Ron Paul rebukes Romney: Corporations are not people

[Playinghardball]

Source: RawReplay
By Stephen C. Webster

In a verbal slap at former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney (R), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) affirmed this weekend his belief that only individuals are people, contradicting Romney’s insistence that corporations are as well.

Legally, Romney is right and Paul is wrong. Corporations have been endowed with the rights of individuals since 1886. But the statement is notable for Paul’s timing, coming just days after Romney got into a back-and-forth with an angry heckler who got him to say, “Corporations are people, my friend.”

Confronted by Think Progress reporter Scott Keyes, who asked Paul what he thought of the remark, the Texas Congressman replied: “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.”

Paul placed second in the Iowa straw poll, coming in less than 1 percent behind Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Though his candidacy is not getting much play on television news, an Associated Press analysis published Sunday called him “a serious player in the campaign,” noting a growth in his base of support from 2008 to 2011.

This video is from Think Progress, published Monday, August 15, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/ron-paul-rebukes-romney-corporations-are-not-people/

[dtexdem]

1. The U.S. was already so individualist that it had no legal concept for a corporate entity.

So ultimately, it classified corporations as individuals.

Paul, by contrast, so lacks a sense of social reality that he cannot even abide calling corporations individuals.

Both approaches come from a hyperindividualism that cannot allow for social reality, but they are in conflict -- and I'm happy to see them fighting.

[arbusto_baboso]

2. Yet Paul would do everything he could to further enable corporations.

Because taxes and regulations are categorically bad, dontcha know. :sarcasm:

[kwolf68]

4. Really

So...he now admits that corporations are not people (which they are not, they were endowed as beings by an 'activist supreme court in 1886)...

Corporations enjoy the rights of individuals, but don't bare the same responsibilities.

The fact he admits this contradicts his policy views as he should have no issue with regulations that restrict 'freedoms' on entities that have no rights to those 'freedoms' especially when the restrictions on those 'freedoms' would expand the 'freedom' of INDIVIDUALS.

He's a dick, but he is right twice a day, like a clock.

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Yes, the "personhood" of an individual is obviously inferior to the personhood of a corporation

Libertarians are simplistic adolescents. It all sounds fine to the unformed mind and one with no real experience of life, but it is untenable on any scale beyond a dozen people or so.

The very crux of the ideology is that everyone should be responsible for him/herself, and any recognition of interdependence is a heinous crime. Products that aren't good--in a world absent of fiendish regulation--will not be successful. Never mind that the lack of success will be determined by numerous deaths and maimings; such reminders of the mechanisms of glorious selfishness are evil.

It's a sad testimony to the wickedness of glorying in the individual at the expense of everyone else that such beliefs are even taken seriously. Such cosmologies should be quaint little sideshows in the great carnival of civilization, not systems to be taken seriously.

Basically, the thrust of this form of conservatism is that people should be free to prey upon each other, and any restraints put upon that activity is a crime against us all. Fuck other people; they're pigeons for the taking, and anyone who expects people to do a damned thing for the common good is an asshole. Meanwhile, these individuals merrily take the efforts of others; indeed, no person could ever get to adulthood without the help of many others.

I blame Reagan; this country took a dark and ugly turn in 1980: before then, selfishness was a bit of a failing, but after that, it's a virtue. The tally is quite clear: it's been a horrendous failure, yet the fantasy lives on.

[CelticThunder]

3. But zygotes are!

[SidDithers]

5. He's right. People are people...

and why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully.

Sid

[madrchsod]

6. they are a special class of humans.

i`m still having a hard time figuring out why people are shocked about what he said.


i guess they don`t pay attention.

[hifiguy]

7. A corporation is a legal fiction

that was allowed to exist in order to accomplish commercial objectives beyond the scope of individuals. In that sense, Ron Paul is absolutely correct. But even a stopped clock......

[Supersedeas]

10. a liability shield, the veil of which can be peirced...iow, corporate formalities are a mask

[guitar man]

9. Ron Paul

Ron Paul: "Corporations are not *mere* humans"

there, fixed it ;)