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It’s corporations, not killer robots
An argument that the Frankenstein's Monsters that are trying to replace humanity are not the Skynet or Cylons of science fiction, but corporations granted 'personhood':
That plan, lately, involves corporations seizing for themselves all the legal and civil rights properly belonging to their human creators. “Corporations are people, my friend,” and therefore in Citizens United, the free speech rights of corporate persons were found to outweigh the free speech rights of their human creators. Next up is the right of corporate persons to the free exercise of their religion — with Hobby Lobby and dozens of other for-profit legal entities arguing that not only do they have such rights, but that these rights must trump any free-exercise rights of the mortal humans who are employed by these immortal persons.
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We saw a bit of push-back this week from a majority of the humans serving on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. A for-profit corporation, Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., argued that because it is owned by Mennonites, it is also Mennonite, and that its corporate religious convictions must be granted the right to free exercise. (Presumably, based on Conestoga’s argument, the company will soon publicly affirm its religious faith in proper Mennonite fashion — with a full-immersion baptism.)
The Conestoga case includes the same bogus science embraced by Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College and many others who object to provide female employees with health care that covers the lower half of the strike zone: the false claim that contraception is “abortifacient.” That this is a false claim and an ignorant claim may confirm that these are ignorant people uninterested in reality, but fortunately for them, the legal matter of their claim only requires sincerity, not truth. And the sincerity of their ignorance has not been challenged.
Conestoga is a particularly weird case because of the Mennonite faith of the company’s owners. Mennonites are pacifists who have long lamented having to pay taxes that fund the world’s largest, deadliest and most-expensive military machine. But having to pay those taxes to fund military violence and military death didn’t prompt a lawsuit from the owners of Conestoga. That apparently wasn’t as offensive to their Mennonite faith as the idea that their female employees would no longer have insurance co-pays for well-woman visits and birth control prescriptions. Way to take a principled stand for your beliefs there, folks!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/07/27/its-corporations-not-killer-robots/
...
We saw a bit of push-back this week from a majority of the humans serving on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. A for-profit corporation, Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., argued that because it is owned by Mennonites, it is also Mennonite, and that its corporate religious convictions must be granted the right to free exercise. (Presumably, based on Conestoga’s argument, the company will soon publicly affirm its religious faith in proper Mennonite fashion — with a full-immersion baptism.)
The Conestoga case includes the same bogus science embraced by Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College and many others who object to provide female employees with health care that covers the lower half of the strike zone: the false claim that contraception is “abortifacient.” That this is a false claim and an ignorant claim may confirm that these are ignorant people uninterested in reality, but fortunately for them, the legal matter of their claim only requires sincerity, not truth. And the sincerity of their ignorance has not been challenged.
Conestoga is a particularly weird case because of the Mennonite faith of the company’s owners. Mennonites are pacifists who have long lamented having to pay taxes that fund the world’s largest, deadliest and most-expensive military machine. But having to pay those taxes to fund military violence and military death didn’t prompt a lawsuit from the owners of Conestoga. That apparently wasn’t as offensive to their Mennonite faith as the idea that their female employees would no longer have insurance co-pays for well-woman visits and birth control prescriptions. Way to take a principled stand for your beliefs there, folks!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/07/27/its-corporations-not-killer-robots/
He goes on to quote an analysis of the court's decision:
Besides ruling that such a secular firm cannot exercise religious beliefs all on its own, the Circuit Court majority decided that it cannot do so by a “pass-through” to the corporation of its owners’ personal religious beliefs. The basic nature of a corporation, the majority said, is to have its own independent identity, rights, powers and obligations. Pennsylvania law on the organization of corporations reinforces that separate identity, the opinion said.
The birth control mandate, according to the court, does not require the Hahn family to do anything; the obligations of the mandate fall only on the corporation.
The birth control mandate, according to the court, does not require the Hahn family to do anything; the obligations of the mandate fall only on the corporation.
And points out that the opinion says that the Hahn family's argument seems to open them up to unlimited liability for anything their corporation does:
It is a fundamental principle that incorporation‘s basic purpose is to create a distinct legal entity, with legal rights, obligations, powers, and privileges different from those of the natural individuals who created the corporation. The
'passed through' doctrine fails to acknowledge that, by incorporating their business, the Hahns themselves created a distinct legal entity that has legally distinct rights and responsibilities from the Hahns, as the owners of the corporation. (It is well established (under Pennsylvania law) that a corporation is a distinct and separate entity, irrespective of the persons who own all its stock.). The corporate form offers several advantages ―not the least of which was limitation of liability, but in return, the shareholder must give up some prerogatives, including that of direct legal action to redress an injury to him as primary stockholder in the business. Thus, under Pennsylvania law — where Conestoga is incorporated — even when a corporation is owned by one person or family, the corporate form shields the individual members of the corporation from personal liability.
http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131144p.pdf
'passed through' doctrine fails to acknowledge that, by incorporating their business, the Hahns themselves created a distinct legal entity that has legally distinct rights and responsibilities from the Hahns, as the owners of the corporation. (It is well established (under Pennsylvania law) that a corporation is a distinct and separate entity, irrespective of the persons who own all its stock.). The corporate form offers several advantages ―not the least of which was limitation of liability, but in return, the shareholder must give up some prerogatives, including that of direct legal action to redress an injury to him as primary stockholder in the business. Thus, under Pennsylvania law — where Conestoga is incorporated — even when a corporation is owned by one person or family, the corporate form shields the individual members of the corporation from personal liability.
http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131144p.pdf
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