104F Part One - Specific targets: corporations and free, open elections. Framing and reframing the debate

Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago to Politics
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Next up Government by Corporation.

If you want to skip the next part it's short version is he is attempting to distance the socialist corporatists such as Soros and Lewis and now Gates from the Socialist Statists such as Hillary, Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush

But in fairness I will review it anyway. In Two Separate Posts. The first with little comment other than the introduction and purpose the second with the other side of the coin and the fatal flaws not only in their system of agent training but in this particular specific target area. May be too late they are more than half way probably 75% of the way their and that first three fourths has to be reversed as well as stopping the final one fourth - don't get too carried away with comment until Part Two. One tonight One tomorrow evening. Something to do on Tuesday and Wednesday.

104F Part One - How Business interferes with freedom to vote and buys votes even when they are not businesses. (It will seem as if he is for once supporting conservatives and capitalism for a change. Well he is but the second surprise and the third are yet to come.

Round about one year ago I presented an idea for change. Same one I refined a bit and presented again in the last month. 'If you may not vote you may not contribute' is the title and I'm glad to see it's the final, in detail, specific target in Lakoffs book. I read ahead and found his weak spot.

First I'll present his comments on buying votes and financially interference with freedom to vote freely, select candidates and promote positions or propositions not to mention the number of rights his position violates. Surprisingly the opposition and the Billionaire Boys Club has most of the rights needed to do just that.

Then I'll be happy to blow him out of the water.

First up Yoda Lakoff whose agents proclaim. "I have the right without exception to take all your rights without explanation." Not all which is why the disengaged and ran earlier this year. But not from lack of trying to make it true nor did they quit. That is the right of free and open elections as opposed by those which are bought and paid for.

(Didn't say I'd play fair. ...him if he can't take a serious joke.)

The trail from start to present which grants corporations, Limited liability corporations, and groups the same rights (except actual voting) as persons starts here using the power (not granted but assumed) of changing metaphor into facts on the ground using reflexivity then using those facts to further court decisions by extending metaphors, thus bypassing such requirements as amendments and ignoring such requirements as rights not granted. [Definitions used are not necessarily the definitions you use and often quite different. Plurality is one.] That's the intro and this is the case for the secular progressives.

Everything after the quote mark is direct quote.

This came about through un-named "Cognitive scientists studying metaphorical thought recognizing two common metaphors which we adopt unconsciously and automatically that are relevant here.

Metaphor 1: Pluralities Are Groups.

The Pluralities Are Groups Metaphor attributes group properties to separate individuals - whether warranted or not. The result is that the group is perceived as an entity with different properties than the individuals in it. Take a look at the two operative words.

A plurality consists of people, animals, plants, or other things considered separately - un-grouped..." examples such as people on subways..."they are not necessarily part of any particular group. They are a plurality - but they need not have common characteristics, goals, or functions.

A group is an entity, conceptualized metaphorically as a container for other entities. The group can and usually does, have properties, resources, goals, and functions that are separate from the individual entities in the group.

Once we combine the two metaphorically, we being to think about pluralities differently. For example, a club, a church, an association (e.g. AARP...)can have money, a home, legal responsibilities, and liabilities...that don't apply to any individual member. Similarly corporations can be sued while their stockholders can be immune to such lawsuits as individuals.

Metaphor 2: Ask most people institutions are people, and they will say no. In fact, our definitions of the two words are

quite distinct.

. An Institution is an abstract entity conceptualized metaphorically as a container for people. An institution is typically defined by it's goals, resources, and by various functions, responsibilities and privileges for whatever people are in the institution. The institution is defined independently of the people who happen to be in it, serving its functions.

. A person is a human being. Human beings have goals and resoures, and typically have responsibilities privileges, and carry out functions. Human beings also have properties that institutions do not have: human bodies, feelings and emotions, desires and beliefs, physical functions and needs, as well as social roles and the ability to think and communicate.

But this conceptual metaphor has long been in our brains! We use this metaphorical mode of thought constantly when we are comprehending and discussing institutions, as in:...Planned Parenthood was disgusted by the recent court decision and so on.

These two conceptual metaphors - Pluralities Are Groups and Institutions Are Persons - exist in many parts of the world and have for millennia. And in many cases have been recognized in law..." (examples given)"...There is a long history of just what properties of human beings are attributed metaphorically to institutions...(examples given)"...Before 1819, the commonplace conceptual metaphor that Institutions are Persons began to be applied to corporations as goals, finances, responsibilities, privileges, and so on. But there is a difference between this very common and limited view of corporate personhood and a view that gave corporations constitutional rights! That took Corporations Are Persons out of the range of normal conceptual metaphor and into the power of the courts.

