ConstitutionEconomicsGovernmentLiberalism

Why Corporations Must Be People

The film Soylent Green (1973) — that stars Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, and Chuck “The Rifleman” Connors — is not a great film, but it has one classic line — “Soylent Green is People!” The line reminded me of Obama and his fellow leftists who claim that corporations are NOT people. Just like Heston’s character did not want to believe what he saw with his own eyes, leftists don’t want to admit that corporations can’t be anything but people. Here’s a standard definition:

  1. A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.
  2. A group of people elected to govern a city, town, or borough.

If corporations aren’t people, then why are liberals so upset with the people who run them? Why do Liberals want corporations to pay more money? That money comes out of the pockets of people. Why are they upset when a corporation decides to set up business in a different country? People make these decisions. When a corporation is sued, who is it that’s served the papers? People. Who gets the money when there are corporate profit? PEOPLE!

In the 1960s, anti-war protestors protested against the “Military Industrial Complex” a phrase coined by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address of January 17, 1961. They were protesting against the people who were running the corporations and making money off the Vietnam War. They were called “war profiteers.”

This is commonsensical that only a liberal can deny it with a straight face. When a corporation makes money, people make money; it’s that simple.

Jack Welch, who knows something about corporations and people, does a slam-dunk on the leftist notion that corporations are not people. He quotes Elizabeth Warren who is running for the Senate seat held by Scott Brown in Massachusetts:

“Mitt Romney tells us, in his own words, he believes corporations are people. No, Mitt, corporations are NOT people,” she pronounced. “People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They love and they cry and they dance. They live and they die. Learn the difference.” The audience went wild.

Warren’s audience is as ignorant as she is, and that’s the way liberals like it. Welch went on to write:

“What nonsense.

“Of course corporations are people. What else would they be? Buildings don’t hire people. Buildings don’t design cars that run on electricity or discover DNA-based drug therapies that target cancer cells in ways our parents could never imagine.

“Buildings don’t show up at a customer’s factory and say, ‘We won’t leave until we solve your inventory problem.’ Buildings don’t encourage their employees to mentor inner-city kids in math and science. Buildings don’t fund homeless shelters in Boston or health clinics in Rwanda. People do.”

Let’s turn the tables on the leftists. If corporations aren’t people, then the people who own shares in them should not pay taxes. Why did people go to prison when Enron and WorldCom — both corporations — broke the law?

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