Corporations are People?

[bilby]

Is the Girl Scouts "people" or not?

The Girl Scouts is people. The Girl Scouts is not a person.

As you don't understand this, you are doomed to reach stupid conclusions.

 

[NoHolyCows]

I.e., ALL GROUPS (other than corporations) are "people" entitled to 1st Amendment rights. KKK, Girl Scouts, Little League, Moose Lodge, Local Militia, Bird-Watchers Club, Creation Science Museum ----- these are "PEOPLE" and thus covered by the 1st Amendment.


So, can we get our act together? Which is it?

choice 1
ALL groups are "NOT PEOPLE" (corporate or noncorporate)
(i.e., only individuals are "people")

OR

choice 2
Noncorporate groups also ARE "PEOPLE" (and have 1st Amendment rights)
and it's only corporations which are excluded because they are "not people"

Ah! I see Swammerdami checked in above: His vote is for choice 1 above. So will he straighten out unapologetic who says all groups are not "people"?

(did I get it backwards? whatever, he says one of them above is wrong)

You’re trying to force this into a false binary that misunderstands how the First Amendment actually works.

Let me make it crystal clear:


The Constitution protects individuals. That’s foundational. But the rights of individuals don’t disappear when they act together—so when people form associations, clubs, churches, unions, or advocacy groups, they’re still exercising their individual rights collectively. That’s why courts have long recognized associational rights: the Girl Scouts, a local church, or even the KKK can be protected—not because they are “people,” but because they are vehicles for people expressing protected rights.

Now here’s where your framing falls apart:

A corporation is not a group of people assembling for expression or belief. It is a legal entity created by the state, with its own separate legal identity, designed to limit liability, raise capital, and exist perpetually. It’s not grounded in civic expression—it’s grounded in commerce.

When the Court in Citizens United said a for-profit corporation has the same First Amendment rights as a person, it wasn’t protecting the speech of people inside the company. It was giving the legal shell itself the power to spend unlimited money in elections.

So to your false choice:

• Choice 1 is wrong because individuals don’t lose their rights just because they’re in a group.
• Choice 2 is also wrong if you interpret it to mean that every legal entity, including corporations, should be treated as a person with full political rights.

The correct position is this:

Individuals have First Amendment rights, and those rights can extend to their associations. But corporations—created by law to serve economic purposes—are not natural rights-bearers. When they act, they don’t express beliefs; they deploy capital. And when the law treats them as full political actors, it turns the First Amendment from a shield for people into a weapon for power.

That’s the distinction you keep dodging: human expression vs. institutional leverage. Not all groups are “people.” But all people, even when organized, deserve protection. That’s the line the Court crossed—and it’s the one defenders of democracy are trying to restore.

NHC

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Are we worried that Starbucks is going to be sent to a prison in El Salvador?

Otherwise, the issue here isn't actually about rights in the Constitution as they might be applied to corporations, but the insistence that Corporations have the right to arbitrarily restrict access to the goods and services provided by that Corporation to arbitrary groups of people.

 

[laughing dog]

One quick response to this one:

MICKEY MOUSE IS NOT A PERSON.

i.e., KKK, Mouseketeers, Granny Goose Fan Club etc. = not "people"

Governments can decide to impose rights and responsibilities on organizations/corporations.

Groups (rather than individuals) are not "people"
(corporate or noncorporate)

But they ain't people. They are not automatically entitled to the same rights as a human just because a human joined. They can not claim 1st amendment rights. The government must grant corporations any rights separately.

So the Girl Scouts has no rights? no right to free speech, to free assembly, to freely publish anything?

They have always been people, just like the local PTA is people, and the Little League, and the Moose Lodge, and the local bingo game club.

And the KKK too?
No. those are organizations, subject to a different set of laws. They contain people who can speak, publish, and assemble.
The organizations do not have 1st amendment rights. Their members do. And corporations are subject to a different set of laws than the organizations you mentioned.
I do not consider churches to be people. But the 1st amendment does. ["churches" are an exception because the 1st Amendment specifically names them] The 1st amendment does not mention corporations. SO IT EXCLUDES corporations.

This "not people" hysteria gets more and more convoluted, and paranoid.

OK. You corporate-bashers here need to make up your mind about something --- Get on the same page! Some of you say other groups -- Girl Scouts, Little League, KKK, etc. -- are "people" and are covered by 1st Amendment rights. But then some of you say: No, other groups also are omitted, are not "people" because only individuals (single human persons) are "people" -- i.e., no groups are "people", but only individuals --- You need to get your story straight! Ask your Progressive Guru what the straight story is.

