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Interpreting corporations as “people” IMO was such a misread of the constitution that it’s led to various interpretations here. These are corporations, not peop

Interpreting corporations as “people” IMO was such a misread of the constitution that it’s led to various interpretations here. These are corporations, not people. We need to stop applying people’s rights to corporation and then we’ll return to logical deductions

yasp 4y ago
How do groups of people not have the rights of people?
- woodruffw 4y ago
  They already do, as people.
  - refurb 4y ago
    A group of people together have no right to free speech but individually they do? I don’t see how that could possibly work.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      Who said that? They continue to have rights within the group as well, and they can make whatever group decisions they would like. This doesn’t imply that we need to accept corporate personhood for all purposes.
    - klysm 4y ago
      No this is not what he said. You don’t need to treat the group differently. Since all people have free speech in the group, then the group effectively has free speech as well no?
      - refurb 4y ago
        Right, which is basically what the Supreme Court said. A group of individuals as a corporation still have constitutional rights.
    - Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
      Arguing in favor of making clear legal distinctions between humans and corporations does not automatically imply denying them a right to free speech. It may seem that way when we say: the declaration of human rights does not apply to corporations, because they are inhuman, but we actually argue in favor of a declaration of corporate rights, not against it. The key point is that Corporations are more than just groups of people. But more so we want this distinction because we want an effective Corporate Criminal Law.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      We give corporations certain legal rights that humans do not have, such as the ability to avoid individual responsibility for corporate crimes or debts. It sort of makes sense that you can't stack rights - you either get to choose your human rights, or your corporate rights (which may have limits that your human rights cannot).
  - yasp 4y ago
    That's a non sequitur.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      You asked: How do people, as groups of people, not have the rights of people? I answered: They do, as people. Nothing about their position in or outside of groups affects that. Where is the non sequitur?
- notservile 4y ago
  Corporations exist as creations of congress and legislated into existence. Congress may not pass laws that seek to silence our ability to speak freely. What you’re suggesting is that because these special entities are run by private individuals and not government employees they’re not effectively bound by the first amendment. Schools exist as creations of legislation as well, but they are run by government employees. Speech cannot be silenced by schools. Your assertion is that since companies, created by legislation, are run by private individuals they can silence speech all day long. The question is, does the 1st amendment apply to government employees or anything borne out of legislation by congress?
- throwoutway 4y ago
  Let me ask you the inverse— should an entire HOA all go to jail if one resident commits a crime? No. It’s not “groups” of people, like you’d find at a concert/meetup/HOA/whatever. If it was, then the whole group should be convicted of crimes everytime the corp ignores a law and commits a crime. But no— different groups exist for different purposes, on paper incorporated under a set of laws. It’s a business, intent on generating profits and many times they break laws. Next time you want a corp to have ”people” rights, consider the inverse to
  - stickfigure 4y ago
    > Let me ask you the inverse— should an entire HOA all go to jail if one resident commits a crime? If all the people in the HOA conspire to commit a crime, using the HOA organization meetings to plan, HOA funds to execute the crime - then yes?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
notservile 4y ago
This is precisely it. Corporations exist as creations of congress and legislation. Can congress and legislation be used to create entities that can then be used to surveil, and curtail our freedom of speech? If so, isn’t congress passing legislation that limits free speech through an intermediary?
krapp 4y ago
The rationale is that corporations are made up of people, and there is no way of denying fundamental rights to corporations without also denying those rights to the people making up and interacting with those corporations. In essence, corporate personhood an argument that rights don't cease to exist when being expressed in aggregate. It also allows certain conveniences, such as being able to sue a corporation as an entity, and corporations being able to enter into contracts as entities, own property, etc.
KerrAvon 4y ago
While I agree that corporations should not be considered people, there’s literally a century of legal precedent built on that faulty interpretation, and the courts are not the appropriate forum to unwind it; it’s too deeply enshrined. Congress must legislate.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Courts can legislate by precedent as well.
  - torpid 4y ago
    Actually, it's considered legislating when stare decisis is abandoned.
- Afforess 4y ago
  Didn't stop the Supreme Court from reverting the Roe v Wade "superprecedent" recently.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  So we can agree that some interpretations are bad/wrong/illogical?
_8j50 4y ago
Thank you! This is what I am saying, treating corporations as people has caused so many problems it might just destroy the whole country! Non-US folks pay attention and make sure this cancer doesn't spread to your country.
- hyperman1 4y ago
  AFAIK this is normal in other countries. In Belgium, we have the distinction between a natural person (a human) and a legal person (might be a corporation), and laws specify the required personhood.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    So too late for Belgium?
throw0101c 4y ago
> Interpreting corporations as “people” IMO was such a misread of the constitution that it’s led to various interpretations here. These are corporations, not people. Corporations have been legal persons for many centuries/millennia: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#History The same principle applies to (professional) societies, communities/municipalities, guilds, unions (locals), universities, etc: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#History Be curious to know about the legal history of treating legal and natural persons differently.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  I’ve been reading what you linked and I see nowhere that the all the same legal rights of PEOPLE were applied to corporations for millennia. Not sure if you actually found that either? Either way, I’m arguing that it is an unintuitive idea in light of the fact that the Bill of Rights was written with people in mind as the recipients of those rights, and not corporations. If Google suddenly invoked their “right” to bear arms and form well regulated militias, we wouldn’t be swirling our oat milk saying “well they have the right”. I’m arguing they shouldn’t
  - throw0101c 4y ago
    > I’ve been reading what you linked and I see nowhere that the all the same legal rights of PEOPLE were applied to corporations for millennia. Not sure if you actually found that either? Ability to partake in contracts, due process of law, have internal rules of conduct (like having a conscience). Are these not rights that both both 'types of persons' have? > There are therefore two kinds of legal entities: human and non-human. In law, a human person is called a natural person (sometimes also a physical person), and a non-human person is called a juridical person (sometimes also a juridic, juristic, artificial, legal, or fictitious person, Latin: persona ficta). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person IANAL.

