[tomder55]

OK I get it... unions ,trade associations ,charitable organizations ,political parties , No humans have rights when they pool their resources ,and act in unison for a common puropse . Their total right to influence society is granted through the power of the government . Is that what you really believe ? Sounds more like Communist China to me.

[TUT317]

Great idea ! We'll just suspend rights when people act collectively . Good plan. Let's start with labor unions which collect due almost exclusively for the purpose of influencing politics .

This is because you see individual rights as being of only one type; absolute. Am I correct in saying that you don't see entitlements as rights?

Corporation rights are important but they should not selectively be the rights a person enjoys. Corporations can enjoy 'rights' in the form of entitlements under state and or federal legislation. Corporations don't need to have selected absolute rights.

Jeremy Bentham said something like; Legal fiction is to law as theft to trade.

This is the law in US Code 1:1 ...[which means the country recognized the CONCEPT of corporate "personhood " from it's beginning ].

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise-- the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

It can be changed or modified, no?

It in fact had always been a given in this country until the left realized that some corporations were supporting their opposition . So they added the caveat that corporations can be 'persons' except when it comes to their First Amendment rights. No doubt that's the thinking behind the President's decrees from above about what a religion is.I'm sure in his view Religious institutions have no rights because they aren't people . So all their constitutional protections are at the whim and will and pleasure of the Presidency .

That's what I have been saying all along. Your rights are being subject to a change in status.

Now a baby on the other hand has always had an indisputable and unalienable right to life. This I know because if a women is assaulted and miscarries it's called 'fetal homicide ' or 'feticide' ....at least in the vast majority of the states .

There is also Federal Laws that protect the unborn babies called the 'Unborn Victims of Violence Act', which recognizes the "child in utero" as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any federal crimes of violence.

So in sum both corporations by their existance are entitled to constitutional guarantees ....and babies are too.

[/QUOTE]

Tom, I Googled the Unborn Victims Act. What good is this Act if it includes nearly everything but excludes abortion?

Even if what I have said above is completely and utterly wrong it still doesn't change the fact that abortion is legal and personhood is the basis of that legality

Tut

[TUT317]

ok I get it ...unions ,trade associations ,charitable organizations ,political parties , No humans have rights when they pool their resources ,and act in unison for a common puropse . Their total right to influence society is granted through the power of the government . Is that what you really believe ? Sounds more like Communist China to me.

Tom, no one is saying they don't have rights. There are many countries in the world that don't have annunciated rights and are just as democratic as your own.

Your's is only one type of democratic system. Just because it doesn't follow your model this doesn't necessarily make it incapable of being democratic.

Isn't this a bit ethnocentric

Tut

[paraclete]

Isn't this a bit ethnocentric

Tut

You've got it Tut, Tom is applying ethnocentric solutions, therefore for Tom, Europe is undemocratic, China is positively draconian, Eqypt has dared to accuse americans of interferring, and I cannot imagine what he thinks we are doing

[tomder55]

Hello?! I am talking exclusively of the American system here . The 1st Amendment is quite clear that the national government SHALL NOT infringe on religious liberty or speech . No wiggle room .
Rights are absolute unless the infringe on competing rights.
In the case of abortion, the right to life is more important than... oh let's say.. the right to pursue happiness ?

[tomder55]

Evidently Article VI, paragraph 3 has been Amended while I wasn't paying attention . Now it says "....but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States ....except ;devout Catholics need not apply." Catholic candidates for office will be considered only if they deny their faith in public

[speechlesstx]

Uh yeah, I thought it was pretty clear that this particular thread was on U.S. politics. The only ethnocentrism I see is coming from non-Americans.

[NeedKarma]

Persecution complex...

[speechlesstx]

Persecution complex....

What is this inexplicable need you have to make crap up? Are you thirteen and incapable of an adult discussion?

[NeedKarma]

What is this inexplicable need you have to make crap up? Are you thirteen and incapable of an adult discussion?

You mean making crap up like tom's post? Why didn't didn't you set your indignation on him?

[speechlesstx]

You mean making crap up like tom's post? Why didn't didn't you set your indignation on him?

