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Will You Help Take Washington Back?
www.amandakathrynroman.com ^ | 6-24-11 | Amanda Kathryn Roman

Posted on 06/24/2011 2:35:43 PM PDT by mrsroman

In doing further research on my constitutional inquiry into whether or not unions & corporations should have the same inalienable rights that I do as an individual, I have found a resolution introduced by a state senator in Washington that calls for a constitutional amendment clarifying that corporations – and in turn unions – are not persons according to U.S. law. A statewide grassroots group in Washington wants to know what you think.

I think that a constitutional amendment of any kind should be considered carefully. I hold the U.S. Constitution in a place of great esteem… and in my pocketbook for quick reference. But, I think this is a situation that calls for a discussion on a constitutional amendment about the rights of human beings as individuals & corporations and unions as artificial entities. I can’t help but wonder, did our courts go too far?

With the Citizens United decision that came down from the Supreme Court last year, corporations and unions have essentially been granted some of the same constitutional rights that we have as individuals when it comes to free speech and elections. I think that there should be a clear difference between us as individuals and entities that are created and authorized by the state. I feel that my concerns are in line with the founders’ when it comes to the potential for the economic sphere to wield significant influence in the political sphere with no effective system of checks and balances.

What do you think? Take Back Washington is a grassroots organization standing for limited government, fiscal responsibility and the constitutional values on which our country was founded. They are based in the state where this resolution was introduced. Would you take a moment to participate in their 1 question poll?

As you know, corporations and unions as entities are not able to cast a vote in our election system but, they are entitled to making donations to those running for public office wielding significant influence over the whole process. Over the years, we have watched unions donate significant sums of money to the candidates they chose – what about the individuals who provided some of that money through dues and other fees? Those people don’t get a say in where that money goes and what candidate is supported and they should! The conservative movement has seen a flurry of activity in recent years in an effort to give union workers more rights in this regard by working to overturn the Employee Free Choice Act, aka card check. While this battle is far from over, I am glad to see groups like Alliance for Worker Freedom standing up for union workers’ rights.

Corporations also donate significant sums of money to candidates during the election season. Well what about the shareholders of those corporations? They are certainly not casting a vote or engaged in a process to determine which candidates receive political donations from their corporation but, they should be! I support an effort – similar to the fight to overturn card check legislation – to call on corporations to have a more transparent process involving their shareholders when it comes to making decisions on political donations. I think that individual shareholders should certainly have a say in how their corporation is spending money when it comes to the political sphere.

Let Take Back Washington know what you think about the rights of unions and corporations through their 60 second poll.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Society
KEYWORDS: constitution; corporations; freespeech; unions
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To: humblegunner; callisto
Fair enough... my goal is to help.

People who own something — whether it's a website or a newspaper or any other business — get to set the rules and I have never disputed that Free Republic has every right to mandate full-text rather than excerpts of articles.

There was a day that pretty much nobody needed to know about the details of copyright law except book, magazine and newspaper publishers. Anyone with enough money to own a printing press also had enough money to pay a lawyer, and because of that, the problems pretty much took care of themselves. Our key cases in litigation of copyright law came about because major publishers with names like Hearst sued each other in the 1800s and early 1900s over loopholes or perceived ambiguities in the law, and well-paid lawyers did a good job of arguing the merits of each side. Sometimes the Congress amended the copyright law; more often, the issues were left to the courts which in those days were more interested in interpreting the law than making new laws.

Today, however, we now run a very serious risk of horrible legal precedents being set because large but dying newspapers have a strong economic incentive to sue website owners who don't have enough money to mount as effective of a legal defense. There's a big drive being mounted by Rupert Murdoch of FOX News to push for paid content rather than advertiser-supported websites, and a bad precedent with a lawsuit won against a website whose owner doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars for lawyer bills could result in really, really bad precedents which would not have happened if the two parties were more equally matched and able to afford good legal defenses.

Sometimes the guy who wins in court is the one who can pay the best lawyer, not the one with the best case.

21 posted on 06/25/2011 7:11:47 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
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To: darrellmaurina; humblegunner

Thank you very much for the informative reply. I do freelance my work and thus receive payment for my articles and, to date, still suffer under the clause “excerpt only” for crossposts to my blog, but in this situation cannot crosspost due to the nature of my existing contract, thus my question.