yasp 4y ago

How do groups of people not have the rights of people?

woodruffw 4y ago
They already do, as people.
- refurb 4y ago
  A group of people together have no right to free speech but individually they do? I don’t see how that could possibly work.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Who said that? They continue to have rights within the group as well, and they can make whatever group decisions they would like. This doesn’t imply that we need to accept corporate personhood for all purposes.
  - klysm 4y ago
    No this is not what he said. You don’t need to treat the group differently. Since all people have free speech in the group, then the group effectively has free speech as well no?
    - refurb 4y ago
      Right, which is basically what the Supreme Court said. A group of individuals as a corporation still have constitutional rights.
  - Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
    Arguing in favor of making clear legal distinctions between humans and corporations does not automatically imply denying them a right to free speech. It may seem that way when we say: the declaration of human rights does not apply to corporations, because they are inhuman, but we actually argue in favor of a declaration of corporate rights, not against it. The key point is that Corporations are more than just groups of people. But more so we want this distinction because we want an effective Corporate Criminal Law.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    We give corporations certain legal rights that humans do not have, such as the ability to avoid individual responsibility for corporate crimes or debts. It sort of makes sense that you can't stack rights - you either get to choose your human rights, or your corporate rights (which may have limits that your human rights cannot).
- yasp 4y ago
  That's a non sequitur.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    You asked: How do people, as groups of people, not have the rights of people? I answered: They do, as people. Nothing about their position in or outside of groups affects that. Where is the non sequitur?
notservile 4y ago
Corporations exist as creations of congress and legislated into existence. Congress may not pass laws that seek to silence our ability to speak freely. What you’re suggesting is that because these special entities are run by private individuals and not government employees they’re not effectively bound by the first amendment. Schools exist as creations of legislation as well, but they are run by government employees. Speech cannot be silenced by schools. Your assertion is that since companies, created by legislation, are run by private individuals they can silence speech all day long. The question is, does the 1st amendment apply to government employees or anything borne out of legislation by congress?
throwoutway 4y ago
Let me ask you the inverse— should an entire HOA all go to jail if one resident commits a crime? No. It’s not “groups” of people, like you’d find at a concert/meetup/HOA/whatever. If it was, then the whole group should be convicted of crimes everytime the corp ignores a law and commits a crime. But no— different groups exist for different purposes, on paper incorporated under a set of laws. It’s a business, intent on generating profits and many times they break laws. Next time you want a corp to have ”people” rights, consider the inverse to
- stickfigure 4y ago
  > Let me ask you the inverse— should an entire HOA all go to jail if one resident commits a crime? If all the people in the HOA conspire to commit a crime, using the HOA organization meetings to plan, HOA funds to execute the crime - then yes?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

