Not to mention: corporations only exist to make money (if they “make the world better”, they’re charities), and therefore the only speech they’re capable of is commercial speech. And there’s plenty of history and precedent on government restriction and regulation of commercial speech. Even when they donate money to a political candidate, the “speech” is commercial, in that the only motivation for the corporation to make such a donation is to increase its income.
The Sierra Club and The NRA only exist “to make money”?
That’s some rather weird reasoning.
Would you mind explaining it to me.
Thanks
Ive been wondering for a while now: if corporations are people, shouldn’t the NYSE be considered a form of slave trading, which is unconstitutional under the 13th Amendment?
If only there were some way to combine your money and effort with those of like-minded people. Some legal vehicle for acting collectively…
I’m really tired of this canard.
If you have Internet access, you can start a blog.
No one has to watch ads. Nor do the ads bought by me somehow stop you from also buying ads.
In each of you examples, your attempts at speech stopped someone else from speaking. Here, ads don’t stop other people from speaking.
Try to focus on that distinction, please.
No.
If you have any other questions, let me know.
Why not?
It would not be beneficial to consider corporations as persons with regard to the stock market, so they don’t do it.
Thank you, I’m hoping for a snarky prize at year’s end.
I think the concern about allegedly inhuman corporations is a mistake for the Dems. Corporations are tools people use.
The real issue is disparity of opportunity (opportunity in this case being money) leading to unbalanced presentation of competing arguments. That can be a disparity between several individually acting natural persons, several corporations, several PAC’s, several political parties, whatever. Just because I pay the salaries of the people who work at the company with the trusted trademark name, or who own the presses, or who have the broadcast license, doesn’t make me right, or even more credible.
It doesn’t even mean I’m honest.
It’s a tool. Like a butcher knife, or a harpoon, or…uh, a…an alligator.
Actually, it’s justified irritation at Stratocaster’s nonsensical rant about justices who find rights in shadows of penubras, while he simultaneously defends a right that was made up out of thin air- or at best was itself found “in the shadow of a penumbra.”
I suppose the irony might have been intentional, in which case I salute him, but that stretches even my considerably powers of optimism.
Perhaps you agree with his reasoning. That is of course your right. However, if the First Amendment protects corporations’ right to free speech because it doesn’t explicitly exclude them, it presumably protects foreign governments’ free speech rights, too. After all, they’re not mentioned, either. How do you feel about a billion-dollar Chinese government donation to the campaign of Hippie Q. McFreakington, Social Muslim Party presidential candidate? It’s a trick question, because it doesn’t matter what you think: it’s constitutionally protected!
You can have a corporation that is not-for-profit but is not a charity. Citizens United was, in fact, a not-for-profit corporation.
Because corporations are not people; they are not natural persons. They are legal persons. A human being is a natural person; there’s a rather huge difference.
The courts did not, and have never, ever, in any civilized country, asserted that a corporation is equal to a human being. “Legal person” is a term of art that applies to corporations as well as almost any other typeof organiation that can be seen as a legal entity; school boards, departments of government, towns, charities, etc. are all legal persons.
Citizens United has no wording in it that has anything to do with “corporations are people” concept. I suggest you read the decision. It is decided on the basis that the first amendment protects speech with no regard to its source.
Because:
Here, I’ll help you out since you seem to have missed this (emphasis added):
No need to conjure something out of thin air. “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”
You want an example of something pulled from thin air? “Congress has the power to restrict the political expression of corporations,” a statement in direct contradiction to the text I provided. Glad to be of assistance.
Does Congress have the right to pass a law against libel, slander, or fraud?
If so, explain how these are not speech.
No, and there are no federal laws against libelous speech, slanderous speech, or fraudulent speech. See the overturning of the “Stolen Valor Act” for example.
I was aware of this and I feel it’s major evidence to support my argument.
It’s only overturned in the Ninth Circuit. The Tenth Circuit upheld it. SCOTUS is pondering the issue now.
Terr’s post aside, that is a valid question. In fact U.S. courts have long held that a very limited number of types of expression are not protected speech. Libel and slander aren’t very good examples because those are usually civil matters, not criminal, but obscenity is obviously something that has at times been restricted, and commercial speech is restricted in many ways. “Fighting words” are not protected speech, nor do you have a right to engage in speech if you are violating someone’s copyright in doing so.
But that’s the key thing; the issue is the type of speech, not who is saying it. Nobody has ever suggested the documentary Citizens United was sponsoring was obscene, or a violation of a copyright, or fighting words. It was clearly and unambiguously political in intent, which is the very type of speech the First Amendment was specifically written to protect. The only objection to it is who was paying to put it on the air; a conservative non-profit corporation. It strikes me as sort of weird that people would propose a system whereby it is illegal for several thousand people to pool their money to air a documentary, but perfectly legal for Bill Gates, as an individual, to do precisely the same thing.