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And if corporations aren’t people, then the New York Times has no right to the First Amendment.
by monocularvision 11mo ago
And if corporations aren’t people, then the New York Times has no right to the First Amendment.
- jmye 11mo agoI'm curious what you think "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of [...] the press" means, in this case. Did you just not know what the actual text is, or ... ?
- bjt 11mo agoA restriction on government (as the First Amendment language is phrased) is not the same thing as an individual right. There are plenty of cases where a restriction is in the law, but only a very limited set of entities has standing to sue to enforce it. You could imagine such a case with regard to the First Amendment if we didn't have the corporate personhood doctrine.
- jmye 11mo agoI have no idea what that has to do with my comment or the one I responded to. The freedom of the press is guaranteed by the first amendment. The NYT doesn’t suddenly lose “rights to it” if it’s not seen as a person. “Corporate personhood” is irrelevant, in this comment chain, and is just a way to take a swipe at an ostensibly left-leaning org in order to turn this into a team sport.
- ashdksnndck 11mo agoThe New York Times (the corporation, as a legal person) has the right to freedom of the press, not just individual humans who work there. This is good, because it means the entire institution is protected. Not only is the government forbidden from arresting the humans for operating the printing press, it’s also forbidden from sanctioning the corporation for hiring humans to operate the press. In other words, freedom of the press applies to corporations (eg. the Times) as well as human persons. I think you and the commenter you responded to both agree on the fundamental claim here, although you might disagree about the semantics of whether “corporate personhood” is a good way of describing this concept.
- NewJazz 11mo agoAbsolutely insane take.
- ashdksnndck 11mo agoCan you be more specific? What would it mean for the New York Times (the corporation) not to be protected by the first amendment? The government can sue the New York Times Company for what it prints as long as the government doesn’t prosecute the humans who work there? The existence of corporate personhood has been settled law in the United States for over a hundred years, and all nine current Supreme Court justices agree with it. There’s controversy on exactly where it applies, with cases defining the boundaries of what rights corporate persons have. I don’t think the example I’m giving here is likely to be contentious.
- NewJazz 11mo agoCorporate personhood isn't required for the first amendment to apply to the nytimes.
- ashdksnndck 11mo agoThe NYTimes is a corporation. Corporate personhood is the term of art that we use when the legal person a right applies to is a corporation.
- NewJazz 11mo ago"We"
- ashdksnndck 11mo agoOk, there’s the terminology used by the legal community (including all nine justices on the Supreme Court) and then there’s people who dislike the terminology because they saw a misleading speech about the issue on the Daily Show.
- monocularvision 11mo agoYou see the reading “the press” as meaning some organization of people. You take it for granted that the freedom of the press applies to a business entity like the NYT and also to an individual blogger or any other person creating a publication. The idea that people can come together to form cooperative groups and can use those to exercise rights through the idea of personhood is such a normal and legally settled idea.
- nzeid 11mo agoBut their employees collectively do. I know this is not the approach the US court system decided to humor, but there's no way around journalists' rights.
- redwall_hp 11mo agoThe Constitution doesn't grant rights, it binds the government. The first amendment is a law that disallows the government from taking actions to infringe on any human's inherent rights, be they individuals or in a group.
- AnthonyMouse 11mo agoIt's about the dichotomy. If the NY Times has First Amendment rights then Pfizer does. That annoys people because Pfizer is going to advocate for things some people might not like. But that's the cost of a rule that makes it so the NY Times can advocate for things other people might not like.
- mcv 11mo agoIt's still possible to grant press organisations rights that other corporations don't get without having to make both of them people.
- AnthonyMouse 11mo agoJournalism is an act, not an organization. There is no government license to do journalism nor should there be.