FALSE DICHOTOMY
1) corporations ("not people")
(not protected by the 1st Amendment, not having Constitutional rights)
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2) noncorporations ("voluntary associations")
(protected by the 1st Amendment, having Constitutional rights)
the meaning of "Corporations are not people"
Stop lying -- you have not distinguished "corporations" (which have no rights) from other groups (which are "people" and have rights).
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Who here has explained why the cult of David Koresh (or any other noncorporation) is/was "people" with 1st Amendment rights, but Joseph Smith's LDS Church (or any other corporation) is "not people" having no 1st Amendment rights? Give the date or number of this post where this was answered, or quote from it so we can judge if this was answered. Where did they answer it? in the earlier posts? Where have they named a particular example of a corporation and explained how that group is "not people" in comparison to another (noncorporate) group which is "people" and has 1st Amendment rights?
Don't just keep repeating that this has been answered -- identify the post which answered it, quote from it
The concern with corporations [correction: megagroups] isn’t that some members disagree — it’s that the “speech” being protected is financial power used to influence elections, . . .
Even if that's true in some cases (NOT MOST cases of corporations), there are rules limiting that influence regardless of Citizens United. This case did not eliminate regulation of megacorps or their influence on elections. Even if it modified some regulations, plenty of those rules remain, to control the influence on elections, because megacorps like individual humans are "people" which society regulates as needed. Even after this case there are regulations, exerted by Congress and the Executive. The Court ruling was only that the censorship is not the right form of regulation, as it violates the 1st Amendment.
The concern with corporations [correction: megacorps] isn't that some members disagree -- it's that the "speech" being protected is financial power used to . . .
You mean someone with financial power has no free speech protection? or shouldn't have? Why not? Why shouldn't they have the same free speech protection as anyone else? And even if some special conditions are imposed on them to limit their financial power, how does that mean they're "not people"? or that they don't have 1st Amendment rights? They're still entitled to free speech and press even though they have financial power. Where in any law or legal precedent or Court Ruling was it ever said that those with "financial power" are "not people" or have no 1st Amendment rights?
. . . power used to influence elections, with no . . .
There's nothing wrong with influencing elections, or wanting to influence them. You're entitled to spend your money -- or the group is entitled to spend its money -- on influencing elections, i.e., influencing voters to change their vote. This should not be treated as something derogatory, making them "not people" or not having 1st Amendment rights. This would be to deny rights to someone (to try to influence elections) who are mostly small and have tiny influence on anyone. Again, you're imagining that ALL corporations are huge giants manipulating tiny weak minorities, when the truth is that the vast majority of corporations have no more power than the local Rotary Club. Probably less.
. . . with no accountability to the public and often not even to the individuals within the corporation [correction: megacorp].
Again you're describing only the giant megacorps.
Yes it's true that the giants generally have more power in the social structure, but even so there's
plenty of non-accountability throughout society, vast nonaccountability everywhere, in all kinds of groups big and small, corporate and noncorporate, and all of them are "people" groups with 1st Amendment rights. It's fine to crusade for more accountability in general, but what does that have to do with being "not people"? Other groups too are non-accountable to the public and to their individual members, and yet they are NONcorporate groups -- churches, clubs, fraternities. No one is explaining why those wouldn't also be in the "not people" category along with megacorps.
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stop lying and falsely claiming this has been explained by someone. If non-accountability is the reason corporations are "not people," then why aren't many other groups (NONcorporations) also "not people"? You know it's not true that ONLY CORPORATIONS are nonaccountable.
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If being nonaccountable makes a group "not people," then you have to
explain why it's only the corporations which are "not people" -- why not also other large groups which become impersonal and are run by a tiny elite? -- if you don't know, it shows you don't understand why you're claiming corporations are "not people" -- which means this is just an impulse or a knee-jerk spasm that comes from inside you somewhere, probably an emotional expression of hate or anger against corporations which you need to express in order to release some built-up pressure or rage against certain corporations which you or a loved one had a bad experience with.
If you need sympathy to help in your dealing with these emotions, maybe some counseling would help. But name-calling --
"You're not people!" -- and depriving someone of their Constitutional rights is hardly an appropriate way to deal with your inner emotional tensions you can't control or understand. More appropriate would be to determine the origin of these emotions, and seeking help to cope with them.
That's not protected to safeguard personal liberty; it’s protected to expand institutional leverage.
Each entity covered by 1st Amendment protection is entitled to that protection regardless how you judge their motivation for wanting that protection, such as whether they want to "expand" their leverage -- ALL the political players (or 90% of them) are trying to expand themselves more and more, as basic to the power struggle all of them are engaged in.
Whether they "expand" or contract -- after the dust from Citizens United has settled, there still remain limits on political influence of megacorps (or the extra large groups) which is what this is really about -- not all corporations per se. If there's a need to make the megacorps more accountable or democratic, you can promote additional restrictions on them, and even on other large entities (that are NOT corporations), including individuals (tycoons), who might exert too much power -- (
but probably not censorship, as the FEC tried to do) -- and again the restrictions are not needed for corporations generally but only the megacorps. Because 99% of corporations are irrelevant in this regard, having no more influence than the local lemonade stand.