Is it only corporations which are not "people"?
(all other groups are "people")

Or is it that ALL GROUPS are not "people"?
(only individuals are people, but not groups (collectives))

unapologetic here says it's not just corporations, but ALL groups which are not "people" --- whereas

NoHolyCows said that it's only corporations which are not "people" -- and all other groups are "people" (Girl Scouts, KKK, Mother Goose Parade, etc.)


And, are there 2 categories of "not people" organizations? -- 1) corporations and 2) some other category subject to a different set of conditions than corporations ??



Which is it? -- This "not people" dog-whistle is B.S. if you can't agree on what "not people" means. You must base this on something other than your knee-jerk emotional hate for corporations. Just because the slogan makes you salivate does not make it the truth.



(this Wall of Text to be continued)

1st, recognizing that corporations are not people is recognizing reality not bashing corporations.


2nd, recognizing that there is no contradiction in reason or fairness between humans (i.e. people) having different rights than nonhumans is recognizing reality.

3rd, recognizing that there is no contradiction in different categories of “non people “ is recognizing reality. After all, dogs and bees are non people as well as corporations.

 

[NoHolyCows]

The point is this: If all you corporate-bashers have in common is your deep dog-whistle emotionalistic hate against corporations, and otherwise no logic or facts to explain who is "people" and who is not, then this "not people" sloganism is just as bad as the Old Southerners' prejudice against Blacks or the German Peasants' prejudice against Jews.

You need to sober up, ask some simple questions from the fire-breathing Progressive Gurus who gave you these vibes, instead of just salivating at their hate-speech slogans. Is the Girl Scouts "people" or not? How about bankers? money-lenders? the Bilderbergers? They're also "not people"? Or, what about ticket-scalpers -- there's a universally-hated group (and yet no one seems to know why). Or how about them scab Chinese auto-workers -- stealin' our jobs -- they're also "not people"?

You need to compile a list of all these "not people" scum out there who we're all supposed to hate.

When the argument crumbles, it’s easier to cry “hate speech” than to deal with constitutional facts. But let’s stay grounded.

No one here is spewing hate at corporations. This isn’t about emotionalism or slogans—it’s about legal distinctions and constitutional clarity.

Corporations are not “scum.” They’re not “evil.” They’re just not people in the legal, moral, or constitutional sense of the word. They are state-created legal entities, formed to facilitate commerce, limit liability, and accumulate capital—not to speak, vote, worship, or protest. That’s not hate—it’s law.

Equating a critique of corporate personhood with racism or antisemitism is not only historically false, it’s morally irresponsible. No corporation has ever been enslaved. No multinational has been marched into a gas chamber. These comparisons trivialize real atrocities and do nothing to strengthen your case—they only reveal how little substance it has.

This debate isn’t about “who we’re allowed to hate.” It’s about who the Constitution was written to protect: living, breathing human beings. When we say corporations aren’t “people” under the First Amendment, we’re not dehumanizing anyone—we’re refusing to confuse legal abstractions with natural persons.

You want to defend Citizens United? Do it on the merits. But don’t hide behind hysteria and strawmen. Because in the end, this isn’t about hating corporations—it’s about preventing them from drowning out the rest of us in a democracy meant to be governed by people, not balance sheets.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Also the poll is misleading because it conflates legal personhood with natural personhood—corporations may have limited First Amendment protections as legal entities, but that doesn’t make them “people” in the same way individuals are, nor entitle them to full political speech rights like unlimited election spending.


Better Poll Question:

What should be the extent of First Amendment rights for corporations?


A. Corporations should have no First Amendment rights—they are not people.


B. Corporations should have limited First Amendment protections only to support the rights of individuals within them (e.g., press, religion).


C. Corporations should have full First Amendment rights, including unlimited political spending.


D. Not sure / Need more information.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

One quick response to this one:

MICKEY MOUSE IS NOT A PERSON.

i.e., KKK, Mouseketeers, Granny Goose Fan Club etc. = not "people"

Governments can decide to impose rights and responsibilities on organizations/corporations.

Groups (rather than individuals) are not "people"
(corporate or noncorporate)

But they ain't people. They are not automatically entitled to the same rights as a human just because a human joined. They can not claim 1st amendment rights. The government must grant corporations any rights separately.

So the Girl Scouts has no rights? no right to free speech, to free assembly, to freely publish anything?

They have always been people, just like the local PTA is people, and the Little League, and the Moose Lodge, and the local bingo game club.

And the KKK too?
No. those are organizations, subject to a different set of laws. They contain people who can speak, publish, and assemble.
The organizations do not have 1st amendment rights. Their members do. And corporations are subject to a different set of laws than the organizations you mentioned.
I do not consider churches to be people. But the 1st amendment does. ["churches" are an exception because the 1st Amendment specifically names them] The 1st amendment does not mention corporations. SO IT EXCLUDES corporations.

This "not people" hysteria gets more and more convoluted, and paranoid.

