Natural rights for unnatural beings?

One area of increasing interest for me is the idea of corporate personhood. This is the idea that a legal corporation, recognized as its own entity under the law, has the same (or similar) rights as natural persons under the Constitution. Put another way, do corporate entities have natural (or human) rights?

What’s not to like about this issue? It combines law, politics, justice, metaphysics, and artificial “people.” Because when you stop to think of it, if corporations are people than corporate formation is actually a weird form of reproduction. (What does that do to the marriage debate?) Although sometimes I suspect that the Horcrux is an even better analogy--a splintering of the soul into an immortal artifact so that one's name can live on after one dies.

But I digress. The Supreme Court first recognized corporations as persons protected by the 14th Amendment in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific (1886), and is in the news again after the Citizens United case where the Court determined that the campaign finance laws improperly infringed on a corporation’s free speech protected by the First Amendment.

John Medaille at Front Porch Republic gives some more background:

The Founding Fathers of our Republic were very suspicious of corporations, since the royally-chartered companies had been used as instruments of oppression against the colonies. The Navigation Acts, for example, gave them exclusive shipping rights to the colonies, much to the detriment of American entrepreneurs. And it was East India Company tea that the colonists used to color the waters of Boston harbor in the original tea party. For a jurisprudence that pretends to be interested in “original intent,” the colonial attitude towards corporate power cannot be overlooked.

Corporations prior to Santa Clara were creatures of the state that had no “rights” save those that were granted by their charters, charters that always excluded their participation in politics. Santa Clara extended the protections of the 14th Amendment (no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”) to the corporations. The Amendment was originally designed to protect the freed slaves, but since Santa Clara it has been used mainly as a tool to protect big business.

And Mark Mitchell also weighed in.

But corporations are not persons. They are not alive. They are not even dead. They do not have natural life spans. They are not mortal creatures whose essential mortality induces reflection on the ultimate meaning of life and leads the wise to live out that brief existence with an eye to what matters most. A corporation never dies a natural death and therefore lacks the natural incentive to live a life that includes dying well. An immortal person is a god. By calling a corporation a person (whose charter is for perpetuity) have we created a strange new god? A new idol before which we prostrate ourselves? The corporation, rightly conceived, is to serve human beings. Corporate personhood has the effect of  blurring this goal and reversing the relationship.

All this is significant because of the recent introduction of the People’s Rights Amendment, which would amend the Constitution to clarify that only natural persons, and not corporate persons, have protected rights under the Constitution.

The political right is up in arms, decrying government takeover. The National Review has called it a repeal of the First Amendment.

But in a letter to the National Review, the amendment's supporters address many of the concerns and misconceptions about what it would do and would not do.

The Constitution protects certain individual rights that are vital to safeguarding our free society. Only our most sacred rights are enshrined in the Constitution, and thereby afforded the unique authority of that document.

Many other rights also exist, conferred by statute or by case law or common law. These rights are properly subject to legislation, and lack the unique protection of the Constitution.

Corporate law, appropriately, is in this latter category. Corporations are artificial entities, created by people. In order to accomplish important economic goals, we the people grant charters to corporations, conferring various legal rights, including the ability to enter into contracts, and great privileges, such as limited liability and perpetual life.

These corporate rights and privileges are properly guaranteed by law, but are not so sacred as to be protected by the Constitution, because corporations are not people. This critical distinction — between constitutional rights that properly belong only to people, and other, subordinate legal rights that legitimately extend to corporations — is the crux of the People’s Rights Amendment.

Now while I’m not convinced that this amendment, or a constitutional amendment at all, is the proper solution to the issue of granting natural rights to corporations, I do think that the distinction between natural persons and artificial persons should be somehow reintroduced back into our legal structure. I fear that raising up corporate entities to the level of humanity may also actually undermine the natural rights doctrine. If corporate “rights” and natural rights rise and fall together, they’re more likely to fall. And we, the people who the Constitution is designed to protect, actually lose rights in the process.

As a final thought, corporations as originally designed were granted limited powers. The same is true of our federal government. However, they have since evolved to holding plenary powers (and even “rights”); and our conception of government followed suit. Limited and strictly defined powers disappeared from corporate law before disappearing from constitutional law. I think that’s significant.

Speed Dating!

