Don’t ask me

I’m so sad. I am depressed. I’m frustrated, angry and confused.

But most of all, I am sad.

As a lawyer, the people in your life expect you to explain certain things about the law. They have somehow come to expect that someone who is a lawyer knows why the law is the law.

Yet I cannot in any way understand today’s Supreme Court ruling about the supposed religious rights of a corporation.

Don’t ask me to explain it. It makes no sense.

Previously, the Court ruled that corporations have first amendment rights to free speech, which includes the right to spend unlimited money on political causes/candidates. Now, it seems that the Court is extending the legal personhood of corporations to include the right to freedom of religion.

It makes no sense that a legal entity which is not a natural person would have any constitutional rights at all, and certainly not the right to practice a religion. I don’t think corporations were mentioned in the Constitution, and the statutes which created corporations did not extend those rights to the corporations.

“We hereby declare that all legally defined corporations are created equally, and have been endowed with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-and all of the rights heretofore established by the Constitution of the United States and the subsequent Bill of Rights”

But it didn’t. And they don’t.

The right of a religious organization like a church, to follow the tenets of the religion it is affiliated with-that makes sense. But a corporation, whether it is closely-held or public, creates a separate legal entity. Legal entities are not, no matter what this Court may say, people.

There may be an upside to this. Now that there is precedent for the “corporations are people too” position, there are other areas where we should determine that their personhood should result in a corporation being treated just like any other person.

If a corporation breaks the law…..put the “closely held” owners in jail. No special treatment or argument that the corporation is owned by “shareholders” who cannot be held criminally liable. Being required to prove a specific individual acted outside the scope of their responsibilities should be rescinded.

Corporations should not receive favorable corporate tax rates or breaks. Let’s tax them just like a person, under the individual tax laws. And no lower tax rates for the dividends, either. An owner of a corporation should not get special treatment. If a natural-born person can’t get the tax rate, neither should a corporation.

(Just out of curiosity, how does it work that natural-born people are able own all or part of this corporate person? Isn’t a person owning a person considered slavery? It could be an interesting argument.)

Apparently in her dissent, Justice Ginsburg has warned about the dire possibilities that can result from this decision. That’s an understatement. There may be some unintended consequences that could be positive….a slight chance, but possible.

Maybe this decision will be the catalyst to get our health insurance system out of the employer-paid model and into a single-payer system. It’d be the only good thing that I can imagine coming from this…..similar to the push for constitutional bans on gay marriage that pushed us into the nearly universal acceptance of marriage equality.

That would be a possibility in the far future.

In the meantime, I am very tired of the conservative agenda of this country. I am nearing retirement. I’ve considered living overseas at least part-time when I retire. Now I am seriously thinking that I can’t stay here after retirement It’s more likely that we will look into permanent residency out of the country, and just visit the kids and grandkids or have them visit us.

I don’t think my blood pressure can take much more of the politicalization of every aspect of our lives here. And now that the one bastion of neutrality and reasonableness seems to have become a shill for the conservative mindset, I will have to pack it in to protect my mental and physical health.

Of course, I will make certain that I will have full access to health care wherever I live.

And I’m sorry for those of you who will be left behind with this sorry state of affairs.

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