notservile 4y ago

This is precisely it. Corporations exist as creations of congress and legislation. Can congress and legislation be used to create entities that can then be used to surveil, and curtail our freedom of speech? If so, isn’t congress passing legislation that limits free speech through an intermediary?

krapp 4y ago

The rationale is that corporations are made up of people, and there is no way of denying fundamental rights to corporations without also denying those rights to the people making up and interacting with those corporations. In essence, corporate personhood an argument that rights don't cease to exist when being expressed in aggregate. It also allows certain conveniences, such as being able to sue a corporation as an entity, and corporations being able to enter into contracts as entities, own property, etc.

KerrAvon 4y ago

While I agree that corporations should not be considered people, there’s literally a century of legal precedent built on that faulty interpretation, and the courts are not the appropriate forum to unwind it; it’s too deeply enshrined. Congress must legislate.

_8j50 4y ago
Courts can legislate by precedent as well.
- torpid 4y ago
  Actually, it's considered legislating when stare decisis is abandoned.
Afforess 4y ago
Didn't stop the Supreme Court from reverting the Roe v Wade "superprecedent" recently.
throwoutway 4y ago
So we can agree that some interpretations are bad/wrong/illogical?

_8j50 4y ago

Thank you! This is what I am saying, treating corporations as people has caused so many problems it might just destroy the whole country! Non-US folks pay attention and make sure this cancer doesn't spread to your country.

hyperman1 4y ago
AFAIK this is normal in other countries. In Belgium, we have the distinction between a natural person (a human) and a legal person (might be a corporation), and laws specify the required personhood.
- _8j50 4y ago
  So too late for Belgium?

throw0101c 4y ago

> Interpreting corporations as “people” IMO was such a misread of the constitution that it’s led to various interpretations here. These are corporations, not people. Corporations have been legal persons for many centuries/millennia: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#History The same principle applies to (professional) societies, communities/municipalities, guilds, unions (locals), universities, etc: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#History Be curious to know about the legal history of treating legal and natural persons differently.

throwoutway 4y ago
I’ve been reading what you linked and I see nowhere that the all the same legal rights of PEOPLE were applied to corporations for millennia. Not sure if you actually found that either? Either way, I’m arguing that it is an unintuitive idea in light of the fact that the Bill of Rights was written with people in mind as the recipients of those rights, and not corporations. If Google suddenly invoked their “right” to bear arms and form well regulated militias, we wouldn’t be swirling our oat milk saying “well they have the right”. I’m arguing they shouldn’t
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > I’ve been reading what you linked and I see nowhere that the all the same legal rights of PEOPLE were applied to corporations for millennia. Not sure if you actually found that either? Ability to partake in contracts, due process of law, have internal rules of conduct (like having a conscience). Are these not rights that both both 'types of persons' have? > There are therefore two kinds of legal entities: human and non-human. In law, a human person is called a natural person (sometimes also a physical person), and a non-human person is called a juridical person (sometimes also a juridic, juristic, artificial, legal, or fictitious person, Latin: persona ficta). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person IANAL.