I’ve been seeing the digital image and hand written sign that says “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them” for months and I keep asking “who has been murdered by what corporation?” and no one can ever answer. I suspect I know why…
If the answer is “no one” then the sign is meaningless.
Sorry to give away the ending, but: The answer is “no one” and the sign is meaningless.
It should read “I’ll believe corporations are people when one commits murder”.
If there is a case of an American corporation murdering someone then show it to me so I can publicize the event and look into why it wasn’t properly prosecuted and why the corporation wasn’t executed. It’s not impossible that a Corporation murdered someone and then got away with it while continuing to do business but… no. nevermind. it’s pretty not-possible.
What the legal classification of a Corporation being a person means is not that if you carry it’s documents with you in your car then you can drive in the carpool lane or anything stupid like that – it just means that a corporation can’t be deprived constitutional rights. or in other words: people can’t be deprived of their constitutional rights when they act collectively in commerce (and form a corp). i.e: Corporate personhood says that the government can’t deny fifth amendment rights or free speech rights to a group of people in a corporation just as they can’t to an individual. hippies hate that rule because they hate anything designed to make a profit and that is what a corporation is, so hence their fight against corporate personhood.
But if a corporation murdered anyone then it definitely should be executed. I’m just waiting for the facts behind this phrase…
Dear Hippies: Using clever slogans only remains clever if their content makes sense. If there is no factual basis for your sloganeering then you’re not making a point, you’re unmaking it.
I’m eager to hear all the cases of murder where the perpetrator was a Corporation, so if you’re one of the people who keeps posting this sign on facebook – send em on in!
Show me the time that McDonalds sent out an order to shoot a guy or when Microsoft had someone beat to death in a Dennys parking lot. That’s what murder is, fellas. Willful intent and success at killing innocent humans. Microsoft making shitty products is not murder and McDonalds making fatty food is not murder and only murder is punishable by execution. So. Have at it and i’ll update this post with all your examples.
Current instances of Corporate Murder: 0
UPDATE: Well this is embarrassing. In search of an example that makes this line make sense, I found this image below. Shit. I totally forgot about that time Wal-Mart killed 3 thousand innocent civilians. NEVER FORGET.
This sums up how hippies view private businesses exercising free market capitalism as something to be scared of. which is a sign of a mental disorder or extreme narcissism because people buying things they want would only “scare” the most twisted Communist-minded utopian douche.
Dislike a chain of stores all you want, but if stores selling grooming products, toys, household items, tools, clothes, vitamins, and groceries frightens you, you have some pretty deep psychological problems.
UPDATE: Cory leaves the following comment:
New Forests Company
you lose.
I didn’t know I had bet anything so I don’t know what it is I am losing, but I’ve also never heard of this Corp, so I took to Google which surfaced the following:
The New Forests Company is a UK-based sustainable and socially responsible forestry company with established, rapidly growing plantations and the prospect of a diversified product base for local and regional export markets which will deliver both attractive returns to investors and significant social and environmental benefits.
Oh… UK-based…that might be why I’ve never heard of them and their website says they operate in Africa. I’m not so sure that the American state of Texas can apply it’s death penalty laws to a non-American corporation (nah, I’m just putting it that way to soften the blow. the truth is that I know for a fact that that’s how it works), but if this corporation has been convicted of killing anyone then thats still pretty big, American or not.
[7 minutes on Google later]: It appears there have been no convictions of murder, but some villagers in Uganda gave eye witness reports that New Forests Company security officers killed some unnamed people. Hmm… this is some pretty odd conviction standards: an unnamed eye witness gives an out-of-court report that a non-America Corporation killed an unnamed person or persons in Uganda under unknown circumstances and that has a relation to the American constitution and American law of Corporate Personhood somehow? But of course even if I accept that part – this “some guy killed someone somewhere” is not conviction worth testimony. If Cory – or any of you reading this – has evidence that the New Forest Corporation actually did instruct a murder hit on any individuals in this Ugandan village then even though it’s not American and not subject to our laws, it would be a decent non-American example. I will email Cory and ask if he has info pointing towards just that (which I assume he does on account of me losing) but if you know anything about this you email me too and i’ll update accordingly.
Developing…
UPDATE: Jason comments with more argument that is along the same that leads me to realize more clarity is required for the issue. First, Jasons comment:
Failures of corporations routinely cause harm and death to humans. If you have to ask for sources, then you clearly aren’t paying attention. These abuses are ‘settled out of court’ in civil suits and never reach the criminal justice system.
Google for ‘wrongful death settlements’ and be careful who you believe until you’ve followed their money trail.
I appreciate the attempt in this comment, but it’s no good unless you can also provide examples of when Texas has ever executed someone due to a failure. Who has ever been executed for murder because they failed at safety conditions around their house or property? This comment argues far more that a Corporation is a human than it does against it (again: un-making the point). Humans routinely cause harm and death to humans. So what relevance does that have to the question posed here, which is “What corporation has murdered someone?”. Humans murdering humans are not settled out of court and neither would a corporation murdering anyone. Causing harm is not murder and “causing” death is not even necessarily murder. Wrongful death settlements are in no way examples of murder – they are examples of wrongful deaths.
The search continues for the American Corporation who has ever murdered anyone, ever – OR – the Texas execution of anyone who has ever been involved with wrongful harm or death of someone parallel to that of a corporate example.