Rand Paul: " WE'RE ALL CORPORATIONS "

[Segami]

Run time: 00:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT2FFHVUn8Q   Posted on YouTube: August 12, 2011 By YouTube Member: ThinkProgressVideo Views on YouTube: 8   Posted on DU: August 12, 2011 By DU Member: Segami Views on DU: 3187

 
:smoke:


ThinkProgress:


ThinkProgress asked Paul about Romney’s comments prior to the Republican presidential debate in Ames. Paul rushed to the former governor’s defense, arguing that Romney was correct in his equivalency between man and mega-company.


KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement today that “corporations are people”?


PAUL: Corporations are collections of people. I think we’re all corporations. To say we’re going to punish corporations like they’re someone else. All of us are corporations.


KEYES: Do you think that was basically in line with what he was saying?


PAUL: You think about, if you own a retirement fund, you have a 401k, everybody who has a 401k has parts of corporations, so in a sense we are.


KEYES: I think people might argue that corporations can’t be sent to jail.


PAUL: I think those arguments can be made, but I think the fact that a lot of times people want to vilify corporations, saying they’re someone else, that they’re these other rich people. They’re us. They’re the middle class. We all own parts of corporations.




It’s unsurprising that Paul would side with corporations. In the past, Paul has expressed his affection for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was quick to defend BP during its high-profile act of corporate irresponsibility, and during the 2010 campaign, complained that disabilities laws are unfair to the business owner.


A quick glance at Paul’s campaign fundraising finds major contributions from corporations like Koch Industries, AT&T, and Exxon Mobil. Still, as one of the original Tea Party senators, Paul’s defense of corporations flies in the face of the populist movement he purports to represent.




http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/08/12/294472/rand-paul-rushes-to-romneys-defense-all-of-us-are-corporations/



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[sinkingfeeling]

1. Why yes, the whole point of shifting from defined pensions to 401Ks was to prop up

Wall Street and make all of us participate in 'corporations'.

[Angry Dragon]

2. If corporations do not suffer the same fate as human people

then they can not be considered people
If corporations break the law then they should be sent to jail
with rights comes responsibility

[midnight]

8. Touche!

[SusanaMontana41]

23. I'll buy that. n/t

[kenny blankenship]

3. It's just that most "corporations" have no operating capital at all, if people are corporations too

They have no product to sell except for their commodified labor, and in fact spend will most of their lives deeply indebted to real capitalists, paying off a mortgage. Maybe they'll become net creditors long about five or ten years before being forced to retire. Then they'll have to live off the principle of their savings and investments, if they have any, liquidating them and downscaling their standard of living as they hurtle towards the end, which they can not possibly avoid.

Real corporations do not have any such finite lifespan, and they begin their "life", by definition, with a capital surplus.

The man is a complete moron. An elected US Senator -yes- AND a moron.

[PonyJon]

13. Does Rand Paul have any education or credentials?

Where does he come off pontificating about law and economics? Why do people listen to these "common sense" know it alls? All these idiots want to send their kids to the most prestigious universities yet their mantra is higher education is elitist, we need to listen to common people. What a load of shit. Almost all the "lefties" I know are educated with at least college degrees (not from hicks ville evangelical so called "universities".) His ideas on economics are abysmal and very radical, not mainstream at all. His BS on corporate law is hilarious in it's stupidity. He's very well educated for a congressman (bitter sarcasm intended).

[JohnnyRingo]

4. Yeah, that's the ticket

My household is like a little AOL with income, overhead, and regulations. Saddling mega-corps with taxes and regulations will trickle down to my own microcosm of Household inc.

Considering this bullshit analogy, lets pass laws that will prevent my neighbors from suing me if my dead tree falls on their home, and cut my tax rate to zero plus a refund. Let me dump my used motor oil in the creek and cut the paperboy's salary. I want the govt to send someone over to trim the hedges at my corporation during these tough times, and subsidize a new car port for my business vehicle.

"All corporations" my ass. How much do they pay for people to make this shit up?

