C'mon, you didn't buy that did you? They ain't got no body.
Oh, wait! They've got everybody. On the hook that is. And when I say "everybody" I mean all those Persons you could actually detect if they were sitting next to you.
Now, a Corporate Person can sit on you, but it can never sit next to you. And sit on us they do. (Is that the right word? something that rhymes with "sit" maybe? Anyway...) Hey! And try to get them to accuse you to your face in court.
Here's the deal as I see it:
Our lawmakers and politicians positively do buy that Corporations are the same thing as Perceivable Persons. Partially, because that's the least they could do to return all the favors and money they've gotten from actual persons. Partially, you've got to have some way to mask an Aristocracy if you want people to think they've got Democracy. Also, hell, the people pay for all of it in the end anyway so where's the problem?
Tricky word, "aristocracy." I'm sure there's a hundred scholars picking a thousand nits over the precise meaning, but here's my working definition: people who routinely get rewards, and suffer no risks or consequences. Even in exceptional circumstances, they tend to lose status in their social set for awhile, if that. The more expendable among them might do a little jail time in a Country Club jail. Some fines (Quick! Raise Our Prices!)
Elephant in the Room Alert Follows!
Corporate Personhood is no other thing than a device to entrench an Aristocracy.
Common sense, there is an aristocracy which naturally arises in human affairs. You get greater and lesser athletes, artists, dancers, mathematicians, gardeners, any thing people do. And the very best do get admired, and they do get the connections and the perks in life, and that's fine. What are you going to do, that's life.
But that kind of aristocrat works hard to get good at doing something that not only satisfies themselves, but adds to the human community, the store of human knowledge, the refinement of human spirit.
The Corporate Person is not that kind of person. Just as the Invisible Hand is said to move the Market, there's an Invisible Person attached to that Hand. And that Person moves our Governance. And their only end, their only passion, is for more wealth, more power, and ever-more of the same.
The Problem: Our Aristocrats, who pull the strings on their Invisible Persons-cum-Puppets, have degenerated to the point where they have no care who or what they obliterate in pursuit of their passion.
So that's where we are with that. We've got this Invisible Person who is, by normal standards, a sociopath. Good thing they can't sit next to us, now that I think about it.
Corporations, whatever their benefits to doing business and all, are basically about giving an extra level of rights, and freedom from ordinary responsibilities, to a set of people. Whatever the theory, that's the practice. This ain't the USA as much as it is Animal Farm now: "all are equal but some are more equal than others."
And this wealth and power they accumulate? Well, they leverage it to get more wealth and power. You can see why politicians would be their natural ally. (Ha! Practically siblings.) And where can you get more wealth and more power? From cash cows, soldiers, collateral damage, incidental costs — aka "the other people" — and from nature. Whatever the costs. To them, not to the Aristocrats. People of their quality don't have to pay for much at all.
Finishing off with a little example:
Fast food gets mass-marketed to kids by a Corporate Media. (Yo! Wiseasses: If you've raised kids, see what your life becomes after telling your kid "no Burger Goop" when every single kid in his world gets it.)
So the kids get obese from the Burger Goop. Itself a mass-food Corporation. Which requires medical attention. For which you pay, Insurance and Big Med benefit. Plus the children get self-esteem and physical development issues. Which costs the kids, and us possibly, incalculable lost time and potential. If not more.
Everybody along the line makes some money for the fast food, but everybody else pays the tab. And that's all along the line too. All initiated under a Person's Right of "Free Speech" so you can't stop the bombardment of fast food culture.
Ending Corporate Personhood is definitely one of the big three things we have to do. (Money out of elections, break Corporate monopoly on media content.)
Because in the long run, it's either the Imaginary People, or the Real People who are going to make it through these times, or in any decent fashion.