Comments on: Shapiro and McCarthy on Citizens United

By: pentamom

pentamom — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 20:04:32 +0000

But if the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law restricting…” then does it mater whether we agree whether the rights of the corporation differ from the rights of the individual? The point here is the rights of Congress, which explicitly exclude making laws that restrict the freedom of speech. It doesn’t say whose freedom — that’s not what the FA is addressing. It says which freedom, which is explicitly addressed — speech.

By: Michael PS

Michael PS — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:48:30 +0000

A great English jurist, A V Dicey, once observed that “When a body of twenty, or two thousand, or two hundred thousand men bind themselves together to act in a particular way for some common purpose, they create a body, which by no fiction of law, but by the very nature of things, differs from the individuals of whom it is constituted.”

Or, listen to F W Maitland, “My organised group shall be a sovereign state. Let us call it Nusquamia. Like many other sovereign states, it owes money, and I will suppose that you are one of its creditors. You are not receiving the expected interest and there is talk of repudiation. That being so, I believe that you will be, and indeed I think that you ought to be, indignant, morally, righteously indignant. Now the question that I want to raise is this: Who is it that really owes you money? Nusquamia. Granted, but can you convert the proposition that Nusquamia owes you money into a series of propositions imposing duties on certain human beings that are now in existence? The task will not be easy. Clearly you do not think that every Nusquamian owes you some aliquot share of the debt. No one thinks in that way. … Nor, I think, shall we get much good out of the word “collectively,” which is the smudgiest word in the English language, for the largest “collection” of zeros is only zero.”

There are real legal and moral questions here that go far beyond mere political rhetoric.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:33:51 +0000

So, just to be clear on what the “liberal” position on free speech is:
Joe’s Video Game Shop CAN sell Grand Theft Auto to a 10 year old, because that sale is free speech and protected by the 1st Amendment (and the product is not obscene).

Joe’s Video Game Shop CANNOT run an ad saying “Vote for Candidate X” during an election campaign (but Joe’s Newspaper CAN, of course–although according to the LA Times now “tabloids don’t deserve the 1st Amendment” so even that’s not absolute).

So is electioneering considered obscene? Do different clauses of the 1st Amendment only apply to certain special people?

Regardless of how one feels about what legal and constitutional rights corporations have, it should be accepted by all Americans that it is truly obscene to suppress political speech like this.

By: Gregory

Gregory — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:12:24 +0000

If corporations do not possess free speech rights, then does an incorporated newspaper publisher lack free speech rights?