Corporations declared to be people? Huh?

[lance strongarm]

Dear Cecil:

I’ve heard you can avoid all kinds of laws by creating a corporation. I understand that’s nonsense, of course. But I’m curious: how is this supposed to work? I’ve always found the theories of corporate conspiracy theorists entertaining — for example, the idea that U.S. courts have declared that “corporations are people” and can do anything a real person can. “Corporations are people” seems to be propelled by some similar notion as, say, whacky tax protestor logic, but I’m damned if I can figure out what it is. The websites I’ve consulted offer a convoluted explanation involving the 14th Amendment and the Citizen’s United decision, where nothing is what it seems — it’s like reading Heidegger or Leo Strauss. I know it’s all jabberwocky at bottom, but surely there’s some superficially logical thread.

Lance Strongarm

[Keeve]

You've oversimplified it. A corporation is a person in the sense that it can own, buy, and sell things, incur debts, and have to pay taxes. It is also a person who isn't you. Therefore, if the corporation goes bankrupt, creditors can sure the corporations, but your money is safe.

This too is an oversimplification, but it is a good start to answering your question.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Keeve

You've oversimplified it. A corporation is a person in the sense that it can own, buy, and sell things, incur debts, and have to pay taxes. It is also a person who isn't you. Therefore, if the corporation goes bankrupt, creditors can sure the corporations, but your money is safe.

This too is an oversimplification, but it is a good start to answering your question.

Hi Keeve,

Don't worry, my question was satirical.

In his last article, Cecil took on a loony legal theory. In the process, he posited one of his own - that courts have declared that "corporations are people" and therefore are legally identical to people. That's almost as loony as the theory he exposed in his article!

[CC]

And recently, we've been informed that corporations have freedom of speech in the same way that individuals do.

[njtt]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

In his last article, Cecil took on a loony legal theory. In the process, he posited one of his own - that courts have declared that "corporations are people" and therefore are legally identical to people. That's almost as loony as the theory he exposed in his article!

Ar you saying that you do not believe this is true, that you do not believe that courts have ruled that corporations are (in certain senses) people?

It is certainly not just a "loony" fantasy of Cecil's. It is widely believed. If you have good reasons for thinking it is false (aside from the fact that it seems loony), I am sure we would all like to hear them.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by CC

And recently, we've been informed that corporations have freedom of speech in the same way that individuals do.

Yes, of course they do.

The government may not censor speech, regardless of the source.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by njtt

Ar you saying that you do not believe this is true, that you do not believe that courts have ruled that corporations are (in certain senses) people?

It is certainly not just a "loony" fantasy of Cecil's. It is widely believed. If you have good reasons for thinking it is false (aside from the fact that it seems loony), I am sure we would all like to hear them.

Corporations are, by definition, legal persons (NOT real, or "natural" persons). That means they are to be treated like persons in very limited legal situations.

The courts have ruled that, yes, under certain laws, corporations are to be treated the same way as people, in limited circumstances.

No court has ever ruled that corporations are the same thing as people in every way. That's obviously absurd - which is an indication that it didn't actually happen.

It is widely believed, but false.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Yes, of course they do.

The government may not censor speech, regardless of the source.

First of all there are many examples of censored speech, even under the broadest interpretations of the first amendment.

Secondly, as alluded to in this thread and others, corporations are not people, they are just treated as people in a small subset of laws. It is not at all entailed that they must have freedom of speech.

[md2000]

Of course, if the officer of a corporation causes the corporation to commit a crime, their actions may make them legally liable criminally and civilly. You can't deliberately buy things through you corporation, sell them to yourself personally, with the intent to declare bankruptcy, for example. That would be fraud by you and the corporation.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by md2000

Of course, if the officer of a corporation causes the corporation to commit a crime, their actions may make them legally liable criminally and civilly. You can't deliberately buy things through you corporation, sell them to yourself personally, with the intent to declare bankruptcy, for example. That would be fraud by you and the corporation.

