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Comment by throwawayjava | Hacker News Reader

Sure.

Citizens United is also terrible.

I agree, but that is a clear result of the 1st Amendment. And you get lots of people angry if you start to question whether the 1st Amendment is a great idea.

No, it isn't. It's a result of a surprising and non-obvious legal doctrine established in a case regarding the 14th Amendment.

Citizens United itself was a 5-4 decision, so it's fair to say that CU was also a far-from-clear result.

I am not sure what you are really arguing here. The 14th Amendment portion of Citizens United is not the part of the case that has relevancy to this discussion. Overturning that portion would still allow Thiel's actions since he was acting as an individual. It would have a greater chance of effecting the EFF's action in that regard.

> The 14th Amendment portion of Citizens United is not the part of the case that has relevancy to this discussion

The Citizens United decision rests on Corporate Personhood. Corporate Personhood was established in a case testing the limits of the 14th amendment.

“Corporate personhood" is the whole point of the corporate form, and predates the US.

As does "freedom of speech", I guess. But both of those things mean something more specific in the context of US constitutional law, of course. It's that more specific meaning to which I'm referring. Sorry for the lack of precision.

Anyways, my only point was that Citizens United was not exactly a clear or obvious application of the First Amendment, and offering up the integral role of cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment as examples.

I guess merely mentioning that the decision was 5-4 would've been enough and prevented this now rather long thread.

Citizens United was a case that addressed two issues. There was the 14th Amendment issue of corporate personhood and the 1st Amendment issue of whether money equals speech. Both of those had been applied separately before but this decision unified the two. You are focusing on the 14th Amendment portion while I was referencing the 1st Amendment portion, which is also likely the less controversial portion.

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