Hacker News Reader

Comment by __blockcipher__ | Hacker News Reader

Supreme court cases build upon precedent. It sounds like your real issue is with corporate personhood. That was decided in a case that Citizens United built on, so I would recommend barking up that tree instead.

In any case, I personally feel corporate personhood actually does make sense. It’s absurd that I as an individual can engage in speech but if I communicate through a company that I solely own now I can’t.

Trying to “get money out of politics” is a fools’ errand; as Citizens v United demonstrates, speech often requires money. What we really need is the opposite: get politics out of my damn money!

(By the way, most who have been spoonfed the “get money out of politics” line are entirely ignorant on the facts of the CU case. As I recall Hillary Clinton was trying to suppress a documentary critical of her because it was too close to an election. Does that sound like something you’re a fan of?)

View on HN

Without corporate personhood, you wouldn’t lose any of your rights as an owner (stockholder), employee, or officer of a corporation- you just wouldn’t get to magnify your individual rights by using the power of the corporation. As an individual, you’d still get to speak your mind on whatever. In my opinion, you just shouldn’t be allowed to take the enormous financial power of a corporation and turn it towards your own ends and call it “individual rights”.

The “corporation” in Citizens United was a dinky non-profit. Has the case gone the other way, nothing would stop the government from regulating how the New York Times used its “enormous financial power” for speech.

> In any case, I personally feel corporate personhood actually does make sense. It’s absurd that I as an individual can engage in speech but if I communicate through a company that I solely own now I can’t.

I've always struggled reconciling this with the notion of limited liability. A similar crime does not beget a similar punishment.

It's also notable that people who complain about money in politics tend to bring up the Koch brothers most often, but the Koch brothers are an example of individuals spending large sums on speech, not corporations.

Because then you have 2 voices via 2 distinct legal entities - you as a natural person and through controlling your limited company.

You also have an issue with foreign ownership of these entities having directly electoral influence.

On the corporate personhood movement, the problem is that it is cheery picking all of the rights of natural persons while trying to shy away from as much responsibilities as possible. This needs to be re-balanced somewhat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com