For or against a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United

[Ideologue]

Isn't the whole concept of natural rights granted by god / the creator confirmed in law just a legal fiction too?

Yes.

[LaCroix]

Isn't the whole concept of natural rights granted by god / the creator confirmed in law just a legal fiction too?

People made up the concept of "rights". People made up the concept of allowing people to individually or collectively form legal entities that have limited liability. If people want to make up the concept of giving rights to corporations, I see no reason to consider that as the step crossing the threshold of wierdness.

of course. the first amendment prohibiting the government from interferring with free speech created a right. a "right" is merely that, something a person or business is allowed to do. corporations are not considered human post-CU any more than they were pre-CU, but corporations do have slightly more rights

[grumbler]

Isn't the whole concept of natural rights granted by god / the creator confirmed in law just a legal fiction too?

People made up the concept of "rights". People made up the concept of allowing people to individually or collectively form legal entities that have limited liability. If people want to make up the concept of giving rights to corporations, I see no reason to consider that as the step crossing the threshold of wierdness.

Human rights are a postulate.  There is no way to prove them to be true.  However, they aren't a legal fiction, in the sense that corporations are.  Corporations are created by law; human rights, by postulate (they predate law).  The USSC is not empowered to create postulates; it must accept the ones that exist (though it obviously must determine they exist where necessary, as in the "unenumerated rights").  To go straight from "humans have rights as a consequence of being human" to "corporations have rights as a consequence of we say so" is, as Minsky notes, to tumble down the slippery slope.  If the USSC can do that, then it can certainly grant rights to other fictions like generations or The Red-headed League.

Now, if statute were to give give certain "rights" ("powers," more properly) to corporations, then you are talking a different case.  That's not what is happening here.

[grumbler]

of course. the first amendment prohibiting the government from interferring with free speech created a right. a "right" is merely that, something a person or business is allowed to do. corporations are not considered human post-CU any more than they were pre-CU, but corporations do have slightly more rights

Do you really want to cling to the position that no American had a right to free speech prior to December 15, 1791?

[crazy canuck]

Lacroix, you know what is wierd?  Someone who thinks that a legal fiction created for the sole purpose of allowing shareholders to enjoy limited liablity has the same rights as real people.  That is some wierd stuff right there.

you could point to lots of things we take for granted and call it legal fiction, so i'm unpersuaded by that argument

Yeah, I know.  That is what is so weird.  A corporation is so obviously a legal fiction which is created for the sole purpose of allowing shareholders to enjoy limited liability that nobody in their right mind ought to think corporations enjoy the same rights as people.  Weird.

[The Minsky Moment]

i never said the austin court holds corporation has rights.  . . . the austin court discusses at length the rights corporations have.

You've lost me. 

Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535, 45 S.Ct. 571, 573, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925), the court concluded that a corporation's First Amendment rights must derive from its property rights under the Fourteenth.

I don't know where you got this from.  Pierce didn't say anything about the First Amendment, it was a 14th amendment due process case, based on Meyer v. Nebraska, which was decided prior to the incorporation of the First Amendment against the states.  The holding in Pierce was that "we think it entirely plain that the Act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control: as often heretofore pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Constitution may not be abridged by legislation which has no reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the State."

First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 778 (1978)

Bellotti is the same formulation as Austin, in fact that's where Austin got it from.  The fact that X is a corporation doesn't mean that communications coming from X are outside the ambit of the First Amendment.  True.  That is what Bellotti holds, that is what Austin holds, and probably a dozen other cases. 

CU goes beyond that - well beyond.

i'm not sure why you continue to maintain corporations have no rights. it's flat out weird

It is the opposite proposition that a corporation qua artificial entity can be said to have "rights" is weird.  It is so weird that poor Alito had to tie himself in knots over Hobby Lobby.  Because logically if corporations as entities really do have constitutional rights, then it should not matter one whit whether the entity is "close" corporation or widely held.  On the contrary, on the logic of Citizens United that seems to place weight on "'the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy'" - widely held corporations should be more privileged in the exercise of their "rights".  But even Alito is forced to turn back in the face of the sheer inanity of positing the right of an artificial entity to the free exercise of its[?!] religion.  So he wisely falls back to the pre-CU notion, reflected in Bellotti and Austin of tying the speech harm to actual human beings, only to then fall down another rabbit hole in the way he treats close corporations as alter egos.

[alfred russel]

Human rights are a postulate.  There is no way to prove them to be true.  However, they aren't a legal fiction, in the sense that corporations are.  Corporations are created by law; human rights, by postulate (they predate law). 

The origins of law are prehistoric. You can't authoritatively state that human rights predate law, because some version of law apparently predated recorded history.

Also, concepts of human rights have radically changed through time. The concept of human rights may be quite old, but rights as we know them (freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc.) are quite recent.

[CountDeMoney]

Sounds to me like corporations can be killed in self-defense.

[LaCroix]

Do you really want to cling to the position that no American had a right to free speech prior to December 15, 1791?

well now, i don't know the laws of each colony, or which laws the united states adopted upon formulation. however, based off your recent reply, it seems we have different interpretations of "right."

to me, a right is something allowed by a nation's laws. at a base level (something caveman era, i guess), there are no rights by definition

you* find a right to be an idea, inherently existing

however, the problem is when these two different interpretations are confused. you* hold to the second, while SCOTUS's decision in citizens united held to the first. SCOTUS was not saying a corporation is a human being, and corporations have inherent rights. no, it was furthering american law concerning the rights of corporations - which has been long evolving. what SCOTUS did with citizens united was no different than all those other cases before it that extended rights to corporations

*at least i think that's your position. correct me if i'm wrong

[Razgovory]

Sounds to me like corporations can be killed in self-defense.

I'm waiting for a corporation to be given the right to self-defense.  Hire a bunch of gunmen to shoot the lawyers trying to liquidate it.

[LaCroix]

You've lost me.

a court's "holding" is a determination by the court. in dicta, which is discussion leading up to a court's holding, austin clearly talks about corporations having rights. austin did not hold corporations have rights, but in discussing its opinion before reaching its determination, austin (along with all these other cases) does say corporations have rights

i mean, you can try to argue all you want about your interpretation of what all these hundreds (thousands probably) of cases are saying when they refer to the rights corporations enjoy, but that only makes it your interpretation. fact is, a corporation who has a right to do something because the first amendment authorized it means that corporation enjoys protection of the first amendment

[DGuller]

Sounds to me like corporations can be killed in self-defense.

I'm waiting for a corporation to be given the right to self-defense.  Hire a bunch of gunmen to shoot the lawyers trying to liquidate it.

[chipwich]

Of course corporations have a right to self-defense. Why do you think banks have guards with guns?

[mongers]

Of course corporations have a right to self-defense. Why do you think banks have guards with guns?

Chipwich, how are you doing ?   

[chipwich]

I would turn this around - if the New York Times DOES have free speech rights because it is a corporation, why is there a need for a specific freedom of the press outside the already articulated freedom of speech?

I would turn this around - if the New York Times DOES have free speech rights because it is a corporation, why is there a need for a specific freedom of the press outside the already articulated freedom of speech?

I'm not familiar with the distinction between the two. If you have something to say on that matter, please say it.