OK. You corporate-bashers here need to make up your mind about something --- Get on the same page! Some of you say other groups -- Girl Scouts, Little League, KKK, etc. -- are "people" and are covered by 1st Amendment rights. But then some of you say: No, other groups also are omitted, are not "people" because only individuals (single human persons) are "people" -- i.e., no groups are "people", but only individuals --- You need to get your story straight! Ask your Progressive Guru what the straight story is.

Is it only corporations which are not "people"?
(all other groups are "people")

Or is it that ALL GROUPS are not "people"?
(only individuals are people, but not groups (collectives))

unapologetic here says it's not just corporations, but ALL groups which are not "people" --- whereas

NoHolyCows said that it's only corporations which are not "people" -- and all other groups are "people" (Girl Scouts, KKK, Mother Goose Parade, etc.)


And, are there 2 categories of "not people" organizations? -- 1) corporations and 2) some other category subject to a different set of conditions than corporations ??



Which is it? -- This "not people" dog-whistle is B.S. if you can't agree on what "not people" means. You must base this on something other than your knee-jerk emotional hate for corporations. Just because the slogan makes you salivate does not make it the truth.



(this Wall of Text to be continued)

1st, recognizing that corporations are not people is recognizing reality not bashing corporations.


2nd, recognizing that there is no contradiction in reason or fairness between humans (i.e. people) having different rights than nonhumans is recognizing reality.

3rd, recognizing that there is no contradiction in different categories of “non people “ is recognizing reality. After all, dogs and bees are non people as well as corporations.

From everything he’s written, it doesn’t seem like he’s engaging in full good faith—or that he’s actually read the Citizens United opinion with care. His responses rely heavily on emotional deflection and rhetorical exaggeration. Instead of addressing the legal or constitutional arguments being made, he repeatedly shifts the conversation toward imagined dystopian scenarios and comparisons that are wildly off-base, like invoking racism, antisemitism, or vague conspiratorial tropes.

He’s not really engaging with the actual legal distinction between individuals and corporations. Every time that point is clarified, he either ignores it or tries to collapse it into a false equivalence—like saying churches and corporations are the same, or that denying personhood to a legal structure is akin to denying someone’s humanity. That’s not just inaccurate—it’s manipulative.

What’s also telling is that he hasn’t once referenced the actual reasoning behind the Citizens United decision. He doesn’t engage with the Court’s language, the legal arguments presented by either side, or the dissent’s concerns about corruption and disproportionate influence. That strongly suggests he hasn’t read the opinion, or if he has, he’s not interested in discussing it seriously.

Instead of addressing core constitutional principles, he leans on volume and emotion—flooding the conversation with “what about” hypotheticals and attempting to portray critics of corporate personhood as irrational or hateful. That’s not a search for truth; it’s a defensive posture meant to shut down real dialogue.

At best, he’s arguing from a deeply held belief. But the way he’s doing it—dodging the legal core, misrepresenting the opposing view, and drowning out reason with drama—suggests he’s not here to understand. He’s here to win a rhetorical battle, not to weigh a constitutional one.

NHC

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Also the poll is misleading because it conflates legal personhood with natural personhood—corporations may have limited First Amendment protections as legal entities, but that doesn’t make them “people” in the same way individuals are, nor entitle them to full political speech rights like unlimited election spending.


Better Poll Question:

What should be the extent of First Amendment rights for corporations?


A. Corporations should have no First Amendment rights—they are not people.


B. Corporations should have limited First Amendment protections only to support the rights of individuals within them (e.g., press, religion).


C. Corporations should have full First Amendment rights, including unlimited political spending.


D. Not sure / Need more information.

NHC

This is explicitly about allowing corporations to restricts rights of individuals, and nothing else. When someone complains about the rights of corporations being infringed, they generally mean they want corporations to be free of consequences of what they say (when it promotes white Christian nationalism) and to withhold services (when it promotes white Christian nationalism).

 

[unapologetic]

if you can't agree on what "not people" means...

Hay Lump, Who the fuck are you to tell me I have to agree with anybody.
I stand on my 1st amendment right to express an opinion of my very own.

How about bankers? money-lenders? the Bilderbergers? They're also "not people"?

No, they are not persons.* (see the quote from Bilby)

Or, what about ticket-scalpers

Greedy persons. Acting alone. Not a group.

Chinese auto-workers -- stealin' our jobs

People but not citizens. And not 'scabs'.

*

The Girl Scouts is people. The Girl Scouts is not a person.

Good point. I stand corrected. (but too lazy to edit my previous comments)

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Also the poll is misleading because it conflates legal personhood with natural personhood—corporations may have limited First Amendment protections as legal entities, but that doesn’t make them “people” in the same way individuals are, nor entitle them to full political speech rights like unlimited election spending.


