Constitutional Amendment

[Chopin]

I have asked many new people on Saturday if they would support a strengthened previous proposal:

No law shall be passed that gives companies/corporations/businesses the same status as a person.

-This implies:
-No need for the need of a warrant to search

-No freedom of speech [which in turn overturns the Jan. 2011 Citizens United case]

-etcetera

This will help demonstrate that the movement is strong, that it for the people of the United States.  I feel that 90% of the NATION would support this, let alone General Assembly.

- It would be win/win if it won or lost: if it actually passes, the people of the world benefit.  If it does not pass, it will anger the majority of Americans with Congress further.  To have THIS in the news as "the first of many steps the Occupy Movement is pushing" would help us tremendously. 

 

-I know that some individuals want to re-write the Constitution completely.  I understand your sentiment, but you have to take the strides the American people want.  If/when it leads to re-writing the Constitution, so be it.  

 

I ask that you all consider, ask friends, family, people on the street if they would support this.  Thank you.

[cameron913]

Chopin, I agree in spirit but it is totally unreasonable to propose a Constitutional amendment at this point. Are you a constitutional lawyer? Because I sure as hell am not, but I do know that any such proposal would have far reaching and likely unintended consequences. I like what you're saying from an advocacy perspective, but an unconsidered proposal of this gravity sends the message that we are generally over-confident and over-eager idealists. A group of three or four hundred of us could not possibly claim to have the capacity for the depth and breadth of knowledge and consideration necessary to take on such a thing.

[Chopin]

As I have said, spoken to many people that agree.  I suspect even 90% of Americans would agree [or pretty close].  To disagree because a few of us do not know how to word it perfectly legally [which can be addressed at a later time, especially considering I've spoken to a few people in the movement in law school or law school graduates] doesn't seem to be a good enough reason to disagree.

As previously mentioned, this is a world-wide movement with thousands upon thousands of occupiers here in the United States, with millions of supporters.  Were we to propose something like this, I feel it would shake off the perception that we have no clear goals.  It would take time, yes.  That was mentioned in the OP, which I suggest you fully read if you have not previously done so.  Thank you for your input :) 

[Chopin]

Bump.

[Billy]

     I strongly disagree with the fact that we can not figure out how to write some laws from within this collective. Yes currently laws are worded very confusingly. That is on purpose to keep the power in the hands of the few. This most certainly can be done.

 

     I think it is important to note that as long as we have a corrupt system in place I don't see how any law no matter how well thought out is going to be of any use. Without getting into a long list I think everyone here would agree that our constitutional rights are being violated every single day and nothing comes of it. Many of the bankers that started this whole mess provably broke the law and nothing is done about it.

 

     Further more it may be worth considering that this rabbit hole might go a little deeper than it seems. I'm not an expert on this but some various groups have put forth information that some people refer to as the sovereign movement.

 

     The basic claim from them is that there are 2 types of law. Criminal law and contract law. There are various different names for the two types but the categories remain. In criminal law someone has to be harmed i.e. in murder someone is killed that is criminal law. Every other law that does not involve a party that was harmed fall under contract law. So tax laws, most traffic laws, etc… For contract law to apply there needs to be two parties that agree to the terms. Contract law can not be asserted.

 

      From there they claim that when your parents filed for a birth certificate that a corporation was created with the same name as you but in all capital letters. That corporation is then given your share of the commonwealth to hold in trust. Every law that holds us in slavery within this corrupt system is claimed to be allowable under a set of assumptions that you are never made privy to.

 

     It is further claimed that the pivotal thing that makes all of this possible is that in either 1860 or 1861, I do not recall which, the legal definition of person was changed and thus began the era of corporate personhood. This corporate "person" that is not a human is what is held liable to these implicit contracts. This "person" JOHN DOE is a corporation not a human John Doe which is you.

 

     So if there is any truth to that at all then all of the power lies not with the law makers but those who control the legal definition of words. If that is the case then I really see nothing that we can change that can't be easily undone unless we change the most basic procedural stuff about or government and move from a system that does not worry about the letter of the law but about the intent of agreed upon consensus. Basically we need a perspective shift.

 

Edited typos and add clarification

[Chopin]

Thank you; I agree and I've spoken to individuals now in Occupy Indy, Dallas, SF, Atlanta, Dayton, and [of course] Chicago.  There is overwhelming support for this.  I am going to propose it this Friday.

[BackSeatEconomist]

The case for why eliminating corporate personhood is a bad idea has been laid out pretty well by other posters in other similar threads.  I would just point out a few things here to reiterate.  Corporate personhood does not mean that a corporation is the same as a person.  You can't be charged with murdering a corporation.  It just means that a group of people (shareholders) can exercise certain rights collectively.  Corporations have some but not all of the rights of natural persons: they have the right to enter contracts, but not the right to vote.  Eliminating the right for a corporation to contract would pretty much kill any ability to run a business of any size in this country.  What is really needed to keep corporations out of politics is an amendment that does just that, revokes their freedom of speech with respect to non-commercial matters and treats all corporate speech as commercial speech. Side note: commercial speech is entitled to fewer protections under the first amendment than normal speech.

Also, I must protest the idea that the government shouldn't need a warrant to search a corporation.  What about people running businesses out of their homes? It's not the corporation's privacy being trampled in a search; it's always some (natural) persons.  It's someone's desk the cops are rummaging through.

 

p.s., also, Billy, that John Doe, john doe, JOHN DOE thing from the Freeman on the land movement is complete nonsense.  It has no basis in fact whatsoever.  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/F.....n_the_land does a pretty good job of dismissing it.

[Chopin]

It would kill the US Supreme Court Ruling of Citizens United.  It has not been  "bad idea" that "many posters have already outlined."
Take away their "freedom of speech".

This was an ongoing movement with a lot of support to begin with:



SECTION 1. The U.S. Constitution protects only the rights of living human beings.

SECTION 2. Corporations and other institutions granted the privilege to exist shall be subordinate to any and all laws enacted by citizens and their elected governments.

SECTION 3. Corporations and other for-profit institutions are prohibited from attempting to influence the outcome of elections, legislation or government policy through the use of aggregate resources or by rewarding or repaying employees or directors to exert such influence. 

SECTION 4. Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.

[Chopin]

So I believe this falls under your guidelines; I had only tried to open up the discussion.  Citizens United ruling was due to the corporate person interpretation, so I suggest we go after the root cause.  
Let laws be established for individuals and for businesses; were many to  overlap I could see as being acceptable.

[BackSeatEconomist]

I agree with a lot of your last two posts.  Although, I would say that Citizens United was due to the corporate person interpretation being taken too far.  Thank you for putting in the effort to start drafting a proposal.  I agree completely with sections 2 and 4.  Section 3 might be a little sticky because we need to think through how it would affect unions or other NGOs.  Also, it says "Corporations and other for-profit institutions." It's good that you note some for-profit institutions are not corporations (e.g., LLCs), but not all corporations are for-profit.  Most churches, universities, public utilities, and municipal governments are corporations.  I like the sentiment, but it will require some more word-smithing.

Section 1 I think is really problematic.  As it's written now the constitution protects the rights not only of natural persons, but also the states, the federal government, foreign ambassadors, etc. It even defines rights specific to shipping companies.  Declaring that it protects only the rights of natural persons would have far reaching implications and would likely put the entire document up for reinterpretation by the Supreme Court.

What do you think of this?

Corporations and other institutions chartered under the laws of the United States, the several States, or any foreign state are not granted any rights beyond those exercised by their members in their individual capacities, and shall be subordinate to all laws of the United States or any of the several States wherein they conduct business.