Sometimes life throws strange stuff at us. Take the other day for example. I was innocently carrying on with life when all of the sudden I find myself in a speed dating rotation. By time I was done I had “speed dated” 106 women.

Our culture is struggling. People are lonely, hurting, isolated, and longing for fulfillment in life. When you watch the ads on TV they try to appeal to the fact that we deserve better or that we’ll be a lot better off with this one magic product. There are websites devoted to helping you find the “right one,” and mountains of self help books.

It would be silly to ask why all this appeals to people. Everyone wants a better life and wants the silver bullet solution to all their problems. People want it because they need it. They know they have needs that need to be filled.

Of course, we all know that almost all of these “solutions” are not going to work, but that doesn’t stop us from looking for the ones that do work. Searching for success and good things is, in fact, a good thing. But after my interesting experience I started asking questions about what’s under the surface.

The fact is that the world needs help. But honestly, if I wrote a blogpost about solving the world’s problems, you would laugh at me. Solving the world’s problems is neither practical nor is it within the possible scope of a blog post. So, a better question about the state of our culture is “What can a reader of this blog do within 24 hours of reading this post to make one person’s life a little better?”

Want to know what I came up with? Here it is: Speed date someone!

Yes, I know, I am a crazy idea factory, but check this out. Speed dating is when you take the time to focus on someone sitting in front of you for a few minutes of listening and talking. You don’t have to invest huge amounts of deep thought or emotion, the goal is to focus on them and hear what they have to say and then share something that shows a little of who you are in return.

Now, I know you think I have lost my rocker, but try it. Focus on someone right in front of you. Listen to what they say. Share from the inside of yourself. Focus, listen, share.

Here is an example: You are at Walmart, you pass by someone stocking the shelves, say hi. Ask a question (not “where is the Greek Yogurt,” although that is my favorite question in the world) and then listen to their answer. Then share a genuine thought from your heart. Then smile and walk away.

When you are at a restaurant ask the server to help you choose between two items, take their suggestion and tell them that your mother makes it great and they are competing with her now. Then smile and be done.

When you are walking past your neighbor ask why she is up so early. Then explain your own reasons. Then smile and wish her a good day!

Ok, yes, you caught me. These examples aren’t really proper speed dating. Really, I know that most people have to be tricked into listening to advice.

But look at the truth. The basics are there. Focus, listen, share. It doesn’t have to take more than a minute and a half. But you can learn about the world you are living in and encourage a stranger in 90 seconds.

Now that I am done moralizing, let me tell you about my speed dating experience. It was fun. As I said I did it at a conference and “speed dated” 106 lovely women who were very charming and most were able to put a smile on my face. Unfortunately for me, it turns out that they were all married. Why these married women were willing to participate in speed dating is beyond me. Maybe it was my irresistible charm...

But life is full of firsts, and now I can check speed dating off my list.

Who is the most interesting person that you spoke to this month? Was it me? ;-)


Post by Jeremiah Lorrig

Friday miscellaneous (4/27)

This week was Shakespeare's birthday. This clever opinion piece at the Washington Post wonders if he is still relevant today:

Look at his most famous play. “Hamlet”? A whiny college student, evidently overeducated and underemployed, comes home for break, sees a ghost and dithers. Eventually some pirates show up, but wouldn’t you know, they remain offstage. Shakespeare is one of the few writers in history who, given the option of including pirates in a play, thinks, “Nah, you know what? I’d rather have this dithering hipster talk about mortality some more.”

Come to think of it, maybe he’s never been more relevant.

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, a extensive work which provides a section by section analysis of the Constitution written by various constitutional experts, is now available online.

Charles Colson, the former Nixon operative convicted in the Watergate fallout who then converted to Christianity and founded Prison Fellowship, passed away this week. He accomplished great things both showing and demonstrating forgiveness and Christian compassion, but he was not perfect.

A new report shows that immigration from Mexico keeps falling. In fact, it now looks like more Mexicans are leaving the United States than entering.

United States soldiers in Afghanistan are having difficulty connecting with the native workers on the bases. Here’s one story of a soldier who provided needed boots only to have the gift fall flat.