Better Poll Question:

What should be the extent of First Amendment rights for corporations?


A. Corporations should have no First Amendment rights—they are not people.


B. Corporations should have limited First Amendment protections only to support the rights of individuals within them (e.g., press, religion).


C. Corporations should have full First Amendment rights, including unlimited political spending.


D. Not sure / Need more information.

NHC

IMO, it depends on the nature of the corporation. Corporations exist as different types of legal constructions, having a spectrum all the way from person-like interest to specific missions to a completely for-profit business objective. Examples:

• Halliburton
• a local credit union
• Boys and Girls Club
• Democratic National Committee
• McDonald's
• Habitat for Humanity

Also, I do not believe that an apparent political opinion stated by a person claiming to represent the corporation necessarily is either indicative of the majority of persons associated with the corporation or any particular individual, even the person stating the seeming political opinion. So, if a marketing person is on the radio advocating for a public policy related to the for-profit corporate interest, it may be because of their job, and they may have gotten the directive to say so because it is the responsibility of everyone above them to direct toward the corporate mission, even if any individual doesn't believe they themselves would politically support it in an anonymous vote of individuals.

 

[jamiejacobsma]

This is quite an important topic from a business law point of view. The idea of corporations being treated as legal 'persons' has real implications — especially in areas like liability, taxation, and ownership transfer.

In my experience as one of the business brokers in Atlanta, this distinction often confuses small business owners when they’re looking to sell. It's critical to help them understand how their corporation’s legal identity affects the sale process and what it means for their personal liability.

 

[Harry Bosch]

This is quite an important topic from a business law point of view. The idea of corporations being treated as legal 'persons' has real implications — especially in areas like liability, taxation, and ownership transfer.

In my experience as one of the business brokers in Atlanta, this distinction often confuses small business owners when they’re looking to sell. It's critical to help them understand how their corporation’s legal identity affects the sale process and what it means for their personal liability.

How so? I'm a business owner looking to sell my company. More accurately, selling my share of the company.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This is quite an important topic from a business law point of view. The idea of corporations being treated as legal 'persons' has real implications — especially in areas like liability, taxation, and ownership transfer.

In my experience as one of the business brokers in Atlanta, this distinction often confuses small business owners when they’re looking to sell. It's critical to help them understand how their corporation’s legal identity affects the sale process and what it means for their personal liability.

How so? I'm a business owner looking to sell my company. More accurately, selling my share of the company.

For starters, if corporations were just people, then selling the corporation would be slavery.

 

[Bronzeage]

I never saw a corporation that had a birth certificate or a driver's license.

Corporations are a fairly new idea in human history. It's not a person or a thing. It's an idea. A corporation is defined by law and is a totally human creation. Humans decide what a corporation is and what it can do. It's chief function is to allow people to collect money from other people for a specific purpose. The other people expect to get back more money than they contributed, and that's usually what happens. The cool part is, no matter how much money you gave, you are not responsible for anything the corporation does. If a corporation somehow poisons a million people, or causes some terrible disease, all you have at risk is the original money. Creditors and plaintiffs can't come to you and say, "That corporation of which you own a share doesn't have enough to pay the damages, so you have to cough up some more money". You lose, but that's all you lose.

Since a corporation is just a definition made by people, we can change the definition and the rules any time we please. The real question is why?

Collecting a large amount of money gives a small group of people the power to do something big, such as build a railroad of a steel mill. All things that benefit the rest of us. The corporate personhood was never an issue until corporate persons wanted to use their economic power to influence politics. That gets complicated because it's politics that limits what a corporation can do. Politics says, "You can't poison the air and the water, even if it does cost a lot more to make steel."

So that's what's really behind the question of "Are corporations people?" Corporations want the rules to be changed so that instead of just taking people's money, which is expected to be paid back with dividends, they want the power to take people's health and quality of life, without compensation.

Whether a corporation is a person is simply a matter of do we want them to be people.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

No-brainer

So if Pres. Trump confiscates the literature of some non-profit corporation publishing something critical toward him, that doesn't violate their 1st Amendment right to free speech and free press? Because that corporation is "not people" and so has no 1st Amendment rights?

Get serious!

Corporations have always had the right to free speech and have always been protected by the 1st Amendment.

 

[NoHolyCows]

No-brainer

It’s only a “no-brainer” if you ignore the actual legal and constitutional debate—which you are. This issue isn’t about whether a nonprofit can publish a newsletter. It’s about whether all corporations, including the largest for-profit entities on Earth, should be treated as full political speakers under the First Amendment, capable of spending unlimited money to influence elections. That’s a serious question, not a punchline.

