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I am continually baffled by the "logic" behind laws and the justice system. If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13t

I am continually baffled by the "logic" behind laws and the justice system. If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? How can money be speech, if the constitution allows congress to regulate commerce, but prohibits it from abridging speech. It just seems like in a common law system we're forced to live with half-assed arguments that corporate lawyers dreamed up while golfing with the judges.

wmeredith 11mo ago
The law is very much like a programming language in that it is attempting to abstract a concept from practice, so that it is useful in many applications instead of just one. In both cases these abstractions are always flawed. In the law's case, that's why we have judges.
- otterdude 11mo ago
  The problem is judges, especially in a common law system. Computers follow the machine code PERFECTLY. For the legal system judges get to embark on a jazz odyssey of bullshit. Were living in an easy to track, decades long legal conspiracy to abuse power for corporations - based on the Powell memo. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYoqcr7bAIs7kdyMhh-9m4kPLCG6dGAkX https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYoqcr7bAIs7kdyMhh-9m...
  - saintfire 11mo ago
    Except that natural language is imperfect, as are lawmakers, as are lawmaking processes. Following exclusively the letter of the law, even where unambiguous, is not a win. That's effectively how people are trying to skirt the intent of a law (see: every corporation). The letter and the spirit are both important. Judges make bad judgments, they also make good judgements. Such is life.
returningfory2 11mo ago
> If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? We simply pass a law saying that the act of incorporating a company is, among other things, punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, and the 13th amendment problems go away.
elbasti 11mo ago
Composition, not inheritance.
coliveira 11mo ago
A corporation is a person, not a human. Person is an abstraction used by law, but it has no direct relation to a human being.
- cuttothechase 11mo ago
  Isn't this sort of defense a weak argument by the courts. If your abstraction is to override a well known common usage/function of a term, then the abstraction doesn't hold much water?
- otterdude 11mo ago
  The definition for person is "a living human". This argument is just ridiculous, a corporation is a corporation. That contains subsets of people who have rights (shareholders, employees).
  - jandrewrogers 11mo ago
    The legal term you are looking for is Natural Person. Not every Person is a Natural Person.
- the_af 11mo ago
  > A corporation is a person, not a human. Person is an abstraction used by law, but it has no direct relation to a human being. Most English dictionaries define person as a human. I think the legal concept of person ("legal" or "juristic" person) as applied to corporations is something entirely different that, by unfortunate coincidence, shares the same name.
- dheera 11mo ago
  The law has lots of weird terminology. For example they have "exhibits" that are really just some crappy figures in an appendix of someone doing something bad, and not actual exhibits that you can buy tickets to visit.
mattmaroon 11mo ago
Corporations aren’t people in the literal sense which the 13th amendment uses, nobody ever said they were. They just have the ability to do some people things. They can have a bank account or sign a contract. They cannot vote or enlist or do lots of things people can do. (The technical name is ‘juridicial people’ and what they can or cannot do is spelled out in law quite well.) Money isn’t speech, and no court ever said it was. The ads you buy with money are speech. What’s the difference between a Fox news editorial show or a right-leaning ad on Fox News? (The answer: who pays for it.) If news organizations are just things owned by people, what makes them more worthy of expressing opinions than other things owned by people? Just because they have “news” in their name? You just think they’re half-assed because you have the cartoony idea of what they are expressed by media that doesn’t like them. They’re quite sensible.
- kannanvijayan 11mo ago
  Unfortunately the practical effect of whatever policy that comes out of this theorycrafting has left your media landscape an absurd and abject failure. Where the idea of objective truth being open to the highest bidder and allowed to change on a week by week, or day by day basis without challenge.. is a reality Americans now live every day. If the theory is "sensible", who cares? At some point you do want to connect it to reality and outcomes, no?
  - mattmaroon 11mo ago
    Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. The opposite of our media landscape is countries that think they have free speech but really don’t, like most of Europe. I’ll take having all the information in the world (true or false, purposefully curated for propaganda or organically reported) over any society that locks people up for social media posts deemed “fake”. I have faith both in the marketplace of ideas leading to the best outcomes, and that the ability to lock people up over false speech will be weaponized eventually. The American media landscape is the only possible result of true freedom of speech combined with the internet. It’s faaaaar from perfect but I do believe it’ll be the best in the end.
toast0 11mo ago
> If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? Sports players are people, but their service is bought and sold by teams. Is that slavery, too?
- Supermancho 11mo ago
  Slaves generally don't get to choose not to participate. Sports players are as much wage slaves as Hollywood actors or Walmart greeters, albeit with much shorter runways to comfortable lifestyles.
  - otterdude 11mo ago
    My argument is created to test the original "corporations are people" legality in common law. - slavery, the owning of people, is prohibited by the 13th amendment. - the law of the land is that corporations are a type of legal person based on the famous ruling based on the 14th amendment - corporations are bought and sold, and owned by shareholders. Can they be people if this is so? obviously there is a problem here with all of the contradictions involved, but thats the point of my argument. The legal system picks and chooses the desired outcome, and doesn't actually pay attention to the words involved.
niam 11mo ago
"Money is speech" is kind of a misleading interpretation because it comes with all sorts of baggage that people typically infer from a thing "being speech". Phrased another way: the argument is that limiting one's ability to spend is practically a limitation on their speech (or their ability to reach an audience, which is an important part of speech). If some president can preclude you from buying billboards, or web servers, or soapboxes on which to stand: he has a pretty strong chokehold on your ability to disseminate a political message. I'm not defending that argument, only saying what it is as I understand it.
- otterdude 11mo ago
  My arguments are as bad-faith as the arguments that lead to corporate personhood and citizens united. Fight fire with fire.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo ago
As programmers we should be used to the X is Y but not quite type of business logic. Often a hack (but isn't calling Apple a person a hack too?)
themafia 11mo ago
> If corporations are people, Technically they have some aspects of "personhood." This is distinct.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

wmeredith 11mo ago

The law is very much like a programming language in that it is attempting to abstract a concept from practice, so that it is useful in many applications instead of just one. In both cases these abstractions are always flawed. In the law's case, that's why we have judges.

