Academic

A friend of mine sent me this cartoon on Citizens United. (I?ll leave you to decide if my friend is more real than the Canadian girlfriend I had in high school; she had trouble getting a visa, so didn?t make it down to New Jersey all that much).

This got us thinking ? what should we call corporations now that the Supreme Court has recognized their First Amendment rights to participate in the democratic process?  ?Non-natural person Americans? sounds divisive.

At first, I liked ?Corporate Americans? or ?Incorporated Americans.? But this excludes all those LLCs, LPs, LLPs, LLLPs who also have free speech rights. I tried out ?Incorporated and Unincorporated Americans.? Too cumbersome. Forget about "Corporate and Uncorporate...": Larry Ribstein might insist on royalties

?Business Association Americans? frankly sounds ridiculous. So does ?Business Entity Americans.? Plus an entity doesn?t need to be a private sector business to have First Amendment rights. Otherwise, that would silence all our major banks and investment banks.

Here is the genius idea my friend came up with: ?Americans who experience limited liability.? What about general partnerships you ask? Or entities who have their veil pierced? My response: don?t you have something better to do?