Right - which is why I compared the corporations are people theory to the whacky tax protestor theory.

If you take the corporations are people theory to its logical conclusion - and some people are doing this now - you could form a corporation and avoid all criminal or civil liability for anything by doing it for the corporations. Buy pot through a corporation and the corporation will be criminally liable, but not you! You can't be sent to jail. The corporation-person did it, not you!

There are people out there who think this is the way things are - that corporations have been declared people in every sense, and will soon be allowed to vote and adopt children. It's strikingly similar to the loony tax protestor theory in the article. Cecil alludes to the similarity by bringing it up in the article, saying it's similar. The only problem is that it is not true, just like the tax protestor theory is not true.

So this qualifies as a whacky theory as much as the tax protestor thing does.

Come on, Cecil, do a column on whether corporations have been declared to be people, in every sense! Fight Ignorance!

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

First of all there are many examples of censored speech, even under the broadest interpretations of the first amendment.

Sure, but my point was that the SOURCE of the speech cannot be a reason for censorhip. The government may not declare that certain sources of speech are to be censored.

Secondly, as alluded to in this thread and others, corporations are not people, they are just treated as people in a small subset of laws. It is not at all entailed that they must have freedom of speech.

Corporate personhood is irrelevant to that question. Corporations have free speech whether they are persons or not.

[Keeve]

Is there a question here, or should I report this thread to be closed?

[Lumpy]

If I understand Cecil's column, Cecil is taking umbrage with the recent court ruling that corporate campaign donations cannot be limited because corporations are entitled to free speech like individuals are. He uses the rhetorical device of comparing what a majority of the SC considered sensible with a position that most people would consider unsensible- that "personhood" is a legal fiction, an artifact of our system of law and government. The sovereign citizen movement claims that people can opt out of the system by refusing to be identified with the legal "personhood" established for them by the government. I'm reminded of the Max Headroom TV show, where dropouts and fugitives existed outside society by becoming "blanks"- people who had erased all cybernetic documentation of themselves, in effect becoming nonpersons.

Cecil evidently thinks that it's hypocritical to hold that a "person" within the system doesn't have to be a human being, but all human beings are persons, whether they want to be or not. He also evidently thinks that the Fourteenth Amendment has been jury-rigged almost as badly as the Interstate Commerce Clause.

[Colibri]

Since this is apparently a comment on one of Cecil's columns, let's move this over to the Comments forum.

How can a corporation be legally considered a person?

[Crazyhorse]

Originally Posted by Colibri

Since this is apparently a comment on one of Cecil's columns, let's move this over to the Comments forum.

How can a corporation be legally considered a person?

Despite possibly being more applicable, I think the comment was about this column: Can I avoid paying a tax bill by writing "accepted for value" on it?

You’re right, there’s a logic at work here. Granted, it’s logic that only a psychotic can fully appreciate. However, we live in a country where the Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment, which was intended to protect the rights of former slaves, to mean that corporations are the legal equivalent of humans. Acceptance for value, A4V for short, involves reasoning only marginally more bizarre. So we ignore these people at our peril. They may someday rule.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Keeve

Is there a question here, or should I report this thread to be closed?

I'm serious - I'd like Cecil to research the question and maybe publish a column on it.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Lumpy

If I understand Cecil's column, Cecil is taking umbrage with the recent court ruling that corporate campaign donations cannot be limited because corporations are entitled to free speech like individuals are

.

The decision said nothing about donations to campaigns. It was about speech.

He uses the rhetorical device of comparing what a majority of the SC considered sensible with a position that most people would consider unsensible- that "personhood" is a legal fiction, an artifact of our system of law and government.

And he was wrong about both the facts and the law.

A corporation is indeed, in a very limited sense a legal person. However, no court has ever said corporations are people in every sense. That's obviously absurde - which is why no court has said it.

