corporate personhood

Controversial topics such as politics, religion, news that turns controversial etc
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scherzo
Posts: 497
Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2006 3:05 am

corporate personhood

Post by scherzo »

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first let me say, I haven't been here for awhile. I have since been married and had our first baby girl.

Happy to see this site still around, and so a big 'kudos' to red squirrel for keeping it going.

now for the argument, which at first may appear 'pro life' and given I have had my first baby, some may think I have changed my perspective, I haven't. I am against capital punishment and since 'pro life's' position is to treat it like murder, I cannot agree.

anyone familiar with abortion issues will know for a fact a fetus is 'life' and the only legal question is wether that life is a person protected by the Charter. Consequently the picture has a fetus titled 'not a person' this by legal definiton is fact

the other picture of a building represents corporations and titled 'person'. by legal definitions a corporation is a legal person protected by Charter. This legal person is different than any 'named' individual that you can point at, in other words, the legal personhood of a corporation is someone who you cannot point at, because they do not physically exist, unlike the fetus. This again is by definition a fact.

so the picture is VERY factual.

Anticipating critisim on the picture of a building representing 'corporations' to be misleading, my argument is simple. First, given the limits of a 'motivational poster' the author must get the idea out as simply as possible with maximum amount of reaction. The building obviously isn't a person, and no court decision has ever treated a building as a person, However if the audience can understand the building represents corporations OR seeks to inquire how a building is treated as an individual the 'motivational poster' succeeds. Likewise for the picture of the fetus, I could have choosen a lesser developed fetus, or even a sperm or egg, to represnt the 'not a person' side. I have choosen the two pictures which give the most impact, while remaining factual.

but is the 'motivational poster' pro-life or pro-choice, or anti-corporations? It actually is none of the above, it is more an observation, however I am deeply offended by it. I take 'offence' to my creation because, firstly, a building is treated better and with more respect than 'flesh and blood'. Secondly, the poster attacks logic and reasoning yielding the 'higher ground' to emotions and feelings of what is 'right'.

so the question I ask to you is, 'how do you feel' or 'how does it make you feel'?

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:4021, old post ID:69995
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Bookworm
Posts: 2828
Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2004 12:04 am

corporate personhood

Post by Bookworm »

scherzo wrote: first let me say, I haven't been here for awhile. I have since been married and had our first baby girl.
Congratulations. How old is the girl?
Happy to see this site still around, and so a big 'kudos' to red squirrel for keeping it going.
Yeah, some of the forums I've joined over the years no longer exist. Right now I am being somewhat active over at defendingthetruth.com where I see you are also a member.
so the question I ask to you is, 'how do you feel' or 'how does it make you feel'?
All it does is make me feel confused. You say that it is not "pro-life or pro-choice, or anti-corporations," but when one sees a poster such as this, one automatically looks for such a meaning, and when that meaning is not apparent, the end result is confusion. When I look at it, I assume it to be an anti-prolife message, even though that may not be what you intended, and the ambiguity regarding your intentions is confusing.

Also, in the first picture, one would have to have prior knowledge of certain court actions for the picture to even make sense at all. Not everyone is going to have that knowledge, so the poster would be doubly confusing to them. Then the second picture references a specific legal application of personhood which the average individual is not going to consider when they first see the caption, so the poster thus becomes triply confusing.

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manadren
Posts: 3612
Joined: Thu Jun 24, 2004 10:59 pm

corporate personhood

Post by manadren »

Good to see you scherzo, and congrats.

To the question at hand, the image seems fairly straight forward. In my eyes, it is fairly obviously anti-corporation, balanced against a pro-life message. You can't really divorce one from the other in this context, though the degree to which one is pushing either point is up for debate, that is, it's possible that the author is pro-choice, but hopes the choice is life. Part of me wants to call it a naive over-simplification of a complex issue, but I must admit it is impossible to discuss the full breadth of the issue in a simple image, and such things are often effective in starting debates, though not ending them.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:4021, old post ID:69997
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