No I mean like making crap up about us personally. I'm not playing your juvenile games, unlike you I have things to discuss that are real and that matter.

[NeedKarma]

So tom is allowed to make up crap and you give him a free pass? Gotcha.

Anyway your "discussions" are always the same: attacking anything liberal. Over and over again.

[tomder55]

Not sure what cr@p I made up. If you mean my sarcasm about the changing of the religious test in the Constitution ,my only real fault was not engaging the sarcasm font.

[speechlesstx]

So tom is allowed to make up crap and you give him a free pass? Gotcha.

Anyway your "discussions" are always the same: attacking anything liberal. Over and over again.

See what I mean, that inexplicable need to make crap up about me? You've told that lie over and over and it's no more true today than it was the first time you said it.

I fail to see how defending my specifically enumerated constitutional right to freedom of religion is "attacking anything liberal". The first amendment is no respecter of political ideology and I welcome all who choose to defend it with me.

[NeedKarma]

Not sure what cr@p I made up. If you mean my sarcasm about the changing of the religious test in the Constitution ,my only real fault was not engaging the sarcasm font.

I was being sarcastic as well. Not sure what speech is all up in arms about.

[speechlesstx]

I was being sarcastic as well. Not sure what speech is all up in arms about.

Geez, third time today making up crap about me. I'm just setting the record straight, I don't know what this "up in arms" nonsense is about. So do you have anything to add to the discussion or talking about me all you've got?

[TUT317]

Hello???!!! I am talking exclusively of the American system here .

Of course you are.

The 1st Amendment is quite clear that the national government SHALL NOT infringe on religious liberty or speech . No wiggle room .

"No wriggle room"--Not unless someone tries to change the status of those rights.

Rights are absolute unless the infringe on competing rights.
In the case of abortion, the right to life is more important than ....oh let's say ..the right to persue happiness ?

Tom, what good are these rehetorical speeches when one of the most dangerous places for the unborn is in the womb.

Can someone explain to me why a corporation, ENTITY, THING, perhaps something registered under some corporations act has more rights than the unborn in terms of being a person.

We have a situation where an ACTUAL living organism (fetus) carn't even get past first base when it comes to personhood.

We can say, well a fetus that is six weeks old lacks most of the essential features of being a person, e.g. it isn't conscious or it doesn't feel pain-- Like--corporations actually have these attributes.

Again, can someone please explain this apparent absurtity? Perhaps it is the case that a corporation's right to free speech is more important.


Tut

[tomder55]

TUT ,I have given my opinion of the court decision on abortion numerous times in the most graphic way permissible on this forum . When the government can remove such rights it slips from a land of liberty to a land of tyranny .
The only Constitutional way to change the status of enumernated rights is in the amendment process.

[TUT317]

TUT ,I have given my opinion of the court decision on abortion numerous times in the most graphic way permissible on this forum . When the government can remove such rights it slips from a land of liberty to a land of tyranny .
The only Constitutional way to change the status of enumernated rights is in the amendment process.

You are right about the amendment process in relation to enumerated rights. I think you are discovering that no legal system can function just on natural rights alone. The amendment process is an ongoing discovery when natural rights seem inadequate in particular situations. If this wasn't the case then you wouldn't have admendments. It is an ongoing discovery of what rights people ought to have.


Corporate personhood was concocted as means of making sure corporations were not disadvantaged in terms of natural rights. OK,so we let in one piece of legal fiction to overcomes legal disadvantages corporations might come up against when it comes to free speech, right to own property, etc etc.

However, when we attempt to introduce the same legal fiction in terms of rights of the unborn, it is far too impractical. Arguments such as there are too many problems with negative rights when it comes to the unborn.

Nothing is too hard when it is a corporation that wants these rights, but when it comes to the unborn we say, Oh, well; too many difficuilties make this impractical.

Bentham actually said, " Legal fiction is to the law as fraud is to property"

There are a number of fraudes going on here.


Tut

[paraclete]

Tut give up, the whole thing is based on a fiction that we actually have rights. The only rights anyone has are those that have been forced on government. So let Tom have his fiction that he lives in a democratic utopia which is so good at defending rights that everyone needs a gun to survive