seat."
Everybody knows GOD is in the driver's seat...
/snark
No, the real HOV test would be a pregnant lady and a recent ultrasound. Also, can you really deduct a miscarriage as a dependent for taxes in any states?
And the ultimate legal conundrum, is a fetus a corporation, or is a corporation a fetus?