The sovereign citizen movement claims that people can opt out of the system by refusing to be identified with the legal "personhood" established for them by the government.

So both whacky theories involve the idea that people and legal entities are interchangeable.

Cecil evidently thinks that it's hypocritical to hold that a "person" within the system doesn't have to be a human being, but all human beings are persons, whether they want to be or not. He also evidently thinks that the Fourteenth Amendment has been jury-rigged almost as badly as the Interstate Commerce Clause.

And he's wrong, again, on both the facts and the law.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Colibri

Since this is apparently a comment on one of Cecil's columns, let's move this over to the Comments forum.

How can a corporation be legally considered a person?

It wasn't a comment, it was a question for Cecil. He brought it up, now I want him to go out and research it and get back to us.

Fight Ignorance, Cecil.

[Crazyhorse]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

It wasn't a comment, it was a question for Cecil. He brought it up, now I want him to go out and research it and get back to us.

Fight Ignorance, Cecil.

Didn't the column linked by Colibri in post #14 do exactly that almost 10 years before the current column that just mentioned the concept in passing?

[Lumpy]

If the OP's question is "can you bypass the law by creating a corporation which takes away legal responsibility for your personal actions?", then the answer is no. AFAIK, all the states have laws declaring the requirements for establishing a corporation, and they spell out criminal and civil legal liability quite clearly. Among these are that the officers and executives of a corporation are responsible for the corporation's actions, as said upthread by md2000. You can't just claim that a corporate policy somehow emerged from a non-local distributed process; sooner or later some human person or group of persons is held accountable.

That said, there are things which corporations are by law allowed to do that individuals can't. For example, in the thread about ask the guy with machine guns, it was pointed out that you can form a trust or corporation which is in theory a firearms dealership allowed to own post-1986 automatic weapons, considered "dealer samples". The trustees don't "own" the weapons, but practically speaking have custody of them. But this loophole is provided for by law, it's not illegal.

[levdrakon]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Corporations are, by definition, legal persons (NOT real, or "natural" persons). That means they are to be treated like persons in very limited legal situations.

The courts have ruled that, yes, under certain laws, corporations are to be treated the same way as people, in limited circumstances.

No court has ever ruled that corporations are the same thing as people in every way. That's obviously absurd - which is an indication that it didn't actually happen.

It is widely believed, but false.

What I hear isn't that corporations are exactly the same as people so much as corporations are continually testing the limits on their person-hood and supposedly conservative judges keep finding in favor of increased person-hood rights for corporations. So, the fear isn't that it's already happened, just that is seems to be happening.

[gamerunknown]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

You can't be sent to jail.

Possession of a controlled substance is an offence under the Controlled Substances Act 1970, unless one has dispensation from the Attorney General. Corporate personhood doesn't obviate individual liability in every instance.

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

The government may not censor speech, regardless of the source.

Which wasn't what BCRA §203 was doing. It was penalising disbursements for electioneering communications by labor and corporations.

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

However, no court has ever said corporations are people in every sense.

Neither did Cecil. Here's what he wrote:

Originally Posted by Cecil

However, we live in a country where the Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment, which was intended to protect the rights of former slaves, to mean that corporations are the legal equivalent of humans

Originally Posted by Cecil

It wasn’t sovereign citizens who dreamed up the idea that the 14th Amendment created fictional persons. It was that hotbed of extremism, the Supreme Court.

Wiki provides the basis for considering corporations individual persons rather than associations of people.

Relevant:

Originally Posted by USC

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise-- the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

Originally Posted by Chief Justice Morrison Waite

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 the opinion that it does.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Sure, but my point was that the SOURCE of the speech cannot be a reason for censorhip. The government may not declare that certain sources of speech are to be censored.

Your exact words were: "The government may not censor speech, regardless of the source". This implies that the government can never censor speech, which is incorrect.

And source is relevant. If we're going to say that freedom of speech automatically applies to everything, not just humans, then it would bring up absurd questions like whether I am allowed to turn off my radio when a political speech is coming out of it.

