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Just because a corporation does not have rights of free speech under the 1st amendment does not mean that all of its speech rights should be destroyed. They can

by hristov 17y ago

Just because a corporation does not have rights of free speech under the 1st amendment does not mean that all of its speech rights should be destroyed. They can just be controlled in some ways for the public good as allowed by law. Thus, an organization should have the right to speech and to voice its opinions, but those rights can be controlled for the public good, for example by laws that prohibit them spending too much money for campaigns or requiring them to identify themselves when buying TV ads. And of course any organization can fall back on the first amendment rights of its members -- thus as you mentioned they can have all their members sign a document or have them all go to a demonstration, etc. I don't see anythign wrong with this system.

hughprime 17y ago
Just because a corporation does not have rights of free speech under the 1st amendment does not mean that all of its speech rights should be destroyed. Yes, but the point is that they could be. The reason that rights are explicitly set out in the US Constitution is that governments, left to their own devices, tend to eventually find an excuse to take away any freedom they're not explicitly forbidden from taking away. This isn't because they're bad people, it's just because they're people. In this case, I'd be very concerned about governments wanting to take away rights from corporations. Governments have always been uneasy about large corporations since Washington tends to dislike the idea of any power centers other than itself. Giving governments the power to make laws restricting political donations is particularly dangerous, since the party in power is always going to try to twist these laws (always with the most noble-sounding stated intentions) to restrict the ability of the other party to get funding while protecting its own.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  But Hugh, one might very well ask in that case why there is no constitutional provision for corporations. Constitutional protections appear to be limited to citizens qua human persons; no protection is offered to institutions, even though powerful non-governmental institutions (churches) were well-established at the time of the United States' founding. being as how no special protections appear to be extended to any organizations other than the states, one might reasonably ask whether the founders ever intended for private organizations to have a distinct legal identity to begin with (as opposed to, say, a board of directors acting with common purpose but individual responsibility). tl;dr if corporations enjoy constitutional protection, why aren't they mentioned in the constitution?

by hristov 17y ago

hughprime 17y ago

Just because a corporation does not have rights of free speech under the 1st amendment does not mean that all of its speech rights should be destroyed. Yes, but the point is that they could be. The reason that rights are explicitly set out in the US Constitution is that governments, left to their own devices, tend to eventually find an excuse to take away any freedom they're not explicitly forbidden from taking away. This isn't because they're bad people, it's just because they're people. In this case, I'd be very concerned about governments wanting to take away rights from corporations. Governments have always been uneasy about large corporations since Washington tends to dislike the idea of any power centers other than itself. Giving governments the power to make laws restricting political donations is particularly dangerous, since the party in power is always going to try to twist these laws (always with the most noble-sounding stated intentions) to restrict the ability of the other party to get funding while protecting its own.

anigbrowl 17y ago
But Hugh, one might very well ask in that case why there is no constitutional provision for corporations. Constitutional protections appear to be limited to citizens qua human persons; no protection is offered to institutions, even though powerful non-governmental institutions (churches) were well-established at the time of the United States' founding. being as how no special protections appear to be extended to any organizations other than the states, one might reasonably ask whether the founders ever intended for private organizations to have a distinct legal identity to begin with (as opposed to, say, a board of directors acting with common purpose but individual responsibility). tl;dr if corporations enjoy constitutional protection, why aren't they mentioned in the constitution?