Two days ago, at the New California State convention, I stood up in front of our lawyer/judge and asked the question that has been burning in my spirit: “If ‘People’ also means entity or institution, how are we going to deal them claiming the same rights?” His answer was honest but incomplete: “We can interpret that later.”
No. We cannot.
‘We the People’ is supposed to mean living, breathing human beings made in the image of God, why does our draft constitution leave the same open door that let corporations and institutions claim those exact same rights for 140 years?”
That is exactly how the giants we are trying to take down were born in the first place. This is not a small technicality. This is the single biggest structural flaw in the American constitutional experiment — and if NCS repeats it, we will simply build a new house on the same cracked foundation.
Iron must sharpen iron here, because the future of any free people depends on getting this right before the ink is dry.
The Loophole That Swallowed a Republic
The 1787 Constitution begins with three of the most powerful words in political history: “We the People.” The Framers and the Antifederalists who demanded the Bill of Rights understood “People” to mean natural human beings — citizens, families, communities of flesh and blood. They had just fought a revolution against a distant king and his chartered corporations (the East India Company being the most infamous). They never imagined that future courts would hand those same corporations the constitutional rights of living persons. Yet that is precisely what happened.
In 1886, the Supreme Court in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad used a headnote (not even the actual opinion) to declare that the 14th Amendment’s protection of “persons” applied to corporations. From that single procedural footnote, an entire doctrine of corporate personhood was born. By 2010 (Citizens United), corporations had First Amendment free-speech rights to spend unlimited money in elections. By 2014 (Hobby Lobby), they had religious liberty rights.
The entities now have more constitutional protection than many actual people.
“We the People” became “We the People… and the LLCs, the multinationals, the NGOs, the bureaucracies, and the special interests.” And once institutions became “persons,” the natural result followed: they began to rule over the actual people. Why Judges Cannot Be Trusted to “Interpret It Later”
Our lawyer/judge’s answer is the same one every generation of well-meaning reformers has heard.
“Trust the courts. They’ll sort it out.” History says otherwise. Every major expansion of institutional power over individuals in the last 140 years came through judicial interpretation, not through constitutional amendment or the will of the voters. The Commerce Clause, the Spending Clause, the 14th Amendment itself — all stretched far beyond their original meaning because judges were left to “interpret later.”
Leaving this question open in the NCS constitution is not humility. It is surrender. It is handing tomorrow’s giants the same legal crowbar the old giants used to pry open the republic.
The Fix Is Simple, Bold, and Permanent
We do not need to rewrite the entire document. We only need to close the loophole with crystal-clear language that no future court can wiggle around. Here is the exact wording I propose we add to the NCS Constitution — either in the Preamble, in a new Article I (Bill of Rights), or as a standalone definitional section:
Section X. Definition of “People,” “Person,” and “Citizen”
The terms “We the People,” “people,” “person,” “citizen,” and “individual,” as used throughout this Constitution, refer exclusively to natural human beings of flesh and blood, created in the image of God. These terms do not include, and shall not be construed to include, any corporation, limited-liability company, partnership, association, artificial entity, trust, or other legal fiction created by statute or common law. No such artificial entity shall possess or exercise any right, privilege, or immunity secured by this Constitution except those expressly granted by statute and fully subject to regulation, limitation, or revocation by the People through their elected representatives.
The terms “We the People,” “people,” “person,” “citizen,” and “individual,” as used throughout this Constitution, refer exclusively to natural human beings of flesh and blood, created in the image of God. These terms do not include, and shall not be construed to include, any corporation, limited-liability company, partnership, association, artificial entity, trust, or other legal fiction created by statute or common law. No such artificial entity shall possess or exercise any right, privilege, or immunity secured by this Constitution except those expressly granted by statute and fully subject to regulation, limitation, or revocation by the People through their elected representatives.
That is it. One paragraph. It does what the original Constitution failed to do: it defines the terms before the courts get to define them for us. We can also add a reinforcing clause in the Bill of Rights section:
“All rights and liberties recognized by this Constitution are reserved exclusively to natural persons. Artificial entities possess only such rights as the People, through their Legislature, may expressly confer — and those rights may be limited, regulated, or revoked at any time.”
Why This Matters for the Kingdom on Earth
This is not just a legal technicality. This is a spiritual and civilizational issue. Scripture is clear:
- “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3).
- Institutions that claim the rights of persons become functional idols — powers and principalities that rule over human beings instead of serving them.
When corporations and bureaucracies have constitutional personhood, they become the new gods of the age:
too big to fail, too powerful to regulate, and legally shielded from accountability in ways that no individual citizen enjoys.
The Kingdom builders model we have been developing in these essays is about building systems on earth that reflect the justice, righteousness, and limited authority of God’s order. Leaving corporate personhood open in our founding document would be the opposite of that model. It would be building with the same cracked stones the old system used.
Iron Sharpens Iron Challenge to NCS
To the delegates, the lawyers, the judges, and every Kingdom-minded builder in New California State:
Do not punt this to future courts. Do not repeat the mistake of 1787 or 1868. Write the exclusion of artificial entities into the text itself, boldly and unmistakably, so that 200 years from now our descendants will not have to fight the same giants we are fighting today.
This is not “anti-business.” It is pro-human. It is pro-liberty. It is pro-righteousness. We the (natural, living, image-bearing) People have the chance to get this right at the very beginning. Let us not waste it.
Iron sharpens iron. Let the discussion begin.— Essay #15 in the Iron Sharpens Iron series
For the builders. For the Kingdom. For the record.
For the builders. For the Kingdom. For the record.