Tim Challies writes on what book ownership looks like in the age of ebooks. In fact, I’ve wondered this sort of thing myself (with both ebooks and downloaded music):

Here is something else to consider: What will happen to your e-book library when you die? It used to be that your books would survive you. They would stand as a testimony to the kind of person you were. Many a pastor left behind a vast theological library that could give a pastor of the next generation a helpful start in building one of his own. A man’s books were an important part of his legacy. But what of those who are currently establishing a library on Kindle or Logos or any other e-book system? This is a library which does not fully belong to the man and which in most cases will not and cannot be given to his descendants after him. The library will perish with the man; as his body returns to the dust, his library will return to the ether.

Mint.com, which I use for budgeting, has put together an infographic showing the size of student loan debt in the United States. It’s now pushing $1 trillion, and nearly 15% is still being paid back by people over 50 years old. And over 20% of students with loans owe over $150,000.

And speaking of debt, hospitals are employing debt collectors who use increasingly invasive (and possibly illegal) tactics to collect for medical bills, including demanding payment before procedures, discouraging patients from seeking medical help, and using information from confidential medical records.

Mitt Romney won a clean sweep in all primaries held this week and he’s now turning his attention to the general election. Here’s some of his criticism of President Obama.

In the last presidential election, the McCain campaign was often slow and weak with its responses to criticisms. It appears that the Romney campaign will not suffer from that shortcoming. In fact, when it comes to quickness and preparedness, the Romney campaign seems to be showing up the Obama campaign. I’m guessing the Obama campaign will steer very clear of any future references to dogs.

Here’s another review of The Hunger Games (it calls itself definitive, but the author has clearly never read mine or he would know better). He succinctly points out the problem with many Christian criticisms: “It’s not a Christian book and does not pretend to be.  Don’t expect it to be.”

Al Mohler reminds us of the stain sex trafficking is causing on our reputation. Apparently the Secret Service scandal is only the beginning: military personnel, contractors, and other US official overseas are a major driving force behind the demand for the sex market.

President Obama is continuing the expansion of executive power set by his predecessors--including to but not limited to bypassing Congress and the legislative process.

“I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer,” Mr. Obama declared, beneath a “We Can’t Wait” banner. “When Congress refuses to act and — as a result — hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them.”

And finally, here is a lesson in how to not do PR. (Yes, this is a comedic routine, not a real interview.)

The Collection of Human Wisdom

Last week I wrote about both political limits and the importance of history. Little did I know that I would soon be reading an article that stressed the importance of both of those. But then Patrick Deneen at Front Porch Republic posted just such an article, tying the Great Books and classical education to the ideas of both the importance of history and the limits of mankind.

For all their many differences, the Great Books in this tradition argue that there is something in the nature of reality itself – whether we understand it as nature as described by the Greeks, or the created order depicted in the Book of Genesis – that limits human power and ability to transform our situation. The appropriate disposition toward the world is not the effort to seek its transformation, but rather to conform human behavior and aspirations to that order. Hence, the primary purpose of education is learning to live in a world in which self-limitation is the appropriate response to a world of limits. Education in virtue is a central goal – particularly the hard discipline over the human propensity toward excess, particularly in the form of pleonexiaor pride.

In order to advance this teaching to successive generations of human beings, education was largely ordered around an education in texts (and even languages) from this tradition (Greek/Latin; Classics and Bible). Every new generation needed a renewed education in the knowledge of human limits and the central necessity of virtue. Books themselves were understood to be a storehouse of wisdom from the past, a treasury and repository of hard-won experience and knowledge of these limits. What these books taught was itself a justification for an education centered around books. Because the present and future were believed to be fundamentally continuous with the past, the past was understood to be a source of wisdom about our condition as humans in a world that we do not command. An education in Great Books was itself a consequence of a philosophical worldview, and not merely an education from which we derived a worldview (much less sought an education in “critical thinking”).

I had a taste of just such an educational approach at Patrick Henry College, and can verify that it has just that effect. I’m not sure one can ever complete such an education though, because there are always more great books that need reading. But in those works  one can find both the pinnacles of human success and the deepness of human failure.

As King Solomon famously wrote:

What has been is what will be,

   and what has been done is what will be done,

   and there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

It’s very humbling to realize that we have thousands of years of ideas, experiments, and failed attempts to guide us. It provides much more than mere critical thinking; it facilitates substantive thinking. But that substance shows us more failures than successes, more nightmares than utopias. And that itself serves as its own warning.

