There's the view of the epitome of Free Marketeers ... that Corporate take-over artist extraordinaire ...
Mitt Romney says ‘corporations are people’ at Iowa State Fair
by Philip Rucker, WashingtonPost -- Aug 11, 2011
DES MOINES — Mitt Romney’s visit to the Iowa State Fair on Thursday might have been the best debate prep session he could have hoped for.
[...]
“Corporations are people, my friend,” Romney said.
Some people in the front of the audience shouted, “No, they’re not!”
“Of course they are,” Romney said. “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”
Don't forget the limited Taxes tie-in, Mitt:
Romney defends saying ‘corporations are people’
by Shira Schoenberg, The Boston Globe Correspondent -- 08/24/2011
KEENE, N.H. - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today defended comments he made in Iowa that “corporations are people too.”
[...]
“Corporations, they’re made up of people,” Romney continued, echoing his earlier comments. “Just a group of people who come together for work. When you say tax corporations, steel, vinyl, concrete, they don’t pay taxes. Only people do. High taxes on corporations are high taxes on people and they’ll go elsewhere if taxes are too high.”
Just like Renters, who move on, when their Rent is Too Damn High, right Romney?
Move on to streets, sometimes even ...
And there's the view of the epitome of Limited-government Libertarians ... on what it means to be a Corporate-person ...
Ron Paul Breaks With Mitt Romney: ‘People Are Individuals…Not Companies’
by Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron, thinkprogress.org -- Aug 15, 2011
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who placed second in the Ames Straw Poll over the weekend, took a far different view when speaking with ThinkProgress.
[...]
KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement that “corporations are people” yesterday?
PAUL: Obviously they’re not. People are individuals, they’re not groups and they’re not companies. Individuals have rights, they’re not collective. You can’t duck that. So individuals should be responsible for corporations, but they shouldn’t be a new creature, so to speak. Rights and obligations should be always back to the individual.
And there's the view of the actual people caught in the cross-hairs of unlimited Corporate expansion -- in this disturbing case, quite literally:
US Supreme Court to Hear Nigeria-Shell Case
by Atabong Tamo, ThinkAfricaPress.com -- October 26, 2011
On October 17, 2011, the US Supreme Court agreed to use a landmark case involving Nigerian plaintiffs to consider if corporations can be liable for human rights violations, such as torture or genocide, committed overseas. The case is Kiobel v Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum Plc. The defendant, the oil giant Shell, is being accused of committing a series of international crimes through its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC). The alleged violations include kidnap, torture and the executions of prominent Nigerian environmental activists in the Niger Delta region in the 1990s.
The background
The Kiobel v Royal Dutch Shell Plc case is one of many law suits against prominent multinationals such as Exxon Mobil, Coca-Cola, Pfizer Inc, Unocal Corp and Chevron Corp over their alleged violations of human rights and other internationally proclaimed standards such as environmental protection. The basis of these suits is found in a well crafted 200-year-old piece of US legislation called the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which allows foreigners to seek redress for a "civil action" committed in violation of international law. Kiobel centers on the killing of Dr Barinem Kiobel, an Ogoni activist who was executed at the same time as prominent Nigerian writer and environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. The lawsuit alleges that via its subsidiary SPDC, Shell provided transportation for Nigerian troops, allowed company property to be used as staging areas for attacks against the local Ogoni people, provided food to the soldiers and paid them.
[...]
I'm sure strict any Free Market advocate, worthy of the label, would coldly say (if ever asked about Royal Dutch Shell's actions against the Ogoni people):
Nothing to see here people ... move along. The Free Market will correct all such abuses ... the Ogoni people, have happily all taken up new residences, in neighboring areas (... those surviving indigents, anyways.)
Alien Tort Statute
wikipedia
The Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S.C. § 1350; ATS) [...]
This statute is notable for allowing United States courts to hear human rights cases brought by foreign citizens for conduct committed outside the United States.
And soon there's will be another regulatory view, brought to bear on the actions of corporate persons, issued by none other than the epitome of Free Market defenders and Corporate-enablers -- the current incarnation of the U.S. Supreme Court -- the Roberts Court:
Supreme Court To Rule On Corporate Personhood For Crimes Against Humanity
by Mike Sacks, the Supreme Court Correspondent for The Huffington Post -- 10/17/11
[...]
Yet for many, it would also be quite odd for the Court, which found in Citizens United that the Framers intended the First Amendment to apply to corporate persons, to reject the concept when it comes to corporate liability for crimes against humanity under a Founding-era statute.
The Court will likely schedule oral argument in Kiobel for February, with a decision to be handed down by late June.
In other words, the SCOTUS will have to soon rule, with regards to Corporate Personhood,
Who's concept of it, is right ... Romney's or Paul's?
Do Corporations only possess personhood, under the law, in order to more efficiently reap the rights and benefits of people, with very limited liabilities, under the Constitution?
Or do Corporations also possess under the banner of personhood, under the law, the obligations and culpability, for the inhumane actions, underwritten and committed by those under their Corporate-network employ?
If Corporations are really persons, at what point are they {the individual Directors} ever held accountable?
... At what point do they ever feel guilt, or are they ever willing to do penance for their crimes?
... ever willing to pay restitution, to the victims of its own corporate directives, its corporate imperatives, its corporate volition?
If the answer is "never" ... then people they are not. (... in this person's view anyways.)
Because then it should be plainly, and painfully obvious, that Human People have the will to choose between Right and Wrong, and that Corporate Persons do not;
that Corporate Persons have "no choice" but to pursue their Corporate Objectives, damn the consequences, damn the collateral damages ...
any Corporate Entity, worthy of the label, knows to chalk up those 'speed bumps' to the incidental costs of "just doing business" ...
Or perhaps instead, the SCOTUS will take this opportunity, to create their own Third Way -- a legalistic hybrid version of what Corporate Culpability really is, created in the image of "Citizens United". Any non-activist court, worthy of the label, knows it is wise for them to 'adhere to precedence' ...
even if those precedences, are of their own making. What else is a corporate-enabling Court to do ...
Our Global Free Markets must forever remain "Free" ... right? ... to the Victor, goes the EZ profits. ... And to the jails, go the temp-agency employees.