The US Supreme Court decision on Citizens United (AKA Corporations Unlimited) declares that corporations are persons with the same constitutional rights as human persons.
That’s a pile of shit, but it will take a Constitutional Amendment to reverse the ruling. That’s extremely unlikely to happen. If an Amendment makes it through the corrupt, DO Nothing, Corporate Owned, Congress, it will take years to ratify.
Is there nothing human people can do? Do we all just bend over, grease it up, and let these corporate ‘persons’ plook us? Fucque that, we’re Americans, not slaves to corporate ‘persons’. We fight back against tyranny!
I know all y’all are asking how can we fight the all powerful corporations? Torches and pitchforks won’t do it. As the Occupy movement has shown us, corporations own the police through their ownership of our government, from Federal down to village boards.
The answer is to use the US Constitution to ensure ‘corporate persons’ receive all the benefits and obligations as ‘human persons’. Nail them with the fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause. Not through a new Constitutional Amendment. We don’t need a new Amendment. The Fourteenth has been around over 148 years.
No more corporate/human discrimination! Full equality for corporate persons!
It won’t keep corporate bribes out of our political system, but it will make corporations rue the day that SCOTUS ruled in their favor on Citizens United. And, cry over the bribes to Supreme Court justices. They’ll beg for a repeal of Citizens United, claiming they’re only the legal fictions they are, not persons.
Applying the amendment will force corporations to begin paying their fair share of taxes, limit political contributions. eliminate the offshore shell games they use to hide income from taxation, and make the inversion game, where they pretend to move to another country, extremely costly and unattractive. They’ll even have to contribute to Social Security.
Sound good so far? Let’s get on to the how. Simple, apply the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Corporations have foolishly set a precedent by claiming the 14th Amendment applies to them, when they were fighting the minimum wage hike in Seattle. The fools set themselves up. Let’s give them equal protection until they scream.
The civil rights of human persons are being grossly violated by applying separate laws to corporate ‘persons’. Would it be right to apply different tax laws to Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, LGBTs. … , while Heterosexual Whites get preferential treatment? Hell freakin NO! There would be riots, along with civil rights lawsuits, if that happened. So what’s different about corporate ‘persons’ getting preferential treatment over human persons?
Why are the civil rights of human persons are being violated by giving preferential treatment to corporate ‘persons’?
- Corporate ‘persons’ income is taxed at a different rate than human person income. Not that corporations actually pay that tax rate. Many corporate ‘persons’ make billions and pay nothing, even receiving tax refunds. Other corporate ‘persons’ pay far below the statutory rate.
- Corporate ‘persons’ are not taxed on foreign income, human persons are.
- Corporate ‘persons’ can openly hide money in offshore tax havens, human persons go to jail for hiding money offshore.
- Corporate ‘persons’ can magically invert themselves and become foreign corporations without penalty, a human person has to pay a tax penalty when they renounce US citizenship to become a citizen of another country.
- Human foreign persons need a work permit to work in the USA, but not corporate foreign ‘persons’.
That’s just the short list. There are many more civil rights violations.
Applying the Equal Protection Clause to corporations will result in a collective corporate scream, so make sure you have ear protection.
So let’s do it. No legislation needed, only a directive or executive order directing the IRS and other government agencies to apply the laws fairly and equally to all persons, human or corporate. At worst it will take a civil rights lawyer, or many, filing civil rights law suit(s).
Some may argue the Equal Protection Clause as written applies to the state governments, not the Federal government. However, the Supreme Court held in Bolling v. Sharpe (1954) that equal protection requirements applies to the federal government through the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.