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Presumably Rand Paul, like many Republicans (and no small number of Democrats), accepts the idea that people can exercise their rights through government-regist

Presumably Rand Paul, like many Republicans (and no small number of Democrats), accepts the idea that people can exercise their rights through government-registered entities which they own, called "corporations". These are entities without intrinsic rights, but a well-known intellectual framework called "corporate personhood" which dates back to some of our earliest jurisprudence in this nation says that you treat them like they do, because it is a good way to reason about their owners' use of their personal rights. (This theory also makes it trivially obvious why corporate "personhood" doesn't mean corporations get to do things like vote or get married -- using a corporation is not a way that to exercise that sort of right.) </factual description> <opinion> One may, of course, disagree that this is sound policy, but this opinion seems to be all-too-often presented in a manner which deliberately misunderstands / misrepresents the theory, perhaps in order to strengthen the invective language advocating against these policies. (Be sure to keep an eye on that, at least for the sake of your own intellectual honesty.)

jonah 12y ago
My issue with this situation is that these corporations generally have orders-of-magnitude louder megaphones through which to exercise these rights. It really skews the one-person-one-vote ideal this democracy is built on. (Yes, individuals exercising an out-sized influence through money and access is a part of the same issue.) This is why things like Citizen's United and Super-PACs are so horribly distorting the functional workings of our country.
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  We've always had and will always have private citizens who have orders-of-magnitude-louder megaphones: big-money bogeymen like Rupert Murdoch could be plenty effective at buying megaphones. Or think of any celebrity Twitter account, from Taylor Swift to Obama himself. And we'd disempower a variety of political activity (ostensibly) backed by the common man if private-sector labor unions couldn't spend money on politics and rich CEOs could.
- crazy1van 12y ago
  Corporations are just individuals who pool their resources for a common endeavor. Usually this is for profit but sometimes it is a charity. Either way, why should individuals lose rights when they operate as a group? Preventing people from pooling resources shifts the balance of power towards rich individuals who don't need extra outside resources to further their political goals.
pnut 12y ago
While not debating the facts of your statement, I would contend that the only legitimate exercise of an owner's rights in the context of a corporation are to seek profit through commerce. Political speech, religious beliefs, and other "personhood" concepts are already granted to corporate owners as individuals.
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  > I would contend that the only legitimate exercise of an owner's rights in the context of a corporation are to seek profit through commerce. Not all extant corporations are made to seek profits. There are nonprofits out there for a variety of charitable causes, social-justice causes, and other activities which often have a nontrivial component to them. I believe the ACLU is a corporation, for instance -- the EFF as well, and Amnesty International. We've seen many of their free-speech activities on this site. What provision shall we make for these activities and organizations in an alternative legal framework? More generally: if an arbitrary profit-seeking corporation doesn't have first-amendment rights, why do newspapers specifically have them? (Or are we abandoning freedom of the press as well? That'll take some Constitutional doing, naturally.) Assuming that it remains, why should Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation or Bloomberg's Bloomberg have rights that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway doesn't? And where and how should we go about drawing a line between "press" and "not press" organizations in a complicated world where, for instance, an Internet-technology firm like AOL has bought a major news entity, Time Warner? Outside speech questions specifically, if a corporation does not have first-amendment protection to speak as it chooses, does this mean the government ought to be legally compel its choice of speech? (e.g. endorsing specific politicians, policies, etc.) Is it protected from search and seizures by the Fourth Amendment? (Or, hell, from quartering troops by the third?) These questions may or may not have good answers. Either way, these narrow margins can hardly contain a proper treatment of the matter. I'm just throwing a few monkey wrenches into the problem, as your comment was simple and straightforward, but the consequences of the proposed legal regime are complex and wide-reaching. :P

jonah 12y ago

My issue with this situation is that these corporations generally have orders-of-magnitude louder megaphones through which to exercise these rights. It really skews the one-person-one-vote ideal this democracy is built on. (Yes, individuals exercising an out-sized influence through money and access is a part of the same issue.) This is why things like Citizen's United and Super-PACs are so horribly distorting the functional workings of our country.

fennecfoxen 12y ago
We've always had and will always have private citizens who have orders-of-magnitude-louder megaphones: big-money bogeymen like Rupert Murdoch could be plenty effective at buying megaphones. Or think of any celebrity Twitter account, from Taylor Swift to Obama himself. And we'd disempower a variety of political activity (ostensibly) backed by the common man if private-sector labor unions couldn't spend money on politics and rich CEOs could.
crazy1van 12y ago
Corporations are just individuals who pool their resources for a common endeavor. Usually this is for profit but sometimes it is a charity. Either way, why should individuals lose rights when they operate as a group? Preventing people from pooling resources shifts the balance of power towards rich individuals who don't need extra outside resources to further their political goals.

pnut 12y ago

While not debating the facts of your statement, I would contend that the only legitimate exercise of an owner's rights in the context of a corporation are to seek profit through commerce. Political speech, religious beliefs, and other "personhood" concepts are already granted to corporate owners as individuals.

fennecfoxen 12y ago
> I would contend that the only legitimate exercise of an owner's rights in the context of a corporation are to seek profit through commerce. Not all extant corporations are made to seek profits. There are nonprofits out there for a variety of charitable causes, social-justice causes, and other activities which often have a nontrivial component to them. I believe the ACLU is a corporation, for instance -- the EFF as well, and Amnesty International. We've seen many of their free-speech activities on this site. What provision shall we make for these activities and organizations in an alternative legal framework? More generally: if an arbitrary profit-seeking corporation doesn't have first-amendment rights, why do newspapers specifically have them? (Or are we abandoning freedom of the press as well? That'll take some Constitutional doing, naturally.) Assuming that it remains, why should Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation or Bloomberg's Bloomberg have rights that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway doesn't? And where and how should we go about drawing a line between "press" and "not press" organizations in a complicated world where, for instance, an Internet-technology firm like AOL has bought a major news entity, Time Warner? Outside speech questions specifically, if a corporation does not have first-amendment protection to speak as it chooses, does this mean the government ought to be legally compel its choice of speech? (e.g. endorsing specific politicians, policies, etc.) Is it protected from search and seizures by the Fourth Amendment? (Or, hell, from quartering troops by the third?) These questions may or may not have good answers. Either way, these narrow margins can hardly contain a proper treatment of the matter. I'm just throwing a few monkey wrenches into the problem, as your comment was simple and straightforward, but the consequences of the proposed legal regime are complex and wide-reaching. :P