So if Pres. Trump confiscates the literature of some non-profit corporation publishing something critical toward him, that doesn't violate their 1st Amendment right to free speech and free press? Because that corporation is "not people" and so has no 1st Amendment rights?

That’s a complete misrepresentation. If the government suppresses speech by a group of individuals working through a nonprofit, it absolutely implicates the First Amendment—because it violates the rights of the people behind the organization. The Constitution protects individual expression, even when channeled through associations like a nonprofit or media outlet. But that’s not what Citizens United was about. That decision wasn’t about protecting the rights of individuals in a nonprofit—it was about granting independent constitutional political speech rights to for-profit corporations, which are not expressive associations, but legal mechanisms created to pursue profit, not truth, justice, or democratic participation.

Get serious!

I am. You’re the one substituting serious legal and democratic concerns with knee-jerk slogans and misplaced outrage. If you want to debate the implications of Citizens United, fine—but conflating censorship of a press organization with the unlimited election spending of a multinational corporation is not serious. It’s a tactic meant to obscure the real issue.

Corporations have always had the right to free speech and have always been protected by the 1st Amendment.

Flatly false. Corporations have been granted limited constitutional protections—in commercial speech, contract rights, and in some cases press protections—not a blanket equivalence to human beings. Citizens United was a radical expansion. Before it, corporate political spending could be regulated precisely because the government distinguished between natural persons and legal entities. The ruling broke with a century of precedent that recognized the need to prevent concentrated economic power from overwhelming political discourse.

So no—corporations haven’t “always had” full speech rights. That’s the very myth Citizens United turned into law. And pretending otherwise doesn’t strengthen your argument—it exposes that it’s built on historical revisionism, not constitutional fidelity.

NHC

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No-brainer

So if Pres. Trump confiscates the literature of some non-profit corporation publishing something critical toward him, that doesn't violate their 1st Amendment right to free speech and free press?

It depends on exactly what kind of legal construction the corporation is. What is the tax status of the legal entity, i.e., is it a 501c3, 501c4, something else?

Restriction of political campaign intervention by Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations | Internal Revenue Service

Political Campaign Activity by section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations

www.irs.gov

 

[NoHolyCows]

Lumpenproletariat

You keep making sweeping claims about what the First Amendment “always” guaranteed, but it’s clear you haven’t actually read the Citizens United decision—or the rulings it overturned.

If you had, you’d know that corporations have not always had full First Amendment rights, especially when it comes to political spending. For decades, the Court upheld laws that limited corporate influence in elections—most notably in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and McConnell v. FEC (2003). Citizens United explicitly overturned those rulings. That’s not continuity. That’s a constitutional U-turn.

You’re also conflating two entirely different things: the First Amendment rights of individuals who form associations, and the Court’s decision to grant corporations themselves the same political speech rights as natural persons. That distinction is the heart of this case—and ignoring it doesn’t make your argument stronger, it shows you haven’t done the reading.

And no, criticizing Citizens United isn’t about “hating corporations.” It’s about recognizing that a legal entity created by filing paperwork with the state—designed to generate profit and limit liability—is not the same as a living, breathing citizen with a voice in a democracy.

You keep invoking extreme hypotheticals about censorship to deflect from what the decision actually did: it gave corporations, regardless of size, mission, or structure, the constitutional right to spend unlimited money on elections—not to protect individual voices, but to unleash institutional power.

That wasn’t about defending a press outlet or protecting free speech. It was about removing limits on how much capital can be used to influence public power.

If you’re serious about debating this ruling, read the opinion—both the majority and Justice Stevens’ dissent. Until then, you’re not arguing law. You’re recycling talking points without understanding what was actually decided.

NHC

 

[unapologetic]

if corporations were just people, then selling the corporation would be slavery.

Also OWNING corporations would be slavery

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

But how is the corporation "not people"
anymore than the PTA is "not people"?

Stop pretending you've answered this.
No one has answered what "not people" means.

But those also are "not individual" -- they are groups. [i.e. Girl Scouts, Little League, PTA, etc.]

That’s true—they are groups. But the distinction is not between “individual” and “group,” it’s between associative expression by individuals and independent political power held by a state-created legal entity.

You're just making up those terms "associative expression by individuals" and "independent political power held by a state-created legal entity" -- you can't cite anything in established law or court ruling which uses this terminology to officially distinguish between groups which are "people" having 1st Amendments rights in contrast to "not people" groups having no 1st Amendment rights.

