Currently the effects of the law (Citizens United)is focused on what some are calling the "buy out" of our political processes. At the moments the dominant issue is our election process and the lack of consideration given to the voice of the general public by political leaders.

There are however, other considerations as to how Citizens United can effect labor laws and civil rights issues.

Specifically, if an organization/business, whether for profit or nonprofit, is considered a person and the organization is headed by religious affiliations - can those organizations (as individuals per Citizens United) discriminate effectively against the civil rights of the individuals it employs and serves?

Let's discuss.

There is nothing to discuss. The answer is an obvious "no".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_e2L9_8t8Q

While I am not a modern liberal, I do often find many things to agree with Liberal Viewer on.

Ok...

Lets discuss the underlying premise.

Why should I have to (by my taxes) pay for the choices of a woman?

Does that same woman then have more rights than me?

more to the point.

This is but one problem with the 'Afforadable Health Care Law' and it is but one more in a growing chain as the levels of the law peel away one by one...

If the Law is so burdened that we must all jaw about it for the next 100 years...

Get rid of it and do the job right.

Wrong issue, man.

Thin viel...

"Specifically, if an organization/business, whether for profit or nonprofit, is considered a person and the organization is headed by religious affiliations - can those organizations (as individuals per Citizens United) discriminate effectively against the civil rights of the individuals it employs and serves?"

Fits the current 'health care' debate to a 'T'.

Just substitute 'insurance companies' or 'Catholic Church' for 'Citizens United'...

Same apple. diferent color.

I’d like to agree but I’m concerned that the “obvious” answer may not apply in less obvious cases.

For example: FEC strictly regulates the following: Limitations of Individual contribution, small businesses/sole proprietorships, and it makes it illegal for businesses whose profits are partially supported by federal government contracts to make contributions at all.

Limitations on Corporations ???? it’s difficult to determine because I have not been able to find the specific guidelines that should have required amending since the decision in Jan 2010 of Citizens United.

I have found bits and pieces of FEC comment through media articles and some blogs but Nothing in a more ‘legal’ format.
If anyone has found this information, please pass it on here



I may not have gotten the whole message but the you tube seems to be saying that corporations have always had the ability (and do take advantage of it) to target their ads in political ways.

So the question is, what’s the difference and the big deal with allowing a corporation into the same political election arena as individual citizens.

If that’s the point, --- well that’s the point of this discussion – what is the big deal?



The quote above may be in the wrong thread, but it may be that AB is relating the OP question to another thread about the Catholic hospital’s opposition to providing certain health benefits to women.

In either case, the quote has a legitimate place here because it was while I was doing research on that particular topic that I began to question the Court opinions that regard corporations as individuals (persons).

If the Court considers corporations as a single-minded entity for the purpose of being involved in the election processes of governing officials, can corporations also be considered a single-minded entity from a religious view?

If a particular corporation is headed by a board that happens to ‘believe’ in some particular religious doctrine, let’s say that race and ethnicity are subject to segregation (no inter-marriage or dating) will they get away with discriminating in their hiring practices?

Consider other issues of discrimination, against homosexuals, transgendered, women in the workplace, men & women who are divorced and so on and even people of other specific religions.

Those are the blatant and most obvious kinds of issues but it runs far deeper than that into areas most people probably haven’t even considered.

What lines separate Corporatations from religious conviction given that the Court (in Citizens United) has created an abstract construct of corporate personhood?

What line?

Individual protections in the Bill of Rights.

If one considers a corporation to be a 'person' that 'person' can not discriminate against another 'person' in the arena of the Markets and Commerce (i.e Jobs and Opportunities)...

Be it an individual or a 'entity' comprised of many individuals.

At the point of discrimination that 'corporate entity' has violated the rights of another.

But what if the corporate entity envokes religious protection?

Just as an example, what if the organization owners and board of directors all believe, based of their religion, that inter-racial marriage and dating is forbidden. Can the organization be allowed to discriminate in its employment practices? Why or why not?

Did you watch the vid?

Companies are not people, but comprised of people. In some instances a company is like a person, it can be sued, it can take action in the world and can be sued just like a person can.

But that does not make a company a person. It certainly cannot be tried for murder like a person can.

After watching the vid, I tend to agree with Spider, not much to talk about.

The problem with Citizen's United is the issue of unlimited campaign finance funding. The pure volume of political ads is completely determined by the funding that buys the adspace. TV time is expensive. TV ads can have a tremendous affect on the voters' minds. Recent elections show that the candidate who spends the most on ads tends to win the election. That is not always the case, but enough for us to recognize the political impact that ads can have.

So what has been set up, as we can see already if we look at who gives money to whom in the Republican primaries, is that specific individuals can use a corporation's namesake in order to funnel millions upon millions of their own dollars towards a specific candidate's election cause, whereas a citizen's personal contribution limit is 2,500 dollars. That's quite a difference.

Now, here's the problem as I see it. Money is power and too much power in too few hands has never, in the history of mankind, produced good things in the end. This is supposed to be a representative form of government. If there exists a conflict of interest between which policies are considered best for which citizens, then it only makes sense that those candidates with the most money backing their election causes will have a significant financial advantage that tips the odds of winning the election in their favor, due to the aforementioned effects of financing political ads. So, if the political landscape is such that the most wealthy members of society think/believe that they ought be taxed less while the poorest members of society ought be taxed more, and that social programs which benefit the poorest members of society ought be abolished, then which members of our society have been given a significant advantage over the other in terms of being able to effect the outcomes of the elections?

No.

Because corporations that employ do so from the public sector. And further 'for the good of the people' laws bolster the Constitution in that employeers can not discriminate.

However in the case of the Health Care this is not in play... Health Care is a forcing by the Government of the People and is not allowed under foundational documents.

The proper course of Governance should allways be By the People and never By the Government.

In the case of employement the people in General are protected by the anti-discrimination laws.

In the case of Health Care the the General Welfare would be hurt by the forcing of regulations upon the States.

The government are people.

The government is the people.

that is the way it should be.

However currently the Government has usurped the people.

by executive fiat from at least three Executives now.

The primary role of government is to take care of the people.

^^^^ That is why leftists scare me.

The primary role of the government is to protect the people from each other and outsiders, not "take care" of them.

Protecting another is taking care of them.

The lack of simple understanding is what scares me about "righties".

There are a number of facets involved in "taking care" of a person. Protection is a single facet.

I want the Government to make sure that my civil rights aren't violated by other people and that foreign nations don't kill me, I don't want the Government to tell me what drugs I can take, who I can sleep with or what foods I can eat.

What don't I understand? Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao all wanted to "take care" of their people. Our Government wants to protect us from ourselves, so our prisons are full of people who were just taking a drug. Think of all the millions upon millions of dollars our Government wastes trying to "take care" of us and to "protect us" from ourselves. How much is a human life worth? How many people have been killed and how many lives have been ruined by our Government's war on drugs. Show me the good that has come from the Government "taking care" of us.

Don't point to Social Security or Medicare, both have demonstrably hurt society. People no longer save money in banks for their retirements. That saved money in the bank helped keep the country investing and growing, since it was loaned out by the banks. Healthcare costs have to be raised on everyone, because Medicare pays out so little. And charity hospitals have been hurt, because people don't donate like they used to.