BRATTLEBORO — Is the Supreme Court, like the pope, infallible?
Like the pope, the justices are appointed for life. If a bad and dangerous decision is handed down, we are stuck with it unless it is subsequently overturned.
Considering the history of corporate personhood encroachment since before the Lincoln administration, it seems unlikely that “we the people” will ever be the same again.
Moreover, the recent Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision means that “political speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because its source is a corporation.”
In the decision, where corporations are deemed “persons” and corporate money is deemed “free speech,” the harm to real citizens who are real people is beyond measure.
So, what is personhood?
Well, first, you had a person who was a person. And, that person became persons. Then, they in turn made a particular godhead a person. Not satisfied with that, they then made profit-making corporations a person.
So, ah, who (or what) wants to be a person next?
Apparently, according to dictionaries, the word person is legally defined in different ways:
1. The state, quality or period of being a person or individual human with rights;
2. Used in legal, literary and/or formal contexts to refer to an unspecified individual;
3. One of the three modes of being in the Trinitarian Godhead as understood by Christians;
4. A partnership or corporation that is recognized by law because it is subject to rights and duties.
The notion that corporations are entitled to be and legally defined as a single “person” because they are subjected under the law to certain “rights and duties” is a form of legislative and legal insanity.
If the only way a corporation can follow the law is to be defined as having the same rights and privileges as a human being, then the corporation should not be entitled by the law to be a corporation. Corporations should stand on their own two feet and not presume to walk off with ours.
No wonder humans are such a mess.
Nevertheless, a real person can't help but conclude that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold legalized corporate personhood should be suspended immediately pending further psychological evaluations.
If it's true that there are Supreme Court justices unaware of what a person really is, they should not be sitting on the highest bench. Maybe it's time for real citizens to find a way to remove a justice for good cause.