Question for our lawyers on "Us is a corporation" myth

[LightinDarkness]

One of the very common sovereign citizen myths is that the US government is a corporation. Preaching to the choir here but we all know thats a myth and its created on the basis of populist suspicion of anything attached to the word "corporation" as being evil incarnate.

It is true that the US government has corporations that it operates, which is quite different from being a corporation. Its a distinction that sadly most sovereigns don't seem to get. I have a question for our resident lawyers on this second point of fact. My (non-lawyer) understanding of things has always been that the United States as the sovereign government cannot be sued unless it explicitly allows itself to be, which it generally will allow anyways. But if my specific law suit is targeted at something that is operated under a corporation the government has created, does that mean the government doesn't have the option to decline to be sued in its sovereign capacity because I'm not technically suing the government but a corporation under it?

If I have that right, its all rather amusing then because it would mean that the US governments creation of corporations that it uses for government functions is actually a very good thing for the average citizen, as it could never be declined to be sued if you were suing one of the corporations instead of the government itself. The reality would then be that "sovereign citizens" should be cheering the creation of corporations by the US government instead of acting like its a massive conspiracy.

[notorial dissent]

A good portion of the "corporation" nonsense comes from the fact that the Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided to change the governance of the City of Washington back in 1871, and decided to effectively re-establish it as what in most states is considered a charter or home rule city, to make it more self governing and so that the Congress didn't have to make every little piddling decision about what went on. From there it expands to the fact that most of the whackadoosters simply cannot read at all and/or comprehend what they are reading, that coupled with the belief that the sole jurisdiction of the Federal Gov't is the City of Washington, again poor reading and or willful reading miscomprehension. So you take two serious, and for the most part intentional, misconceptions, really twist them around until they make even less sense, and you have the govt is a corporation fantasy.

[LightinDarkness]

A good portion of the "corporation" nonsense comes from the fact that the Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided to change the governance of the City of Washington back in 1871, and decided to effectively re-establish it as what in most states is considered a charter or home rule city, to make it more self governing and so that the Congress didn't have to make every little piddling decision about what went on. From there it expands to the fact that most of the whackadoosters simply cannot read at all and/or comprehend what they are reading, that coupled with the belief that the sole jurisdiction of the Federal Gov't is the City of Washington, again poor reading and or willful reading miscomprehension. So you take two serious, and for the most part intentional, misconceptions, really twist them around until they make even less sense, and you have the govt is a corporation fantasy.

Right, and that is why (correct?) most city/county governments are established as municipal corporations, to give them a home rule authority separate from the state government? Although some states put their locals under Dillon's rule (I only know this because I got an masters degree in government management) where the state legislature must explicitly grant them authority to do anything at the local level...but still they needed some sort of legal structure to make lesser governments.

I am guessing....again correct me that I am wrong...that while the Congress or the state government COULD create a lower form of sovereign government that were not classified as corporations, but if they did that they would be preventing themselves from any future oversight problems (ie Congress couldn't ever perform oversight on DC as they do now in selected areas) as well as give those lower level governments a form of legal sovereign immunity (in which they do not have as a municipal corporation) which would be an issue since lower forms of government generally exert more control over peoples lives and you dont want to give them the option to declare themselves immune from legal action.

In other words...all of this in the end should be a GOOD THING for people who are supposedly concerned about corrupt governments and crazy conspiracies...which is completely opposite of how they act.

[notorial dissent]

In my experience, most states now have several different approaches to how a city is defined. Generally, unless they are fairly large, they will be statutory villages or cities which have defined powers and authorities as set out in legislation, and don't have much flexibility or wiggle room about what they can do or how they do it. Then they will have home rule cities which have more authority and flexibility and have to go through a process of writing up a charter which gives them the authority they possess as defined with the state statutes, which does take on the appearances of an incorporation, and lastly in some cases you have the case where a city in effect becomes a county in and of itself, and this usually is kind of a hybrid of actually being a county under the state, as well as being a charter city. The main differences being that the charter city and the city/county actually have to go through a chartering and approval process, where the statutory types have a much lower threshold and only have to meet the state guidelines and prove that the have. So the last two really do have more of the character of a corporation while the others, not so much.

They are all municipal or gov't corporations in the sense of that is how such a body is defined, the fact that the whackadoosters want to misconstrue it in to something else is just more of the nonsense they want to play with.