Lakoff then cites the 1819 Supreme Court Decision in Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. Dartmouth College had been granted a corporate charter by King George III awarding land and the right to administer the college. In 1819 the trustees deposed the college president. The New Hampshire legislature passed legislation taking away the college's King George charter, putting the State of New Hampshire in charge making it a State college. The Supreme Court ruled all political ties had been severed with King George III, the charter still constituted a contract with King George, the person. The Supreme Court held this contract fell under the Contracts Clause of the US Constitution which forbids laws overturning contracts among persons, and held it applied to corporations as well. Dartmouth College remained private and under control of trustees. A line had been crossed and rights of contract and property now applied to corporations." (and did not limit the type nor the purpose.)

The next step to controlling and buying votes, which is where all of this is leading, starts after the civil war...

Paraphrased but accurate.

Continued in Comments .


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  • Posted by $ 8 years, 4 months ago
    Continued from 104F part one

    The First Clause of the 14th Amendments you will recall set forth the privileges, immunities of citizens, banned depriving life, liberty, or property without due process and banned denying any person equal protection of the laws...Corporations took notice and moved to challenge the restrictive powers of the State Governments using the 14th Amendment. Quoted material continues.

    The corporations"assumed the opposite of the Pluralities Are Groups Metaphor, which separated the properties of group entities from individual properties of their members. The newmetaphor identified the properties of the group with the properties of the members.They began arguing that corporations were persons and had as one of their properties the same constitutional protections as persons had"...(in effect wanting to have it both ways.)

    "...in 1886 the railroads brought"..suit to the Supreme Court...Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. In Santa Clara County there was a tax provision that allowed people paying mortgages on their property to deduct the amount of their mortgages from their taxes...

    The precedent of corporate personhood came out of this case. But the precedent did not come from any argument in the case or anything written in favor or against by any of the justices. The precedent came from an oral remark made by Chief Justice Waite that was taken down...the remark appeared in the headnotes for the case and nowhere else ...

    'The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids any state to deny any person with in it's jursdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are of the opinion it does'." (not in the body with no votes listed either way by the other eight members. The Chief Justice Lakoff notes was a former Railroad attorney.)

    Next step.."following court decisions violated this essential property of corporations by automatically attributing to corporations certain constitutional rights held by share holders -- namely rights of due process, free speech (seen as money contributed to political campaigns and spent on the media),freedom of religion, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and double jeopardy...

    ...In 1889 the court overtly granted due process Amendment to corporations; in 1893 it was Fifth amendment protections of double jeopardy; in 1906 Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable search and seizure; and in 1978 the right to make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns."

    Not provided but mentioned in passing http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/...

    "In the latter case, the metaphor was extended: Though a corporation could not go to the polls and vote, as a 'person' it has the right of free speech since it's shareholders have the right of free speech. Then a further metaphor Speech As Money going to the campaigns - not for candidates (real people) but for policies affecting corpoations.
    It was a step towards Citizens United.

    Interestingly, Citizens United..."

    [Not cited or sourced by Lakoff
    (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/htm...)]

    "...is not directly about corporate personhood and does not depend on that general metaphor. It defined two other metaphors.

    .Money Is Speech

    .Nonpersons Have The Right To Speech.

    These two metaphors form a logic: People have a right to as much speech as they want. Since money is speech, it follows that nonpersons have the right to spend as much money as they want on elections.

    The 5 to 4 vote by a conservative court was politically motivated."

    Interestingly the following is supported Democrat liberals and socialists but then that includes the socialist Billionaires club, hardly conservative unless you use original definitions defining conservative as those entrenched in control and power.

    http://endcitizensunited.org/about-us/ not provided by Lakoff who seemingly comes out against this corporate power of purchasing votes Quotes continue.

    What is left are the 'negative effects of runaway accumulation of corporate wealth...

    . Increasing corporate lobbying and political contributions...

    . Increasing externalization of costs...

    . Increasing costs to consumers due to monopoly ownership...

    . Increasing unethical business practices...

    . Increasing corporate inefficiency...

    . Increasing corporate management pay and the pressure for short term profits...

    Runaway expropriation of wealth is a result of poltics governed significantly through lobbying by corporations rather than

    the public... (Pay attention to that one.)

    ...Government by corporation probably does far more to take away such liberty'."

    And ties it into Global Warming.

    Which concludes the presentation in Forget The Elephant ...Frame the Debate.

    104F Part II the other side posting in 24 hours or less. This was one sided since the author nor his 'minions' failed so far to show up Like any good debater I can take both sides of the question and usually find a third answer.l

    Enjoy....don't get too carried away until the second part....The Fatal Flaw.
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