otterdude 11mo ago
The problem is judges, especially in a common law system. Computers follow the machine code PERFECTLY. For the legal system judges get to embark on a jazz odyssey of bullshit. Were living in an easy to track, decades long legal conspiracy to abuse power for corporations - based on the Powell memo. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYoqcr7bAIs7kdyMhh-9m4kPLCG6dGAkX https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYoqcr7bAIs7kdyMhh-9m...
- saintfire 11mo ago
  Except that natural language is imperfect, as are lawmakers, as are lawmaking processes. Following exclusively the letter of the law, even where unambiguous, is not a win. That's effectively how people are trying to skirt the intent of a law (see: every corporation). The letter and the spirit are both important. Judges make bad judgments, they also make good judgements. Such is life.

returningfory2 11mo ago

> If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? We simply pass a law saying that the act of incorporating a company is, among other things, punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, and the 13th amendment problems go away.

elbasti 11mo ago

Composition, not inheritance.

coliveira 11mo ago

A corporation is a person, not a human. Person is an abstraction used by law, but it has no direct relation to a human being.

cuttothechase 11mo ago
Isn't this sort of defense a weak argument by the courts. If your abstraction is to override a well known common usage/function of a term, then the abstraction doesn't hold much water?
otterdude 11mo ago
The definition for person is "a living human". This argument is just ridiculous, a corporation is a corporation. That contains subsets of people who have rights (shareholders, employees).
- jandrewrogers 11mo ago
  The legal term you are looking for is Natural Person. Not every Person is a Natural Person.
the_af 11mo ago
> A corporation is a person, not a human. Person is an abstraction used by law, but it has no direct relation to a human being. Most English dictionaries define person as a human. I think the legal concept of person ("legal" or "juristic" person) as applied to corporations is something entirely different that, by unfortunate coincidence, shares the same name.
dheera 11mo ago
The law has lots of weird terminology. For example they have "exhibits" that are really just some crappy figures in an appendix of someone doing something bad, and not actual exhibits that you can buy tickets to visit.

mattmaroon 11mo ago

Corporations aren’t people in the literal sense which the 13th amendment uses, nobody ever said they were. They just have the ability to do some people things. They can have a bank account or sign a contract. They cannot vote or enlist or do lots of things people can do. (The technical name is ‘juridicial people’ and what they can or cannot do is spelled out in law quite well.) Money isn’t speech, and no court ever said it was. The ads you buy with money are speech. What’s the difference between a Fox news editorial show or a right-leaning ad on Fox News? (The answer: who pays for it.) If news organizations are just things owned by people, what makes them more worthy of expressing opinions than other things owned by people? Just because they have “news” in their name? You just think they’re half-assed because you have the cartoony idea of what they are expressed by media that doesn’t like them. They’re quite sensible.

kannanvijayan 11mo ago
Unfortunately the practical effect of whatever policy that comes out of this theorycrafting has left your media landscape an absurd and abject failure. Where the idea of objective truth being open to the highest bidder and allowed to change on a week by week, or day by day basis without challenge.. is a reality Americans now live every day. If the theory is "sensible", who cares? At some point you do want to connect it to reality and outcomes, no?
- mattmaroon 11mo ago
  Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. The opposite of our media landscape is countries that think they have free speech but really don’t, like most of Europe. I’ll take having all the information in the world (true or false, purposefully curated for propaganda or organically reported) over any society that locks people up for social media posts deemed “fake”. I have faith both in the marketplace of ideas leading to the best outcomes, and that the ability to lock people up over false speech will be weaponized eventually. The American media landscape is the only possible result of true freedom of speech combined with the internet. It’s faaaaar from perfect but I do believe it’ll be the best in the end.

toast0 11mo ago

> If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? Sports players are people, but their service is bought and sold by teams. Is that slavery, too?

Supermancho 11mo ago
Slaves generally don't get to choose not to participate. Sports players are as much wage slaves as Hollywood actors or Walmart greeters, albeit with much shorter runways to comfortable lifestyles.
- otterdude 11mo ago
  My argument is created to test the original "corporations are people" legality in common law. - slavery, the owning of people, is prohibited by the 13th amendment. - the law of the land is that corporations are a type of legal person based on the famous ruling based on the 14th amendment - corporations are bought and sold, and owned by shareholders. Can they be people if this is so? obviously there is a problem here with all of the contradictions involved, but thats the point of my argument. The legal system picks and chooses the desired outcome, and doesn't actually pay attention to the words involved.

niam 11mo ago

"Money is speech" is kind of a misleading interpretation because it comes with all sorts of baggage that people typically infer from a thing "being speech". Phrased another way: the argument is that limiting one's ability to spend is practically a limitation on their speech (or their ability to reach an audience, which is an important part of speech). If some president can preclude you from buying billboards, or web servers, or soapboxes on which to stand: he has a pretty strong chokehold on your ability to disseminate a political message. I'm not defending that argument, only saying what it is as I understand it.

otterdude 11mo ago
My arguments are as bad-faith as the arguments that lead to corporate personhood and citizens united. Fight fire with fire.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo ago

As programmers we should be used to the X is Y but not quite type of business logic. Often a hack (but isn't calling Apple a person a hack too?)

themafia 11mo ago

> If corporations are people, Technically they have some aspects of "personhood." This is distinct.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]