On the idea that corporations should be given carte blanche free speech rights as entities:
singledad: Freedom of speech for everyone, not for THINGS created by man.
Corporations are a power tool for the rich.
Rec: Man does not create, he makes things, like corporations man-made with man's ingenuity and mans cooperation, fueled by man (people) and upheld by the function of men, and extended to other men(humans) for employment, companies, stocks all manmade and manpowered! And held together by information, or language of man!
Me: Mozart or Beethoven would beg to differ. You think Ode to Joy was just sitting around in the void waiting to be discovered by a deaf man or its words blindly stumbled upon by a poet?
Oh friends, not these tones!
Rather, let us raise our voices in more pleasing
And more joyful sounds!
Joy! Joy!Joy, beautiful spark of divinity
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Into your heavenly sanctuary!
Your magic reunites
What custom strictly divided.
All men will become brothers,
Where your gentle wing rests.Whoever has had the great fortune
To be a friend's friend,
Whoever has won a devoted wife,
Join in our jubilation!
Indeed, whoever can call even one soul,
His own on this earth!
And whoever was never able to, must creep
Tearfully away from this band!Joy all creatures drink
At the breasts of nature;
All good, all bad
Follow her trail of roses.
Kisses she gave us, and wine,
A friend, proven in death;
Pleasure was to the worm given,
And the cherub stands before God.Glad, as His suns fly
Through the Heaven's glorious design,
Run, brothers, your race,
Joyful, as a hero to victory.Be embraced, millions!
This kiss for the whole world!
Brothers, above the starry canopy
Must a loving Father dwell.
Do you bow down, millions?
Do you sense the Creator, world?
Seek Him beyond the starry canopy!
Beyond the stars must He dwell.Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss for the whole world!
Brothers, beyond the star-canopy
Must a loving Father dwell.
Be embraced,
This kiss for the whole world!
Joy, beautiful spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Joy, beautiful spark of divinity
God didn't create that. Nor did a corporation or any other man made legal abstract entity without consciousness or memory any investment in the sentient spirit which alone rightly deserves constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech because it is a vehicle for that "beautiful spark of divinity" of which the other things are not capable.
Corporations are not people and they are not sentient beings...they are a legal constructs, nothing more. They have no fealty to the welfare of individuals, community, nation, or to any human concern beyond economic profit. To allow them disproportionate sway by virtue of their superior economic strengths in human political affairs which are already incredibly dysfunctional and distorted because of the influence of money, is tantamount to a suicide note for what democracy we have left.
Rec: What a wonderful example of the consciousness of sentient spirit expressing its gifts of worship and acknowledgement in odes of praise to God. The sentient spirit which is our whole being given the gifts of making and working with our world around us, inspires us to make many things, such as notes of praise on the paper that realizes its function in beautiful music, and corporations that serve us as in the functions of business and commerce....oh yes, the very sentient spirit that allows and permits our intelligence and understanding of our world around us, above all other creatures and the the ability to make and build those extensions of ourselves that make the systems of the world work with us and for us...... of course, C, of course.
Me: True enough, but to me it is more than that. I see it as we are the Creative Impetus (God, if you like) expressing itself through us. I do not separate the Created (or Creation) from the Creator. Nor do I suppose that Creation happened back in some particular point in time. I see it as an on-going process which is still occurring and we are active players in that ever changing moment.
But we should not lose sight of our position within that Creation, we are a limited expression of it and even more limited are the legal mechanisms we generate as tools. We should not identify these abstract tools as having personhood in a literal sense. They are not something we have breathed actual life into. To grant them literal personhood, which was never the original legal intent, with the same constitutional rights as actual people is a confusion of elemental reality.
Rec: Ahhhh but the expression of the abstract thought is the conception of intelligence, limited as it may be, within the human sentient being who expressions or functions of those abstract thoughts are maintained by the human factor. Take the human abilities out of and behind the corporation and it ceases to be, or cannot function. The life that is within the structure are the human abilities couched in abstract thought period. Abstract thought enables the tools of existence to function, move and better itself or no. The corporation becomes the entity voicing order and the desires of the human activity,,,,without the human activity it is nothing. ergo, through the humanity the extension of the corporation moves, thinks, succeeds or fails. It is the vehicle of human expression of order and organization.
Me: Somewhat true again, but corporations are an abstract extension of human activity, and as you noted, not a separate entity unto themselves. To grant them equivocal entity status to human individuals is a dangerous confusion because some mechanisms can continue to operate long after the hand that set them in motion has been withdrawn or has even by purpose of the mechanism been intentionally barred from further influence...for example, the machine that would kill to prevent being shut off or having its programed original goals altered.
What happens when the abstract mechanisms given free speech and other constitutional guarantees start uttering "Don't tread on me!" - and possibly with a foreign accent?
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