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2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Who would pick the BEST Supreme Court Justices? Bernie Or Hill ? [View all]anigbrowl
(13,889 posts)35. The flaw in your argument
This mess started when the 14th amendment wasn't as specific as it should have been when in one paragraph it referred to "persons" without qualifying it as "natural persons" which it was designed to be about
People often say that laws or parts of the constitution were intended to mean something else, but this argument always fails when it ends up in the Supreme Court. Why? Because the obvious objection is that the people drafting the law could have written differently, but they chose not to. Courts interpret the law as it was passed, not as you or I think think it should have been passed. They certainly knew about the existence of corporations as 'legal persons' back at the time of the 14th amendment (because that legal concept dates back to Roman times) so if they had meant 'natural persons' then they could have just written that in. But they didn't.
No, you can say that they didn't know any better and were fooled by evil corporatists, but this is clearly not true. The court case you mention is from 1844, Louisville, C. & CR Co. v. Letson, 43 US 497. Here's the decision: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5165668748343674380&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
The 14th amendment was passed in 1868. Now, you can say that the court decision was wrong and that the court was corrupted (everyone says that about outcomes they don't like) but with 24 years that passed between that verdict and the 14th amendment, there is no way that the people amending the Constitution were not aware of the issue or did not understand the distinction between corporations and natural persons in Common Law.
I appreciate that you think this is terrible policy, and in fact your idea of a separate and unambiguous bill of rights for corporations strikes me as a very good one. But to claim that all the existing legal precedent is wrong and should be thrown out because you think the 14th amendment is accidentally missing a word is a self-defeating argument.
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Let's see, at this point 88 views..18 votes.. that is 70 Hillary supporters who are afraid to say
vkkv
Jan 2016
#7
Definitely would pick a justice that would reverse "corporate personhood" decisions...
cascadiance
Jan 2016
#9
Do you think the NAACP, MoveON, DU, and unions should not be protected by the First Amendment?
onenote
Jan 2016
#23
They nor corporations are NOT "natural persons" and aren't given rights by the 14th amendment...
cascadiance
Jan 2016
#24
Sorry, but the Bill of Rights was designed for NATURAL persons, not artificial persons...
cascadiance
Jan 2016
#26
The press itself is mentioned specifically in the constitution. Corporations are not!
cascadiance
Jan 2016
#33
the reason we have a first amendment is that we cannot trust the legislature to protect speech
onenote
Jan 2016
#34
Then I guess you must just love the Hobby Lobby decision if you love corporate personhood rights!
cascadiance
Jan 2016
#40
NO, there is NO reason we can't have LEGISLATED LAW to permit them being sued...
cascadiance
Jan 2016
#45
ACTUAL kindergarteners would nominate better SC justices than the GOP Congress.
Ken Burch
Jan 2016
#31