[Mijin]

...actually, that last example doesn't quite work does it?
Substitute for a computer generating random strings.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Crazyhorse

Didn't the column linked by Colibri in post #14 do exactly that almost 10 years before the current column that just mentioned the concept in passing?

Oops, I missed that. Thanks.

Wow.

Never mind, Cecil - please don't publish a column on this, because your last column was highly slanted toward the "omigod corporations have been declared people" nonsense. From the article:

"What most people don't know is that after the above-mentioned 1886 decision, artificial persons were held to have exactly the same legal rights as we natural folk."

Whoa. False - and impossible, of course!

"even now lawyers argue that an attempt to sue a corporation for lying is an unconstitutional infringement on its First Amendment right to free speech. (This year, for example, we saw Nike v. Kasky.) "

Arguing something is just arguing something. Only if the courts accept the argument does it become reality.

And, in this case, the court (in this case, the California Supreme court) REJECTED the argument. (The case was settled out of court before it could go to further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.) So there you go.

"fact is, the courts have been chipping away at corporate personhood for years"

Well, there you go. Clearly they don't have all the same rights as people.

"But it'd be nice to have a clear-cut ruling, say, that limiting campaign contributions by big businesses doesn't mean you're restricting their First Amendment rights."

That ruling was made long ago - and still stands! Citizens United didn't change any laws or rules related to donations to campaigns or candidates, which are still banned entirely from corporate treasuries.

(Nor did Citizens United apply only to corporations, since it had nothing whatsoever to do with corporate personhood, but whatever).

It's interesting that the question Cecil was responding to was also correcting him.

"Corporations have been declared people," on its face, is just as much a loony legal theory as the one he was bashing in his latest column. I remember some people tried to lampoon the CU decision by trying to get a corporation on a ballot to run for office. They were denied, of course. This simply proved the point - that they were wrong about the law. The joke was on them.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

And source is relevant. If we're going to say that freedom of speech automatically applies to everything, not just humans, then it would bring up absurd questions like whether I am allowed to turn off my radio when a political speech is coming out of it.

No, the question would be if the government could make a law forcing you to turn off your radio when political speech was coming out if it.

You bring up a great example.

Obviously the source of the speech is not the radio, it's the person speaking in the radio station - who is a person.

Also obvious is that for the government to claim that it had the power to force people to turn off their radios, or ban the sale or possession of radios, simply because it didn't like the speech coming from it would be blatantly unconstitutional. And courts have held that such ridiculous attempts to suppress speech are unconstitutional.

Thanks for proving my point beautifully.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by gamerunknown

Possession of a controlled substance is an offence under the Controlled Substances Act 1970, unless one has dispensation from the Attorney General. Corporate personhood doesn't obviate individual liability in every instance.

But it's the corporation that possesses it, and it's a person! Right?

See how loony this theory gets when tested against reality? That's the point.

Which wasn't what BCRA §203 was doing. It was penalising disbursements for electioneering communications by labor and corporations.

Which is unconstitutional. Spending money on speech is a right of speech. See Buckley v. Valeo.

Neither did Cecil. Here's what he wrote:

That's not all he wrote though.





Wiki provides the basis for considering corporations individual persons rather than associations of people.

Relevant:[/quote]

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Lumpy

If the OP's question is "can you bypass the law by creating a corporation which takes away legal responsibility for your personal actions?", then the answer is no. AFAIK, all the states have laws declaring the requirements for establishing a corporation, and they spell out criminal and civil legal liability quite clearly. Among these are that the officers and executives of a corporation are responsible for the corporation's actions, as said upthread by md2000. You can't just claim that a corporate policy somehow emerged from a non-local distributed process; sooner or later some human person or group of persons is held accountable.

Right...because corporations aren't people in every sense.

[Veneriable Slacks]

Lance Strongarm - Loony tax protester theories?

