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Poll: Do Corporations Have the Same Natural Rights as Individuals?

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Re: Poll: Do Corporations Have the Same Natural Rights as Individuals?

#2

Post by bwh2 »

I thought Jonathan Turley had a very insightful post on the topic: http://jonathanturley.org/2010/01/21/supreme-court-rules-5-4...

tl;dr: "In the end, I have to favor more speech than less in such conflicts. While I would have written a concurrence and have difficulty with aspects of the majority opinion, I probably would have voted to support the majority in the result in this case. However, I do consider this to be one of the most difficult free speech cases to hit the court in decades."

Re: Poll: Do Corporations Have the Same Natural Rights as Individuals?

#3

Post by _delirium »

Worded that way, I'd have to say no. But clearly the subtext is Citizens United, which I think is a lot trickier. A lot of important 20th-century free-speech precedents depend on applying the First Amendment to corporations--- corporations like record labels, newspaper/magazine/book publishers, film production and distribution companies, even adult film theatres. It's possible that a narrow First-Amendment exception can be carved out for direct electioneering on the part of corporations, but I think the proposal that the First Amendment doesn't apply to corporations at all is a cure much worse than the disease.

Re: Poll: Do Corporations Have the Same Natural Rights as Individuals?

#4

Post by jacquesm »

Some of the rights corporations have are actually 'more' than individuals.

A corporation for instance is immortal.

There is a movie out called 'The Corporation', depending on your political views you'll probably see it as attack piece or a documentary.

But whichever way you perceive it the facts in the movie are real and because of that alone it is worth seeing.

http://www.thecorporation.com/

edit: why is it that polls with quite a few votes for the poll itself always have very few votes for the article?

You'd think that if it was worth voting in the poll that it would be worth voting for the article too.

Re: Poll: Do Corporations Have the Same Natural Rights as Individuals?

#6

Post by cce »

jacquesm wrote: post #4

Some of the rights corporations have are actually 'more' than individuals. A corporation for instance is immortal. There is a movie out called 'The Corporation', depending on your political views you'll probably see it as attack piece or a documentary. But whichever way you perceive it the facts in the movie are real and because of that alone it is worth seeing. http://www.thecorporation.com/ edit: why is it that pol…

Corporations are not Immortal. They are not living beings. They do not have free will. By calling a company immortal one further pollutes the dialog.

They are a logical / legal construction, and it makes no sense to call them mortal or immortal. By calling them immortal you are implicitly inferring that they actually make decisions and have actions; they don't. Agents of the company work within the constructs of the law on behalf of the company's directors. The company's directorship management makes the decisions.

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