Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

[xiphias]

28. Inasmuch as we hold it self-evident that all people are granted certain inalienable rights by their Creator, and that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are examples of such rights, it is recognized that none but people have such rights, and, further, that all people have such rights simply by their nature as people, regardless of nationality.

Anyone want to nitpick or bug-check this phrasing?

If this is workable, though, let's start writing our congresscritters and state legislatures to start the process to get this thing ratified.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

This is less a nitpick than a concern: "all people" is a phrase that invites the right-to-life folks to turn something like this to their own ends. (While I recognize that there are legitimate and debatable differences over when personhood begins, that's a debate I can easily imagine overwhelming any other discussion of such an amendment.)

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, trying to get rid of "corporate personhood?"

[redbird]

We have managed 220 years without mentioning gods in the Constitution; let's not mess that up now. That's not just for us unbelievers: I don't like the idea of an amendment that someone could use to argue that the freedom of religion protections apply only to religions that believe in one god.

Also, if your goal is to distinguish humans (and potential future sapient individuals such as aliens and AIs from corporations), you need to define "people." Nothing in what you're proposing says in so many words that corporations are not people. Or is this an attempt at forestalling animal rights activists?

If I'm right about what you're trying to do, how about: "Rights, including the rights protected or enumerated by this Constitution, belong only to individual human beings. Corporations and other organizations or groups are not people and do not have human rights. All humans, regardless of nationality, have these rights."

I'd suggest careful phrasing, possibly an additional sentence, to avoid extending the vote in U.S. elections to all non-citizens over the age of 18. Because an amendment amends the entire constitution. And that in turn is something anyone who opposes this amendment could use against it--rather more plausibly than the successful anti-E.R.A. stuff about coed bathrooms.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that last paragraph is what I thought, too. Most of the constitution proper is about government bodies and elections, and this amendment sounds like non-citizens could vote.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'd be wary of the "none but people," since there can be sentient nonhumans and we may find out they exist someday. (Either by meeting new ones or by finding out more about some of the critters on our own planet.) Possibly "none but sentient individuals?"

[navrins]

It seems to me - in a vague and sleepy sort of way - that it is a reasonable progression from "each person has rights" to "people have rights" to "groups of people have rights" to "organized groups have rights" to "corporations have rights."

I'm not sure where I want to draw the line, or how to draw it there. It's not clear to me that your proposal draws it, although I think it is what you are trying to do.

Actually I'm not sure I want to draw that line at all, but I recognize there are problems with considering corporations to be persons and am open to good solutions to them.

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

all people are granted certain inalienable rights by their Creator

Um, no. You keep YOUR creator out of MY Constitution. Also, the word "people" is really fraught, for reason mentined by others above.

You're usually a terrific writer, but this is *terrible*.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

What others have pointed out. I think the thing to do would be to find the bit in the law where corporations were made "persons" originally, look at that language, and specifically undo it.

I'm sure it contains tons of legalese. In any case, I think the substance of your item should be "We propose to undo law(s) X", however that's best said in legalese.

[cellio]

I don't think it'll work without a definition of "person", and any definition of "person" you'll find suitable won't pass muster with the anti-choicers, who will politic this to death.

It might be better to only try to do one side of this -- associations of people (including corporations) are not people and don't have the rights that people do.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

none but people have such rights

That kills it for me. Unless, of course, you somehow include something to indicate that "people" isn't necessarily limited to humans.

What inspired the effort in the first place? Have I missed a more egregious than usual corporate or governmental misbehavior?

[rosefox]

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/01/citizens-united-v-fec-in-plain-english/

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. I'd heard about that, but didn't make the connection.

[mangosteen]

I'd probably leave out "Creator", use "natural person" instead of "person", in order to use the term that specifically excludes corporate personhood.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'm really uncomfortable with this for a bunch of reasons. (Starting with the way you make the rights depend on G-d. It's not self-evident anymore, so shut up about it.) I wouldn't vote for it. If you meant something inoffensive enough that I might vote for it, the proposed text doesn't tell me what it might be. The problem is that some rights can properly be reserved to citizens--voting, freedom to enter and leave the country, access to government jobs--without unfair discrimination. Other rights --relating to self-determination, or to marriage--can fairly be reserved to adults. Your proposed amendment is equally about the right to vote, the right to nondiscriminatory hiring and education, and the right not to be tortured. They're different.

Animals should not be tortured EITHER. I don't think it's exactly a matter of them having a "right" not to be tortured. I think it's more a matter of humans having an responsibility to behave ethically. But I think it's excessively creepy to put it in the Constitution that animals have no right not to be tortured.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

I certainly deplore the whole idea of corporations having the rights of 'person's, but your wording raises a lot of new problems, as others have pointed out.

First, does it really need a Cons Amendment, or was the SCOTUS decision based on some law way back which Congress could amend? A Cons Amend may use a process which can be dangerous: a new Cons Convention (very dangerous, easy to take over by Tea Party people, and pass other amendments as well). Or it goes state by state and gets buried in committees.

Good luck with the basic idea, in any case.

valid limits on incorporation???

[daze39.livejournal.com]

What others said with respect to buggy language: if your intent is that certain rights be reserved only to individual "natural persons" and not available to corporations (which is indeed an interesting idea), this ought to be specifically delineated... for one thing, which rights ought to fall into that category? What should a corporation -not- be able to do "as if it were a person"? If we say that it should not be allowed to have its own assets, and transact business on its own behalf, independent of the assets of any of the supporters or participants in the collective activity that it performs, then don't we basically cancel the concept of a corporation as an entity with its own legally recognized existence?

Is that what we really want to do here? If we want to restrict activity "by" a corporation that would be legal for an individual (e.g., political speech), this could be counterproductive... if the corporation is not a "legal person", then it is merely a group of individual persons, and "its" acts are merely the acts of members of that group... including the act of making a political statement on behalf of the interests of that group.

The right to incorporation isn't explicitly guaranteed in so many terms, but it would be a difficult right to deny in the context to the general rights of assembly and autonomy in the use of one's properties - if some of us choose to pool our resources in order to pursue a commercial purpose in a collective manner (which is basically what constitutes a corporation, at root), is it not within our rights as individuals to do so?

[rosefox]

This may interest you:

http://www.movetoamend.org/take-action