Learn about Tom Cryer, a lawyer who tried to prove wrong his loony tax protester friend. After two years of investigation, all he got from the IRS was threats and intimidation. He told the the IRS to either "show me the law" or he would stop overpaying his taxes (we sign our believed tax amount under penalty of perjury, remember?).

He was tried for willful failure to file. "Willful failure to file" is a thought crime, ie We, the IRS, and a jury will agree that you really think otherwise. With Tom Cryer, the jury believed him.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Obviously the source of the speech is not the radio, it's the person speaking in the radio station - who is a person.

Also obvious is that for the government to claim that it had the power to force people to turn off their radios, or ban the sale or possession of radios, simply because it didn't like the speech coming from it would be blatantly unconstitutional. And courts have held that such ridiculous attempts to suppress speech are unconstitutional.

Thanks for proving my point beautifully.

You might want to hold on the thanks for a minute.

Because of course I realized myself the radio example doesn't work which is why I said as much and changed it to be a computer generating text. The text that such a machine produces is not currently considered constitutionally protected speech.
This runs counter to your point.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

You might want to hold on the thanks for a minute.

Because of course I realized myself the radio example doesn't work

But it DOES! It works PERFECTLY!

which is why I said as much and changed it to be a computer generating text. The text that such a machine produces is not currently considered constitutionally protected speech.

Really? Got proof for that assertion?

I don't think it's been tested in court, but I say you'd be wrong about that too.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

I don't think it's been tested in court, but I say you'd be wrong about that too.

Well if it's not been tested in court then there is no precedence and at best we can say "I don't see why it wouldn't be protected".

But sure, I'll take the opposite side to you: I think a government employee can switch off their computer that is generating random strings without fear of being sued.

[Mijin]

Oops, precedent.

[TriPolar]

I think corporations are people. And they owe a lot of back taxes.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Well if it's not been tested in court then there is no precedence and at best we can say "I don't see why it wouldn't be protected".

But sure, I'll take the opposite side to you: I think a government employee can switch off their computer that is generating random strings without fear of being sued.

Uh, but that's not an example of what's at stake.

Can the government ban shut down YOUR computer that is generating something (and not just random strings, we're talking about speech here)?

Suppose you programmed a computer to generate speech about politics. Could the government ban it, based on nothing but its content (there are no viruses in it, etc) and say that it can do so because your computer isn't human?

And while we're at it, could the government ban the sale of all computers used for speech, like we're doing now, based on the theory that money isn't speech, or computers aren't speech, or computers don't have rights? Would any of those be acceptable to you?

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Uh, but that's not an example of what's at stake.

Yes it is. You have claimed that anything and everything is protected by the right to free speech, whether human or not.

This overly broad statement has all sorts of weird implications --- such as that the government itself should not be able to shut down their own computer if it was generating random text strings.

OTOH it's a straw man to talk about whether the government can shut down your computer because the government is not entitled to do anything with my possessions unless I'm suspected of committing some crime, or I need to pay taxes or whatever. That's whether it's generating speech or not.

[MikeBB]

I worked in this area of law for years. There's nothing unusual or remarkable about corporate personhood. It's simple and clear, once you understand the background concepts. And those background concepts have nothing to do with the 14th amendment.

To simplify a complex history: Corporations were invented as vehicles through which investors could pool their money. The invention of corporations was a kind of leap forward in legal technology. Before corporations were available, a business with multiple owners was a partnership in which all partners had management authority over the business, and all partners were personally liable for the debts of the business. The main point of corporation laws was to assure passive investors that they could never lose more than the amount of their investment.

A corporation is simply a way for a group of people to jointly own property and enter into contracts. Corporate personhood expresses the relationship between the owners, the managers, the corporate property, and the people who do business with the corporation.

Example: Suppose that Bob and Fred are plumbers. They decide to go into business together, so they form BF Plumbing, Inc. Bob and Fred combine their property to form the business. Bob contributes some tools and a truck, while Fred contributes some land. They borrow money from First National Bank with no personal guarantees.