The vast collection of human wisdom reminds us of our limits. And it shows the consequences of forgetting or ignoring those limits.

The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:11-14)

Beyond Acceptance Movie Review

“Love is trying, and trying one more time.”

The Producer of the new Christian movie Beyond Acceptance sent me an email asking if Looking for Overland would be interested in reviewing his movie as it begins to pick up steam. I think he believed that I would be a easy target. A year ago I was in Michigan and he told me about the movie and my interest was clearly piqued because it was a movie about a family going through a difficult adoption.

Adoption has always been a part of my life. Many of my friends growing up were adopted and my family adopted one of my sisters when I was 16. I have seen adoption from more angles that I would have thought possible.

The movie Beyond Acceptance tackles adoption and the issue of what being a part of a family means. The Border family goes through the process of deciding to adopt and that brings the family close together. However, the difficulty of bringing someone new into the family sets in and life gets harder.

Watching the movie several truths gripped my heart. The first truth the Border family learns is that doing the right thing might be the hardest thing you can do. They also struggle with seeing that sometimes we need to be willing to live without something before we should have it (think the story of Solomon, the wise judge, deciding who the real mother was by threatening to cut the baby in half). Finally, they learn that one of the most important things about loving relationships is that although we do not always happily love each other, we are always trying. And trying one more time. Even when we don’t see results.

For me, one of the most powerful scenes in the whole movie involved a transformation that no one in the family could see. It reminds me that often times change happens like mountains forming on the ocean floor. Above the water you would have no idea that under the surface entire mountain ranges have grown as the result of tectonic activity. Even though no one sees the change, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

The film has a solid soundtrack including one of my favorite songs in the closing credits. The physical acting is better than the spoken acting that is stilted at times. Part of that, I am sure, come from the awkwardness of the family trying to talk with a little boy who will not talk back. One personal highlight was seeing a friend, Jeff Bolzman, as an extra in one of the scenes, but I doubt that will factor into whether or not you run out to buy the DVD.

Like many low budget films, the opening is rough. If I had one piece of advice to give someone producing a low budget project, I would suggest they start filming in the middle of the script so that the opening will include peak performances as your team hits its stride.

Adoption is hard for everyone involved, but then I remember that Jesus went through an even more painful process to adopt me. I am thankful for that! I am also thankful for those beautiful people who open their homes to take someone who seems beyond acceptance and who prove that love can transform lives. Transforming love tries, and then tries one more time.

The writer and many of the people who worked on this film are homeschool alumni. This was their first big project, so if you are like me and want them to do more, order the DVD and help spread this important message.

By Jeremiah Lorrig

Click here for more movie reviews.

Friday miscellaneous (4/20)

Lots of links again. But not as many political ones this week.

This is a good reminder. Lots of things are impossible in presidential elections. But sometimes the powers determining impossibility forget to remind the voters.

Is anyone interested in voting third-party? Apparently the Prohibition Party is still around, and there’s always the Constitution Party, the Justice Party, or the American Party. If only the Socialist Party, the Party of Socialism and Liberation, and the Socialist Workers Party could join, they might have a … bigger minority.

President Obama is trying to do something about rising oil prices. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he knows what it is.

Something tells me this isn’t a winning strategy for the Democrats. I like Romney, but my snide side says that if this strategy worked, his campaign should already be reaping the benefits.

This is an amazing story about a little boy who got lost at age 6 and then used Google Earth to find his hometown (and family) 25 years later.

Our country has an obesity problem and it’s about more than the waistline.

This is an interesting article about one evangelical’s experience in “liberal” academia. Just remember, sometimes persecution is real, but sometimes we invent it ourselves.

If only all terrorists were this easy to catch.

This was not intended to be a series, but two weeks ago I posted about Ancient Egypt and last week I posted about Hoth. Now, apparently, hell has also been found.

A former professor of mine writes about the gender experiments in Sweden and ties it back to de Tocqueville's thoughts on the weaknesses in democracy.

Testing testing testing, we all want more testing in schools. But when is it too much?

E.J. Dionne writes about two income households and how for many they are a necessity. He also includes some words of reminder for conservatives: the glory days of one income families were possible in large part because of strong unions. We can talk about being pro-family, but what do our policies say?

And finally, play for drama.