Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for August 19, 2011

Written on (either the top margin, or bottom, of) a dollar bill: “This is $1 more than GE, Exxon, or BofA paid in taxes in 2010. Pass it on!”I will!

Excellent!! The ’toon, and your comment.

And just like you can’t jail a pancreatic cell of a person, you can’t jail the executives of a corporate “person” no matter how much they may deserve it.

I’ve filed for adoption by Exxon and GE … I think they’d make WONDERFUL (= rich) parents for me … no word back from them, tho…

Homo corporatus makes good sense. Satan is just a fallen angel, you know.

In your sanctimonious self-righteousness, you missed the point. Whether Mr. Bolling is a member of a corporation or works with a corporation, has no bearing on the legal fiction of corporate personhood, which was the subject of this toon.

Dear jimjammer:You’ll note that you’re posting to “GoComics” — a site that attracts people with wit and a sense of humor. Since you seem to lack both of these essentials, perhaps you would be better served by taking your spare time elsewhere.Thank you.

__Hope you find some way to have a good day.

Craig Linder said“Homo corporatus makes good sense. Satan is just a fallen angel, you know.”

__

Yes, and unfortunately there’s evidence that “Homo Corporatus” has been cross breeding with another sub-species: “Homo Corruptus”, in fairly large numbers.

If corporations are people, they ought to be subject to arrest, trial and imprisonment for their crimes. There is, however, a simple way to keep corporate money out of politics – just require that any and all contrubutions to political campaigns must come only from registered voters.

If corporations are going to be ‘people’ then when they are guilty of a crime, they should face a corporate ‘death penalty.’ Board and top tier management fired and banned from holding same level positions for life, sell the corporation to highest bidder with all proceeds to victims and community chest, shareholders loose all. I’ll bet we’d see a big shift in corporate oversight and accountability.

Is it a result of my dementia, or do I recall one of our esteemed presidential hopefuls saying last week that “corporations are people”..? Which wascawwy wabbit was that?

Since our culture in general no longer properly understands the concept of individual rights, naturally hardly anyone understands how the rights of a group come about from the rights of the members. That is why I was amazed that the Supreme Court got this right: that there was no way to limit certain rights of a corporation without violating the underlying rights of its members.

Note that the same principle also establishes rights for unions and political parties, among other groups. But underneath it’s always about individual rights.

Until now, I was a leftist liberal lunar loony, but with this week’s strip I can see where extremely awesome corporations could do a great deal of good! Maybe we could give them ‘super’ voting rights- perhaps weighted in their favor based on their balance sheets- and see what happens! I’m not sure there’s a down side!

as long as we have a corrupt supreme court, we will get rulings of this kind

@pschearerIf the point of this comic and resulting conversation were simply about rights without consideration for responsibilities and obligations then your response would be a shining beacon of rational thinking rather than something of a non sequitur.

Corporations are made up of people and so should have the same rights as citizens but fewer responsibilities and more tax breaks and greater access to the halls of power. What’s so hard to understand about unfettered entitlement? Sheesh…

To be “human” is to have (biological or anatomy at least) a heart. Corporations, and modern corporate law, don’t. As to “reproduction”- I think what corporations have done to the American public is called “sodomy”.