Corporate personhood makes it clear that neither Bob nor Fred now own the tools, truck, or land. That property is now owned by a new person called BF Plumbing, Inc. And if BF Plumbing, Inc. doesn't pay back its loan, then the bank can't collect from Bob or Fred. The bank can only collect from this imaginary person called BF Plumbing, Inc., because that's who it signed the contract with.

Now suppose that Fred is driving the truck to a plumbing job, and he runs a stop sign and injures a little old lady. She can sue the corporation, because she was injured by corporate property operated by a corporate representative. She can also sue Fred, because he was the actual flesh-and-blood person driving the truck. But she can't sue Bob, because he didn't own the truck. He used to own the truck, but then he gave it to the corporation.

Those are the sorts of scenarios that corporate personhood is designed to address. The questions that arise from these scenarios aren't particularly interesting to non-lawyers, but they do require clear and reliable answers. That's why personhood is part of the bedrock of the very concept of a corporation. Without personhood, lots of basic business questions would not have clear answers.

Once you understand this background, the 14th amendment questions are easy. A corporation has free speech, equal protection, and so forth because it's simply a collection of people. If Bob can speak and Fred can speak, then the combination of Bob and Fred should also be able to speak. There's no reason to take away people's rights simply because they've decided to pool their money and appoint a spokesman.

[Mijin]

Exactly. All the laws and rights that apply to people carry over to corporations because they are simply collections of people.

So if Bob or Fred can get married, own a passport or run for president, so their corporation should be able to.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Exactly. All the laws and rights that apply to people carry over to corporations because they are simply collections of people.

So if Bob or Fred can get married, own a passport or run for president, so their corporation should be able to.

No -- only some rights that belong to real people also belong to corporations. So, corporations can own property, have employees, go bankrupt, and carry on political campaigns. However, they cannot "get married, own a passport or run for president" -- they are not treated the same as real people.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by Giles

No -- only some rights that belong to real people also belong to corporations. So, corporations can own property, have employees, go bankrupt, and carry on political campaigns. However, they cannot "get married, own a passport or run for president" -- they are not treated the same as real people.

Absolutely -- that's what I was actually illustrating. Some people upthread were implying that if a person is legally allowed to do something it is entailed that corporations must also be allowed. That's not the case.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Yes it is. You have claimed that anything and everything is protected by the right to free speech, whether human or not.

No, the idea that this is equivalent to someone suing a government worker for turning off his own computer is what I was talking about. Where'd you get that?

This is about the government trying to regulate the speech, or the computer output in this case, of private citizens. I hope we're clear on what we're discussing.

This overly broad statement has all sorts of weird implications --- such as that the government itself should not be able to shut down their own computer if it was generating random text strings.

See, you're confused. Where'd you get the idea that this is about the government not shutting down it's own computer? It's the government's computer, it can do what it wants with it. This is about whether the government can force your or me to shut down our computers.

OTOH it's a straw man to talk about whether the government can shut down your computer because the government is not entitled to do anything with my possessions unless I'm suspected of committing some crime, or I need to pay taxes or whatever. That's whether it's generating speech or not.

No, that's exactly what we're talking about - the idea that the government could make speech by a computer a crime! That's the point!

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Exactly. All the laws and rights that apply to people carry over to corporations because they are simply collections of people.

So if Bob or Fred can get married, own a passport or run for president, so their corporation should be able to.

So are you saying a corporation can get a passport? Because, gosh darn it, it can't. Check the State Dept. website if you don't believe me.

ALL the laws and rights that apply to people do NOT carry over to corporations. But A FEW do, for various reasons.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by MikeBB

A corporation has free speech, equal protection, and so forth because it's simply a collection of people. If Bob can speak and Fred can speak, then the combination of Bob and Fred should also be able to speak. There's no reason to take away people's rights simply because they've decided to pool their money and appoint a spokesman.