As a strong conservative and monthly donor I am committed to seeing the information posted to this site reach as many conservatives as possible and honestly meant it as a serious question when posed to humblegunner. I wrote for Horowitz’s NewsReal until the site closed and copied some of my articles in entirety to my blog thereafter not knowing how long the articles will remain available, but my current position doesn’t offer that luxury. I will take your points into consideration the next time I become contractually obligated to an online source. Thank you, again!


22 posted on 06/26/2011 6:58:30 PM PDT by callisto (Who is John Galt?)
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To: humblegunner

And, for the record, I’ve never posted any article I’ve written “in full” anywhere except the website that paid me for said article and the two vanities I wrote over a 10-year timeframe on Free Republic. Articles for which I did not receive payment that were posted to my personal blog HAVE been posted to FR in their entirety. Perhaps one day you’ll realize we’re not all out to get FR and some of us do care to share what information we have, allbeit limited due to contractural obligations. Hopefully, we can start off on new footing?


23 posted on 06/26/2011 7:09:16 PM PDT by callisto (Who is John Galt?)
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To: callisto; humblegunner
Thanks for your notes, Callisto and Humblegunner.

Just to be clear for Callisto's benefit (Humblegunner knows this), I speak only for myself. I have no official or even unofficial role on Free Republic — in fact, although I've been reading for years, I haven't posted much until 2009 and rarely commented until the last couple of months.

My sole goal in commenting is to explain the law on the ownership of copyrighted “works done for hire” since not following that law could result in Free Republic getting sued. It probably wouldn't happen, but nobody could have expected the “out of the blue” Righthaven lawsuit, either, especially coming from a fairly conservative newspaper.

One of the biggest problems with the rise of the internet is that lots of people who never had a reason to know the details of copyright and libel law are now at risk of learning those details the hard way.

24 posted on 06/27/2011 12:29:39 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
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To: callisto; darrellmaurina; shibumi; 50mm; Eaker
I wrote for Horowitz’s NewsReal until the site closed

Well that explains why their operatives aren't spamming us any more.
No offense, but those mooks (the two or three operatives that posted here)
were the very worst sort of pimps. Post and run types with profiles
written in the third person, as if to imply elitism. Pimp trash really.

Toward the end, the desperation for hits became obvious.

Apparent every blogger they had was given a formula: Lists.

"The top ten reasons that _____________________________"

Each individual point was made on a separate page, resulting
in a ten fold increase in hits.. if readers could be enticed
to muddle through the whole mess. Obvious and desperate.

Those operatives did not wish to be a part of the Free Republic
community, nor to interact. They were here to peddle excerpted
writing for hits and for no other reason. I'm glad they are gone.

While I agree that I and others might have a bit of a hair trigger
on the issue and that I may at times be mistaken in my assignment of motivation,
those Horopimps were using Free Republic as a hit farm. No doubt.

25 posted on 06/27/2011 5:03:56 AM PDT by humblegunner
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To: humblegunner; callisto; darrellmaurina; 50mm; Eaker

Golly Gee!

You mean that everybody wasn’t enthralled and entranced by the attractively packaged, thoughtful, well-reasoned presentations on NewsReal!?!

I visited the site ~ONCE~. The flash, pop-ups and screen crawly things, combined with the sophomoric articles made me ashamed that these guys were on “our” side.

As a consequence, I gave their people crap whenever I could. Not ashamed to admit it. I thought of them as giving Pimps a bad name.

Callisto - You may very well be conducting yourself in an honorable fashion, but you also have to understand that the sensibilities here have been abused by the crassest of the crass.

One very well known blogger (Since thankfully Zotted) used to post his articles in full not only on his own blog, but on anywhere from four to six other, non-related blogs and sites, including Brietbart’s “Big” sites and then purposely excerpt here on FR just for hits. If you clicked on his site without wearing and electronic condom, your computer was sure to get a social-cyber-disease. The guy used to claim he made pennies a day off his site, but after having it analyzed by a friend of mine who is a website design pro, he estimated that it was actually worth $4 - 7 per hit, depending on length of stay and subsequent hits.

You may well be engaged in a labor of love and even if you’re not, I begrudge no one a profit from their work. Just remember that a most of the readers here on FR, like yourself, have paid in donations to keep this site free of ads and a safe environment in which to get (and comment on) the news and matters of interest.

(Like Third World Kickball, Psychic Octopuses and the size of the First Wookie’s butt.)


26 posted on 06/27/2011 9:06:28 AM PDT by shibumi (The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind - Blake)
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