One of the points made and discussed at length in the brief of counsel for defendants in error was that "corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." Before argument, MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE said:
"The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does. "
- Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394 (1886)
I think a clarifying post is due. Plus, as I’ve thought over the original three requirements for a Polis, I realized that one could be…. faked, for a short amount of time. Sort of an artificial Polis.
This does not make it not real in terms of Power or Influence, even on a geopolitical level, as this post will discuss. Simply that it’s days are numbered from it’s birth, that it is fragile, effervescent, and prone to collapse at rather odd times.
Much to owners, employees, and even entire nations and the world’s, chagrin.
So, in A People, A Polis I laid out that the three requirements were:
A nation built on blood ties that -
Knew that they were one people and -
were self governing.
And spoke about how these could apply not just to what we typically think of as nations, states, and cities as a Polis, but also organizations - The CIA, FBI, Hollywood, Blackrock, Tesla, The Federal Reserve, Cartels, mobs, etc.
As I’ve been pondering this more thoroughly though, even with there being a good amount of…. odd, sexual conduct, relations, and… in some, certain races being over represented, there’s not quite what I would call a quorum of one specific race when we’re discussing organizations qua Polis.
Yet, when we look at the world, we certainly see organizations that act as Polis.
They govern their own people.
They can flaunt the laws of the government up to a point.
They negotiate with governments foreign and domestic, playing crucial roles in powers at home and abroad. Even large oil and mineral companies can push around small countries and command our own military or hire mercenaries to attack, push around, and get the things we ‘need.’ And no, I’m not just talking oil. I’m talking minerals in Africa, the Pacific Islands, and chips.
They provide a weird, artificial family for their workers.
The high fliers in tech, became cultish and seemed to almost be offering holydays (aka holidays). They certainly demanded sacrifice to the progressive religion DIE by the end.
So, I’m going to amend the first one for these artificial Polis’s. They can have an Artificial People, not based on blood but based on mission of the Polis. For this to be effective, the mission has to be focused, otherwise it fades into the static, background noise of the surrounding population.
Furthermore, as stated above, an Artificial Polis may be strong in some ways, but is fundamentally brittle. It can rake in money for DC, enrich a bunch of grifters, push around weak states, call upon another allied Polis, etc…
But, if it crosses the wrong person, it can be smashed in a heartbeat. Weaponized law, taxes, the FBI, an assassination, etc.
The Devil takes his own.
So, in the end…
There are multiple ways of looking at how these structures work. The pride of someone like Elon, head of his Polis, who thinks he can go around pushing heads of State just baffles me. He lives on the DC teats, sucking the tax payer dollar, child slave labor of Africa enforce by the Military Industrial complex for parts of his batteries, with others coming from China which we just jacked up tariffs x4. Oh, and hundreds of chips made in Taiwan. Not to mention any of his other companies that do exactly the same, in different forms.
That the man has the gall to criticize anyone, in any government, shows you how powerful and Prideful a Polis can be.
Now, multiply that out by every large company, add in extra for usurious banks and weapons manufacturers, and you have the state of our USSA.
Polis’s United, against the People, the end state of this, Our Land, was 124 years in the making.
On the 1st of April, 1875, this company was indebted to divers persons in large sums of money advanced to construct and equip its road. To secure that indebtedness, it executed on that day a mortgage for $32,520,000 [926,961,905.45 inflation adjusted] on its road, franchises, rolling stock, and appurtenances and on a large number of tracts of land in different counties of California aggregating over 11,000,000 acres. These lands were granted to the company by Congress under the above-mentioned acts, and are used for agricultural, grazing, and other purposes not connected with the business of the railroad. Of those patented, 3,138 acres are in Santa Clara County and 18,789 acres in Fresno County. When these proceedings were instituted, no part of its above mortgage debt had been paid except the accruing interest and $1,632,000 of the principal, leaving outstanding against it $30,898,000 [1,019,790,116.21 inflation adjusted - yes, more, I checked. There was a crash between the time the loan was taken, and the court date].
- Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394 (1886)