But, assuming those words mean something (other than just your subjective rage against corporations), how does "independent political power held by a state-created legal entity" turn them (or the group they belong to) into "not people"? They are just "people" who have this "independent political power" or they are "people" who are now a "state-created legal entity" -- which doesn't magically turn their group into "not people" any more than it was before.


joining the PTA vs. forming a corporation

Consider these 2 different hypothetical "people" who are almost exactly the same socially -- 1) One of them joins the local PTA (attends a PTA meeting and joins) while 2) the other forms a corporation at a local state office. So these 2 different "people" have now changed, and each belongs to a group they didn't belong to before, and either might have some new social advantage or responsibility s/he didn't have before -- so they've both changed and are "people" interacting with other "people" in their new social activity they chose. How is this new social activity "not people" in one case anymore than the other? (corporation vs. PTA)?

What is it about this corporation membership that is any less "people" than belonging to the PTA? No one has answered this, including the NoHolyCows above "associative expression by individuals" and "independent political power held by a state-created legal entity" -- that fancy wording doesn't explain how every corporation is "not people" whereas a local PTA group is people.

Both are "people" groups doing something different than other groups, but these groups are "people" in either case, regardless of the differences between them. OR --- you could also say:

neither group is "people" but rather they are social constructs to which people join, so both these social constructs have "people" members in them. In which case the PTA also is "not people" just like the corporation.


How is a "social construct" not also "people"?

You go off the deep end when you insist that there's a difference such that one of these is "people" and the other is "not people" -- How is that? What explains the "people" status of one but "not people" status of the other?

Explain how the PTA is "people" but the corporation is "not people." Both are the same in being an entity which has people members. Though they might be very different in the activities they do and maybe are subject to different rules or conditions, that doesn't change the fact that both of these entities -- PTA and corporation -- are equally "people" or "not people."

You must explain it if you're using this verbiage to distinguish someone as "not people" and thus having no 1st Amendment rights. How do you explain it? -- churches, PTA etc. are "people" but corporations are "not people":

Groups like churches or PTAs are protected [by the 1st Amendment because these are "people" groups, unlike corporations which are "not people"] because they represent the constitutional rights of their members acting in concert. [But by contrast] Corporations, in the Citizens United context, are not simply people associating; they are structured legal entities with economic privileges, and their political activity doesn’t necessarily reflect the will of their members.

"structured legal entities with economic privileges . . ." Is this really what defines "corporation"? Or is this a description of all corporations? which excludes them from the "people" category? No.

The Oxford Dictionary definition is: "a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law." https://www.google.com/search?q=def...OyBwowLjExLjYtMS4xuAfHHA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

So Corporations are official entities authorized to act "as a single entity (legally a person)" = "people" -- in contrast to the NoHolyCows formula above which tries to brand them as "not people" -- But let's instead accommodate the emotional bias of the Left-wing crusaders and accept the propaganda version: they are "structured legal entities with economic privileges, and their political activity doesn’t necessarily reflect the will of their members." -- those bad corporations! with their "privileges" and antidemocratic wickedness, as preached by NoHolyCows.

So, assuming that's what they are, it still doesn't explain how the corporation is any less "people" than the PTA. Why can't a "structured legal entity with economic privileges" be "people"? Just because they are "structured legal entities" etc. does not make them "not people" -- they are just a different group of people than the PTA group, and maybe a different kind of group doing much different activity and subject to different conditions -- but they are still "people" just as the PTA or church is "people" with 1st Amendment rights.

Just because these 2 different groups of people can be very different in the role they play in society -- or one can be more important or powerful than the other, or have an advantage -- does not change the fact that they are both equally "people" -- neither is any more "not people" than the other.

So if you're going to pronounce that corporations are "not people" (because they're a "social construct" etc.) why must you not also pronounce that the local church or PTA or sewing club also are "not people" because they are "social constructs" having a "not people" aspect to them? Don't they also contain people in them but are not themselves "people" -- the noncorporate groups just as much as the corporate groups?


Girl Scouts/PTA/Little League/Neighborhood Watch = "not people"

Here's a scholar-pundit who says you're wrong to separate the corporations this way from the churches/PTA -- because the latter are also "not people" and have no 1st Amendment rights:

Apologetic: Governments can decide to impose rights and responsibilities on organizations/corporations.
But they ain't people. They are not automatically entitled to the same rights as a human just because a human joined. They cannot claim 1st amendment rights.

So Apologetic includes the Girl Scouts and PTA etc. as "organizations" who ain't people and have no 1st Amendment rights. --

MICKEY MOUSE IS NOT A PERSON. Sunday 6:29 pm #37:

So the Girl Scouts has no rights? no right to free speech, to free assembly, to freely publish something?

They have always been people, just like the local PTA is people, and the Little League, and the Moose Lodge, and the local bingo game club.

And the KKK too?
No. those are organizations ["social constructs"] subject to a different set of laws [different than "people" groups] They contain people who can speak, publish, and assemble.
The organizations do not have 1st amendment rights. . . . I do not consider churches to be people.

Obviously the corporate-bashers don't have their act together about what "not people" means, because they can't say what is and is not in the "not people" category.