On edit: If "we all own parts of corporations" I want to divest myself now and collect my total share in dollars and cents.

[Segami]

5. As a person, you try dumping your used motor oil in the creek

and you will be charged, fined or jailed, period! The system is set up and rigged by them on ALL levels.


"....The ruling is based on the idea that corporations are “persons” under the Constitution. The notion of corporate personhood in the United States is generally traced to an 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, in which Justice Morrison R. Waite remarked, before arguments in the case began, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”

Trouble is, corporations aren’t really people. They are creations of the state for the purpose of efficient aggregation and allocation of wealth and spreading of liability. Their fiduciary duty is to their stockholders. Corporations were not endowed by the Almighty with “certain inalienable rights.” They are ruled by laws written by people — the flesh-and-blood variety. They don’t die. They can’t be put in jail for crimes. They can’t be drafted and sent to war. They can’t vote. And they are owned, which, at least since slavery was abolished, people can’t be...."

http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2010/01/24/ames_tribune/opinion/editorials/doc4b5bb98ecbaac751201631.txt

[electropop]

6. Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Ru Paul - I always get those guys mixed up...

and frankly, Republocrats in general are pretty hard to tell apart.

[JDPriestly]

7. Then why

are the bankruptcy laws that apply to corporations different from ours?

And why
as owners of ourselves, are we still personally liability for the judgments and debts we incur when owners of corporations aren't under many circumstances,

And why
can't we claim we are from Delaware when we are living in California,

And why
can't we claim the same tax rates and deductions as corporations,

And why
can't we just sell and buy shares in ourselves?

[Poll_Blind]

10. +1

:thumbsup:

PB

[Angry Dragon]

11. +1000

[sasquuatch55]

9. Good! I want to keep and increase my Government subsides! nt

nt

[SoapBox]

12. Nuts under the Family Nut Tree...

...this family is bonkers.

[PonyJon]

14. If you seriously would like to physically protest this BS

then be in Washington DC, October 6. Check out...

http://october2011.org/welcome

[SharksBreath]

15. He's onto something. Everyone should be a corporation.

The benefits are great. I would tell every American to form a corporation.

Then once we do they will change the rules.

When everyone is putting Friday night pizza with the family on their corporate card for the tax write off the rules will get changed very quickly.

[vanbean]

16. I know several corporations who are in fact exactly like people like you and I.

They pay FICA tax. They vote. They get married to each other and have sex. They send out resumes after they get laid off. They are exactly like us.



Do I need this?:

:sarcasm:

[AlbertCat]

17. Rand! What about small business????

I live alone.... what kind of corporation does that make me?

This is gibberish with no meaning.

Corporations are not people. They are not even a collection of people. Does that make a classroom of children, a city bus or Metro at 5:30 PM, a congregation in a church or a prison yard at recreation time corporations too? They're collections of people.

Can a corporation have mental problems and psychoses, making them unfit and dangerous to be at large, like a person? Like you Rand, for instance....


That this pronouncement is not alarming in the extreme to thinking people in government is... alarming in the extreme.

[fascisthunter]

18. no, but you do act like a corporation because you are a sociopath

we know you'd like us to accept sociopathy and is another reason you hate social programs... sociopaths hate humanitarianism.

[nineteen50]

19. Are people

Psychopath? Then corporations are people.

[qb]

20. Now they just need David Naughton to do the theme song.

I'm a corporation, He's a corporation...

http://youtu.be/Ssmjk0mAxxY

[julian09]

21. How many minds does a corporation have?

Should they give equally to each candidate, is everyone in corp of the same mind and opinion. Do multinational corps have multi-nation citizenship? A person has only one vote in only one location, how many votes and locations does a corp have? Should corp be restricted to twenty five hundred dollar limit as individuals are?

[AmericaIsGreat]

22. What the FUCK is wrong with this guy?

I can't even fathom the stupidity required to make such a statement. We're all corporations????? HUH???

[baldguy]

24. Anyone who claims that corporations are people

should automatically be disqualified from holding public office at any level.