[fortinbras]

The federal govt is a corporation in the sense that it is a corporate body; that is, that it has, as a ongoing enterprise of a large collection of people, a persona separate from the individuals who hold jobs within it. But it is not incorporated as such; it is not registered as a corporation, alongside all those business and charitable corporations. The govt does not need the limited liability coverage of the corporation law -- it has the more complete protection of sovereign immunity.

There are some lesser govt-related operations that ARE incorporated in the usual way (or nearly usual), such as the TVA, the FDIC, etc.

[AndyK]

There are also those sovereignoramus researchers who have gone through state corporation registration files and hit the mother lode.

They have found one registered with the name of United States Corporation.

QED

[Paul]

They have found one registered with the name of United States Corporation.

QED

AND the sole shareholder is the Queen!

QEII

[notorial dissent]

They have found one registered with the name of United States Corporation.

And they found this where?

[fortinbras]

the "United States Corporation Company" is a relatively small business concern that is entirely non-govt. It does business by handling all the little errands of arranging the incorporation paperwork for new corporations and it publishes some books of the corporation (commercial and non-profit) of a number of states. Additionally, for a price, its offices around the country serve as mail drops and authorized agents to receive legal/official papers for its client corporations. I bought their NY Corporation Law volume some years ago, so I know they are definitely not the US govt.

[notorial dissent]

Yes, but is there one called the "United States Corporation :cussout: "?

[The Operative]

Some sovereign citizens and a few others get the belief that the U.S. is a corporation from misinterpreting a section of the U.S. Code. In 28 USC 3002, there is a definition for United States which reads...

(15) “United States” means—
(A) a Federal corporation;
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.

Rational thinking people and those without reading comprehension problems understand that definition refers to corporations created by the federal government. Of course, rational thought and reading comprehension are two skills that sovereign citizens and other whackadoosters lack.

[notorial dissent]

Not to mention that rational thinking people also understand that "includes" is expansive not restrictive, but then we are back to the reading comprehension problems of the whackadoosters.

[Prof]

SUMMARY (sort of): The concept is also used to say that the entity created by the Constitution has been replaced by a government created by/owned by or whatever the entity known as the "corporation." The analysis is usually rooted in the incorporation of the DC government. However, the various corporate entities in the country with names like "U.S. Corporation, Incorporated" (or, for that matter, "IRS, Inc.," is evidence of the dastardly plot to destroy the government created by "We the People."

[fortinbras]

Returning to the company called the United States Corporation: Sometime after the 1970s, when I dealt with it, this company changed its name slightly to "CSC - United States Corporation Company". (CSC = Corporation Service Company). As far as I know, it still publishes its books. It served as the business addresses for some companies (of different names) involved in various lawsuits, such as the enormous group lawsuit arising from the attack on the WTC. It was, itself, a party in a lawsuit: Baines v. CSC The United States Corporation Company (D.Mass 4/23/2001) 88 BNA Fair Empl. Prac. Cases 1277 (in which the court, after giving its full name once, thereafter referred to it as "CSC").

http://www.chinapdf.com/PDF/E-Pdf/CSC.pdf

I found a smattering of cases in which amateurs (esp. prison inmates) were suing "the United States Corporation" - their term for the federal govt. The courts translated it that way. But the federal govt is a sovereign not a limited liability company.

[grixit]

Heh. Sovereigns go by the procedure: check the dictionary. Find the meaning that helps your position the most. Assume that's the meaning always used. For instance, "corporation" can also mean a city council. From about 14 00 on the phrase "Mayor and Corporation" was used for the government of a chartered city. And btw, a chartered city originally meant one who answered to the national government directly, and was not subject to the local duke or baron. Hence having a corporation in your city was a positive step.

[notorial dissent]

I think you need to amend that to the definition furthest from the topic at hand and that suits their misconception of the moment.

[Chados]

There are a group of 19th Century cases that use language that indicates the U.S. government to be a corporation for the purposes of being able to access the civil courts and sue. I see them quoted by our local sovereigns often for the proposition that our state government is a corporation and they aren't subject to the commercial law that governs corporations, blah, blah, blah.

Sovereign immunity in general means you can't sue Uncle Sugar. Unless Uncle Sugar consents to being sued. Which he has done, in a whole bunch of statutes that in one way or another relax sovereign immunity in various ways for specific circumstances. Don't ask me to quote them-I'm no expert in this area of the law. I know the general principles, but that's it. In my state, the government's civil liability is limited by a specific statute to something like $250,000. People who get jury awards for more than that have to get a special claims bill through the state legislature. That's not an easy sell in these tough budget times.

Basically, the U.S. can't be sued unless there is some sort of tort claim act that relaxes sovereign immunity that's applicable to your situation.