This particular case was really about film-banning, or censorship, similar to
book-banning. This was probably a bad regulation, or a case of overreach by the Election Commission. However, even if the film producer Citizens United acted wrongly in circulating their movie, and needed to be curtailed -- you could argue the case -- it's not because this corporation was "not people" and so had no 1st Amendment rights. Rather it arguably would be because these "people" (or this "person" Citizens United) acted contrary to some fair-election rules. That's how a Left-wing Court probably would have ruled.
So the Commission tried to enforce its rules -- which probably should also apply to any NON-corporations doing the same thing, and so the case had nothing to do with the incorporation or the "people" or "not people" status of the film producer. And saying the film should be banned because the producer is "not people" never made any sense, and no one yet has made any sense of this nutcase argument that someone is "not people" -- it still is nothing but a Left-wing outburst against megacorps, a dog-whistle slogan to the mindless mob, with nothing of substance legally.
Is censorship the only remedy you can think of?
You should be able to figure out better forms of controlling the power of the giants (the megacorps, not "corporations" of every kind -- most of which are not megacorps (99% of them) and have no such power). No doubt there are ways to improve the performance of the Election Commission so it could better regulate the giant players. Its attack on Citizens United was probably wrong, clumsy and misguided, as censorship (book-banning and film-banning) is not a good way to make elections more fair. Any person, group, corporation big or small should have the right to publish political propaganda, even during election time. Free speech and free press are so important and basic that virtually
any censorship of political propaganda is out of bounds.
It's healthy for democracy that groups other than only the candidates be allowed to publish political propaganda (as this case was about). This bad decision by the Election Commission -- censoring political propaganda -- is a greater threat to democracy than the large megacorps spending too much on the propaganda.
Even wrong-headed propaganda is educational, and there is no net danger to democracy for the voting public to be exposed to it, even if the propaganda contains erroneous content.
You are wrong to dismiss the mass of voters as idiots who cannot judge political propaganda. You're wrong to downgrade them to an inferior class incapable of making intelligent decisions as voters. Stop pretending that you're superior to them and qualified to judge what propaganda is healthy for them to be exposed to!
If you really have such contempt for all voters, such that censorship is needed to protect them from voting stupidly, then why do you want to "get out the vote" and increase voter participation? If you really believe the voters are a mass of idiots who need censorship to protect them from being wrongly influenced, then you should favor reducing the voters to only the more educated classes, or some other screening to weed out the more ignorant ones.
The real danger is entrenchment of the current regime: With censorship as its weapon, the current faction in power can seize on the regulation to
censor dissenting political publications, giving partisan favor to the propaganda they agree with and banning only the propaganda they oppose for partisan reasons. It's better for these regulators (acting as agents for the current Administration?) to keep hands off any form of censorship, banning political or controversial propaganda -- (with proper exception for anything criminal).
What might be legitimate instead would be some form of "reality check" review and assessment of such propaganda -- how about
grand jury review of election propaganda and publication or announcement of the jury's findings. Such factual investigation and published information would be based on the premise that the masses of citizens are not idiots but are capable of good judgement as MORE information (not less) is presented to them. This would serve to counterbalance deceptive and false propaganda by publishing a refutation of it, so that
counter-argument rather than censorship is the proper way to respond to the deceptive propaganda.
That’s not protected to safeguard personal liberty; it’s protected to expand institutional leverage.
What does that mean? 1st Amendment protection is wrong unless it's done for the correct reason? You have a Papal Bull dictating what is the proper/improper motive or reason for 1st Amendment protection in this or that case? What does "expand institutional leverage" mean? = expand someone's power? Whose? Aren't those not in power entitled to publish propaganda to promote their crusade? "expand" their influence or power, or their opportunity to spread their cause to others and even to win power away from the current regime by legal means?
To EXPAND one's influence (or "leverage")
("expand institutional leverage") -- is this always wrong?
"institutional" vs. what? vs. personal, individual?
You mean someone is promoting "institutional" power? Is that bad? Anything "institutional" is unhealthy? dangerous to society? unwholesome? HOW? according to who?
Is it the Pope? Trump's Supreme Court? who says this "institutional leverage" is a threat to us?
And so it must be CENSORED? Crack down on those trying to promote something "institutional"??
No, here's a better idea -- promote the alternative, the personal or individual, or whatever the alternative to "institutional" is. If something being published is dangerous or wicked, then find ways to publish something else which would be better, or not dangerous or wicked.
Whoever those dangerous wicked people are, you can't deny them 1st Amendment protection only because you want to keep them out of power per se -- stop them from
expanding (and thus entrench
your faction or regime instead of theirs). No, you can defeat the opposition through proper competition in the social debating process, not through censoring the opposition. The publishers of the offensive political propaganda are
entitled to promote their agenda and their power -- acquiring more power is not inherently wrong if it's done by publishing political propaganda which isn't criminal (or inciting to crime).
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