How a limited liability corporation can be given the rights of an individual boggles my mind. Were the company wholly owned by a single person, the argument might work. But somehow, the LLCs of America have managed to gather all the “rights” that i have while evading any of the responsibilities.

Giving juristic persons the rights of real, live, flesh-and-blood human beings is rock stupid, especially when said juristic persons are corporations with more income than most nations and are multi-national or extra-national. This applies especially to the “political donations = free speech” nonsense.

The first, Walgreens, is suing because only stand-alone pharmacies are affected by the ban – grocery stories and big-box stores with pharmacies are not affected. Their legal logic is that the tobacco sales ban is discriminatory toward stand-alone pharmacies, and they have a point. Whether it’ll hold up in court is another question (the federal judge refused to delay the ban, due to start on October 1, while the lawsuit is being heard), and one I’ll not even attempt to address. (emphasis added)

So, obviously, I noticed the part about Walgreens, but chose to address Philip Morris’ claim to be a person instead. You’ve chosen to ignore it entirely.

I’ll ask again – do you think that a corporation like Philip Morris (or Nike, or IBM, or Microsoft, or…) should be granted the constitutional rights of a flesh and blood human being? And do you think that commerce (the sale of a product and the marketing of that product, in this case tobacco) is protected free speech?

Corrupted public officials created this nightmare by giving companies Constitutional protections instead of legal protections. It was done on purpose, and has been used at every turn to abuse living people.

Undo this folly, or suffer the consequences.

And MY free speech is abridged in various places for public good, so the same principle should hold for corporations.