Two questions regarding "corporate personhood."

[KansDem]

1) If a corporation is now a “person,” then is a foreign corporation considered a “foreign person” and if so, are foreign corporations required to apply for legal immigration or residency status here in the U.S. and if they don’t then can they be rounded up and deported? (The Canadian tar-sands pipeline comes to mind). How does a foreign corporation pass the U.S. citizenship test?

2) If a corporation is now a “person” and thereby eligible to donate unlimited money to political campaigns, then can I, as a employee of a corporation, go into the corporate coffers and extract corporate money to donate to the candidate of my choice?

[Terry in Austin]

1. Enquring minds want to know

This "personhood" thing has a lot of possibilities, fer sure.

The one I want to know is: can two corporations of the same sex get married?

B-)

[KansDem]

2. Good question!

If two corporations want to merge, then they would have to be "one man and one woman," according to conservatives. How would this be determined?

That raises the question, can one corporation "buy" another corporation, or would that be unconstitutional (13th Amendment).

Have the Republicans thought this through? :shrug: One wonders...

[Ikonoklast]

3. Can corporations adopt children?

I think the merger thing would substitute for marraige.

Since my little enterprise is incorporated, would it be legal for my business to run for city council, or mayor?

[KansDem]

4. Good questions!

It's amazing the can or worms opened by "Citizens United."

[izquierdista]

5. Can corporations be raped?

And will the police asked them why they were dressed that way in that part of town late at night?

[BeFree]

6. Well

You can kill a corporation and get a tax break to do so.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. DISCLAIMER: I do NOT support Citizens United but this is not the best analogy

1) Actually, yes, you do have to register foreign corporations and operating a foreign-based business without a license can lead to some very serious penalties including asset seizure

2) That's embezzling but if a corporation is a person then you would essentially be stealing from someone else as you are not the owner of that legal entity.

Corporations are not people, per se. They are legal mechanisms that allow people to differentiate between their assets. In other words, if you form a corporation you designate which of your assets are part of that corporation, i.e. suppose you have a house and $200,000 in liquid assets but you only apply $150,000 in liquidity to the corp.

If you then do something for which you are legally liable it becomes a question: was it you our your corporation? If it was you personally you can lose everything; your home, your personl $50k in assets and your corporation. However, if your corporation is sued than only those assets are liable. The plaintiff can take all $150,000 in assets and force you into bankruptcy but he couldn't take your home or remaining $50,000.

Politically, people form corporations so that personally they can segregate their assets. There is no evil in this. MoveOn.org does this as well as many other good, solid progressive groups. Its a legal protection that shields indiviuals from malicious lawsuits.

My complaint with CU is that while people do have a right to pool resources for political speech and those people deserve corporate protections it leaves for-profit corporations a free rein to distort our supposedly representative government.

[treestar]

8. It's a person for legal purposes

So it can sue or be sued. To limit liability, so that the individual owners are separate.

Foreign corporations have to register to do business, so there is a form of control of them as of individual foreigners.

[spanone]

9. silly, republicans can merely change the law at will to accommodate their pals