So before we can determine who is "not people" and who is "people" we have to decide which guru-pundit has the correct divinely-inspired vision -- NoHolyCows or Apologetic -- as to whether the Girl Scouts/PTA/churches etc. also are "not people". If your explanation for what identifies corporations as "not people" is based only on your own private vision in contradiction to another pundit's vision, how is society supposed to judge that corporations are "not people"? -- how do you expect everyone to fall in line with your "not people" vision rather than a different pundit's vision? How do we know whether one or both of you is a phony? a fraud? a charlatan, pretending to dictate who is "people" and who is not?


Where does Established Law say a corporation is "not people"?

Why can't you ground your "not people" doctrine from some basis in law, in history or in previous court rulings, in something objective which doesn't rely on your personal authority to pronounce who is "not people"? You're not getting this doctrine from anything based in history or legal precedent but only from current political propaganda and politician speechmakers and your knee-jerk hate of corporations planted in you by your Left-wing guru (or your labor union speech-maker demagogue). It's only leftist hate of corporations which explains why corporations are "not people" -- you've cited nothing other than this.

The same deep emotional IMPULSE drives NoHolyCows and Apologetic to insist that "corporations are not people" -- and yet they can't get their act together to distinguish what is "people" from what is "not people" or what groups are "not people" vs. those which are "people." According to NoHolyCows "not people" describes only corporations and does not include noncorporate organizations, while Apologetic insists that the noncorporates (PTA, Girl Scouts) also are "not people" --- When your explanation thus necessarily contradicts itself, then it's not a real explanation at all but is only your obsession with this "not people" slogan spoon-fed to you by political propagandists and adopted by you as an outlet for your rage against corporations you need to lash out at, an out-of-control subconscious rage which cannot be contained but has to erupt in some form regardless what explanation you pretend to offer for it.


Origin of "not people" mantra

Outside of political propaganda sources, or Leftist politician-demagogues giving speeches, you cannot cite where this "not people" language comes from. The words "people" and "person" are in the Constitution and in other official legal language, but you can't cite the "not people" language anywhere in the law, other than this one case where this phrase is officially rejected by the Court as having no legal legitimacy. Nowhere can you cite a law or Court ruling which says some group is "not people" --- you are pulling this phrase out of your ass (or your political pundit's ass), not from anything you or your pundit learned in law school or in law books.

The above reasoning by NoHolyCows and Unapologetic is no different than that of 2 religious gurus who are each driven by "the Holy Spirit" and yet are contradicting each other, like 2 competing Popes who each excommunicate the other. One guru would prohibit the PTA from publishing something controversial because the PTA is "not people" while the other says only the corporation is "not people" but PTA is "people" and so is entitled to 1st Amendment rights. Why should our rights be based on what this guru pronounces as "people" or "not people" but who is contradicted by another guru who distinguishes the "people" groups differently? and neither can explain why his "people" vs. "not people" partitioning of society is the correct one?

How can our rights be restricted based upon this or that guru's revelation on who is "people" and who is "not people"? That someone, individual or group, is "not people" according to a certain guru cannot be the real reason for their rights to be curtailed. Rather, some individuals or groups traditionally have been restricted in their rights because of certain circumstances which apply to them and are spelled out in the Law -- in the Law, not private interpretation by this or that guru or political propaganda pundit.

E.g. according to the law an individual accused of a crime loses some liberty, being subject to detention, even though the Constitution guarantees to him the right to liberty ("life, liberty, property"). It isn't because he's "not people" that he's restricted, but because "people" can be restricted in their rights as a result of certain conditions in their case, conditions written into the law, maybe even conditions which are not that person's fault. The same is true of a group which has rights because it is "people" or "persons" who are protected by the Constitution. Whether to restrict a Constitutional right cannot be based on a doctrine separating "people" from "not people" according to someone's private gut-level interpretation and changing from one day to the next depending on which spirit-led guru is designating for that day who are the "people" groups and who are the "not people" groups (or maybe depending on what the guru ate for breakfast). Not even for mush-brain Progressives can this be how Constitutional rights are determined.


The Court rejects your spurious "not people" slogan.

If it's all in the arbitrary interpretation of the Supreme Court, which can designate who is "people" and who is "not people" -- well then, it's been decided: The Court decided that all groups are covered, including corporations, which are "people" for purposes of the 1st Amendment -- in accord with the genuine definition of "corporation" -- "a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law." -- not the latest political propaganda slogans created for the mob -- That's what the Supreme Court decision was based upon. They rejected the doctrines which make any kind of group "not people" with no 1st Amendment rights.

