9 Feb 2012 3:04 pm
So why have they enjoyed those rights?Cite the SCOTUS ruling where corporations were declared 'people' and were said to be entitled to the same Constitutional rights as individuals.I won't hold my breath.U.S. Supreme Court LOUISVILLE, C. & C. R. CO. v. LETSON, 43 U.S. 497 (1844) 43 U.S. 497 (How.) THE LOUISVILLE, CINCINNATI, AND CHARLESTON RAILROAD COMPANY, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR, v. THOMAS W. LETSON, DEFENDANT. January Term, 1844 .......... It is, that a corporation created by and doing business in a particular state, is to be deemed to all intents and purposes as a person, although an artificial person, an inhabitant of the same state, for the purposes of its incorporation, capable of being treated as a citizen of that state, as much as a natural person. Like a citizen it makes contracts, and though in regard to what it may do in some particulars it differs from a natural person, and in this especially, the manner in which it can sue and be sued, it is substantially, within the meaning of the law, a citizen of the state which created it, and where its business is done, for all the purposes of suing and being sued.Because if they didn't have Constitutional rights, corporations could be searched without warrants, have its phones tapped, its assets seized, etc. etc. etc.Stunning how little understanding the moonbat left has about American freedom.Here's a leftist moonbat arguing for the Obama administration against Citizens United.In the course of oral argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, United States deputy solicitor general Malcolm Stewart inadvertently revealed just how extreme our campaign-finance system has become.The case addressed the question of whether federal campaign-finance law limits the right of the activist group Citizens United to distribute a hackneyed political documentary entitled Hillary: The Movie. The details involved an arcane provision of the law, and most observers expected a limited decision that would make little news and not much practical difference in how campaigns are run. But in the course of the argument, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Stewart and inquired: "What's your answer to [the] point that there isn't any constitutional difference between the distribution of this movie on video [on] demand and providing access on the internet, providing DVDs, either through a commercial service or maybe in a public library, [or] providing the same thing in a book? Would the Constitution permit the restriction of all of those as well?" Stewart, an experienced litigator who had represented the government in campaign-finance cases at the Supreme Court before, responded that the provisions of McCain-Feingold could in fact be constitutionally applied to limit all those forms of speech. The law, he contended, would even require banning a book that made the same points as the Citizens United video.There was an audible gasp in the courtroom. Then Justice Alito spoke, it seemed, for the entire audience: "That's pretty incredible." By the time Stewart's turn at the podium was over, he had told Justice Anthony Kennedy that the government could restrict the distribution of books through Amazon's digital book reader, Kindle; responded to Justice David Souter that the government could prevent a union from hiring a writer to author a political book; and conceded to Chief Justice John Roberts that a corporate publisher could be prohibited from publishing a 500-page book if it contained even one line of candidate advocacy.http://www.nationala...-finance-reform