And this part has nothing to do with corporate personhood - because all groups of people, incorporated or not, have such rights!

Political parties, churches and other religious groups, non-profits like the ACLU or the NAACP or thousands of others, labor unions, the media - all have rights under the Bill of Rights and other places that can be expressed AS A GROUP. That's due mainly to the fact that the Bill of Rights simply forbids Congress from regulating certain things. In the case of speech, it can't regulate speech. The source doesn't matter. That was the logic of Citizens United, which never mentions corporate personhood.

If only people have rights, the government could shut down newspapers (not people) churches (not people) political parties (not people) labor unions, etc. That's obviously just as absurd as saying that it can ban the speech of a corporation.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Absolutely -- that's what I was actually illustrating. Some people upthread were implying that if a person is legally allowed to do something it is entailed that corporations must also be allowed. That's not the case.

I'm honestly confused about what you're saying and where you stand on this. Please excuse me if I respond in a way that misunderstands you in this thread. Hope we can clear it up.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

I'm honestly confused about what you're saying and where you stand on this. Please excuse me if I respond in a way that misunderstands you in this thread. Hope we can clear it up.

Possibly you've got confused because there are two threads of discussion going on right now.

Basically two sweeping statements have been made in this thread and in both cases I have shown why I think they lead to absurd implications.

1. You said that all speech is constitutionally protected, regardless of source (and this is in the context of me saying free speech only currently applies to humans).

When I gave the example of a computer generating random strings, you bit the bullet and claimed that that was constitutionally protected speech.
But this implies the government would not be able to turn off their own computers generating such speech.

2. The argument was made that a corporation should have freedom of speech because the people that make up the corporation have freedom of speech.

I illustrated why this argument doesn't work: there are lots of rights individuals have that cannot or should not be applied to corporations. I made this point sarcastically, but it was taken at face value and some people thought I believed corporations could marry, get passports or run for president. Or they've whooshed my whoosh.

Note that I'm not necessarily saying corporations shouldn't have free speech, I'm just pointing out why some of these arguments don't work.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Possibly you've got confused because there are two threads of discussion going on right now.

Basically two sweeping statements have been made in this thread and in both cases I have shown why I think they lead to absurd implications.

1. You said that all speech is constitutionally protected, regardless of source (and this is in the context of me saying free speech only currently applies to humans).

When I gave the example of a computer generating random strings, you bit the bullet and claimed that that was constitutionally protected speech.
But this implies the government would not be able to turn off their own computers generating such speech, or throw away the printouts, without possibility of being sued.

But no, it doesn't imply that at all. Freedom of speech means the government can't force private citizens to turn of their computers. The government can do whatever it wants with its own computers. Your implication is bizarre.

Tell me, do you think the government could make it illegal for you to program your computer to generate messages randomly? You make it pop up with "Romney for President" on a screen saver at random intervals, perhaps? Can the government censor that because your computer isn't a person?

2. The argument was made that a corporation should have freedom of speech because the people that make up the corporation have freedom of speech.

I illustrated why this argument doesn't work: there are lots of rights individuals have that cannot or should not be applied to corporations.

I made this point sarcastically, but it was taken at face value and some people thought I believed corporations could marry, get passports or run for president. Or they've whooshed my whoosh.[/quote]

No, you whooshed your own whoosh, because you don't believe corporations should marry, AND neither do I or anyone else. Nor do we believe that there's a logical connection between corporations having certain rights and having all the rights of a person.

When it comes to the right of speech, it is irrelevant though. Speech is protected. The source doesn't matter.

Corporations can be sued just like a person can. That's good, right? They are responsible for their actions. But that implies that they should have rights too, such as the right to an attorney. You do think a corporation should be able to defend itself from lawsuits in court, don't you?

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

But no, it doesn't imply that at all. Freedom of speech means the government can't force private citizens to turn of their computers. The government can do whatever it wants with its own computers. Your implication is bizarre.