--- BUT, what if this had been a LEFT-WING Court? -- rather than the current Right-wing Court with so many Trump and Bush appointees? Would a Left-wing Court have ruled instead that corporations are "not people"? Not at all! A Left-wing Court would have ruled that the corporation Citizens United was required to meet the conditions imposed by the Federal Election Commission -- i.e., required to meet conditions imposed by law, not by your partisan political agenda or by your Progressive Grand Guru Wizard and his private revelations -- and so that film might have been suppressed by a Left-wing Supreme Court, by restricting the company, ruling that the Commission's order against them did not violate their 1st Amendment rights. Even a Left-wing Court would never pronounce that the corporation is "not people" -- that kind of propaganda language is not proper for legal and court purposes. Its ruling would have been that this "people" corporation is subject to the regulations of the Election Commission, and that the regulation in question was legal, or not contrary to the 1st Amendment.

So your private interpretation based on your hate for corporations is no argument to overturn the Court's decision. You can't claim that the Holy Spirit which inspired you to hate corporations is somehow superior to the Supreme Court's Holy Spirit which inspired it to rule that all groups are "people."

If you want a person's or group's rights to be restricted, the justification for it has to be that there are conditions which legally apply in that case (for that person or people group) where the rights are to be restricted. The reasoning is not that the person or group is "not people" -- no, even people's rights can be restricted. Just saying "but I'm a person" doesn't mean your rights cannot ever be restricted. If you're "people" involved in some activity which is subject to those restrictions, then your rights might be curtailed. To argue that someone is "not people" or is "people" is irrelevant. The question is: do they meet the particular conditions which are treated differently by law so that the rights are curtailed in such a case?

To argue that someone is "not people" is never a legitimate reason to restrict their rights, or say they have no rights -- unless maybe they're non-human, an animal, or a tree. The argument always has to be whether there are the special conditions in this case for which there are exceptions, exceptions stated in the law, allowing the rights to be restricted, not because someone is "not people" or similar rhetoric. Such special conditions may be the case for an individual "person" or for a group or corporation.


Spending on an independent political propaganda film

What if one individual is publishing the item in question but relies partly on help from a group, from the PTA or a church, or from a corporation. Does the help you get from a group or corporation turn the whole publication into a "not people" publication to be banned?

Or, what if instead of Citizens United Inc. it had been a wealthy individual tycoon who spent millions of dollars on a propaganda film, and this could have had an impact on an election. Why would that be any different than the Citizens United case? Since that wealthy tycoon is a "person" or is "people" with 1st Amendment rights, is he protected in producing the political propaganda film? Why? Why should such a film be banned if a corporation produced it but not if a private wealthy tycoon produced it? Unless the same free speech protection also applies to the corporation producing the film? Why shouldn't the corporation or the individual wealthy tycoon -- either one -- have the same freedom or non-freedom to promote such a film? Why shouldn't the rules be the same for either?

So it's irrelevant whether the entity spending the money is a "person" (or "people") or is a corporation. If that individual or that corporation does exactly the same thing -- producing a propaganda film, the same film causing the same social damage no matter who produces it -- isn't that damage or harm to society likely to be the same either way? So, why should one be subject to restriction of rights any more than the other? Why shouldn't the law which pertains to this apply equally to the individual "person" ("people") as to a group or a corporation doing it?

So it makes no sense to say this case should have been resolved on the question whether the plaintiff was "people" or "not people" or was a corporation or some other entity. It makes no difference what kind of entity it was. Whatever entity it might be, there are "people" connected to it in some way, wealthy people, and the Constitutional protection is extended to "people" without saying this means only to one person or excluding corporations. Rather, it includes groups of any kind. The ruling was not that there could be no law or enforcement curtailing free speech in some cases like this -- in some similar case there might be some such curtailment. The ruling was only that in this particular case free speech was infringed by the regulation, and the nutty "not people" objection was rebuked, because curtailment could not be based on a claim that the promoter of the film was "not people" -- that per se is no reason to curtail the free speech rights. So, if the producer's rights are to be curtailed, there must be a real reason, rather than someone's knee-jerk feeling that the producer/promoter is "not people."

The producers were "people" for purposes of free speech protection, according to the ruling. But if some case of a film production really does threaten damage to society, it might be curtailed so that the "people" producing it might be curtailed. So, being "people" doesn't give any absolute guarantee to unlimited free speech which can't possibly be curtailed in some hypothetical case. If there was damage done by Citizens United in producing the film, then that damage would be the same if a "people" group had produced it. So why make a fuss over the producer being "not people"? How does being "not people" make the production of that film any worse?

"But they're not people!" is just an outburst by political fanatics on a crusade. No one is making any sense out of it, other than just to use it as a rallying cry for a mob of fanatics promoting a Leftist anti-business agenda. The main point of the "not people" slogan is that it's an effective dog-whistle for rallying the mindless mob.