03-28-2013, 02:35 PM
Mr Downtown wrote:
Yes, I'm aware that the FEC regs struck down in Citizens United could have been cast as a sort of time-manner-place restriction. But that doesn't mean that the First Amendment doesn't apply to corporations.
As a legal question as answered by the courts, that is correct. That is a question of fact - courts have ruled corporations enjoy some Constitutional rights to some degree. But whether or not it should be the case that they have any rights or to what degree they should have the same rights as a living person is a question of values and that question is still quite debatable.
What I should have said more explicitly in my post you were responding to is that the OP doesn't distinguish between corporate rights as a matter of legal record or, as a question of values, what rights, if any, corporations should have vis-a-vis actual people. I think it would be helpful to keep that in mind if the discussion proceeds.