No. You are conflating freedom of speech with property rights.

The government can't turn off my computer (unless I'm a suspect in a crime) whether it's generating a political speech or if I'm playing space invaders. That's because it is my property, not because of freedom of speech.

What would actually test whether a computer has freedom of speech is what the government could do with their own computers, or own printouts.

And it appears that you agree with me; that the government can do whatever it likes with their computers, even one generating political speeches. This does however refute the idea that computers can generate constitutionally-protected speech.

No, you whooshed your own whoosh, because you don't believe corporations should marry, AND neither do I or anyone else.

I specifically chose rights that everyone would agree corporations don't have because that would make my point clearest. But if you want to call that me whooshing myself, then fine.

Nor do we believe that there's a logical connection between corporations having certain rights and having all the rights of a person.

You must have missed MikeBB's post:

Originally Posted by MikeBB

A corporation has free speech, equal protection, and so forth because it's simply a collection of people. If Bob can speak and Fred can speak, then the combination of Bob and Fred should also be able to speak.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

No. You are conflating freedom of speech with property rights.

Well, no, you are.

The government can't turn off my computer (unless I'm a suspect in a crime) whether it's generating a political speech or if I'm playing space invaders. That's because it is my property, not because of freedom of speech.

Sigh.

Okay, let's start over.

Could the government declare that you can't generate random speech from your computer, and fine you or jail you for doing it? There, I hope that gets you back on track.

What would actually test whether a computer has freedom of speech is what the government could do with their own computers, or own printouts.

Ah, I see what you're doing now.

Nobody said a computer has freedom of speech. Of course it doesn't. It's a computer.

But if you program a computer to "speak" it's still YOUR speech. That's the point. Saying that corporations have no speech rights is like saying a billboard has no speech rights, and banning billboard messages. Corporations, like billbaords or computers, are tools used by humans.

Still, suppose you insist that it's the computer speaking - it's still protected, because the First Amendment simply says the government can't ban speech. Period.

People do what they want with their computers - including using them to help them speak. The government can decline to use its own computers for speech. It can't criminalize speech by others simply because they use a computer to help them. The computer is simply a medium. Even randomly-generated speech is speech.

You must have missed MikeBB's post:

I'm not MikeBB. I was contradicting him, in part. Hope that's clear.

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Nobody said a computer has freedom of speech. Of course it doesn't. It's a computer.

Good; so in this incredibly roundabout way you agree that freedom of speech currently applies only to humans, and that's all my original assertion was.
My computer does not have freedom of speech, though I am free to use it to publish my speech, and my speech is protected.

I'm not MikeBB. I was contradicting him, in part. Hope that's clear.

My point about individual rights mapping to corportate rights was aimed at MikeBB. You've then jumped in and said that no-one believes there's a logical connection between corporations having certain rights and having all the rights of a person.

But someone does believe that -- MikeBB -- the person I was directing my argument to.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Good; so in this incredibly roundabout way you agree that freedom of speech currently applies only to humans, and that's all my original assertion was.

No.

I am saying that being human is irrelevant to speech rights.

Subtle, but important, difference.

My computer does not have freedom of speech, though I am free to use it to publish my speech, and my speech is protected.

Right. Your computer, or your corporation.

My point about individual rights mapping to corportate rights was aimed at MikeBB. You've then jumped in and said that no-one believes there's a logical connection between corporations having certain rights and having all the rights of a person.

But someone does believe that -- MikeBB -- the person I was directing my argument to.

Then MikeBB needs to weigh in and tell you if he really believes that because corporations have the right to speech that it means he thinks they can get married.

The problem here is the use of the term "right." In general, the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, isn't written in terms of giving rights to people, it's written as limiting the powers of government. That's on purpose - it makes the right as broad as possible, and doesn't allow the government to monkey around with things like banning speech because the speech comes by way of a corporation.