Supreme Court takes case regarding commercial free speech rights

**rock_lobster** · 03-25-09, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by hawgballs

My take is that corporations should not be considered as individual citizens, and shouldn't be afforded rights equal to individual citizens.

Not saying I agree or disagree, but what would you have them be? And who is held accountable for the actions of said corporation, should a problem arise?

**Red_Lizard2** · 03-25-09, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by MotoZ

Originally Posted by Ruukil

People have free speech, they also have to be held accountable for what they say. The same can be said for corporations.

That's the brain dead way out of the issue. In the math world your answer might be labeled a "degenerative solution", e.g. 1=1

A corporation is not a person.

How is a corporation "held accountable"? Furthermore, once "held accountable", how can our laws prevent the corporation's bad action from happening again?

not exactly pertaining to the question but the talk about corporations and political speech made me think of this quote (my have seen it in my TBTF thread)

The US political system is already largely an owned-and-operated subisidiary of corporate America. When companies become as large as AIG or GM or Bank of America, they also gain a disproportionate influence over the political apparatus that is an order of magnitude larger than their share of the national GDP. It's not just that they have limitless money to donate to political campaigns. They also, by their size, are able to dispense political favors in virtually every congressional district, and also to threaten national havoc if they don't get their way.

**Blakeman** · 03-26-09, 09:35 AM

Originally Posted by MotoZ

Originally Posted by Ruukil

People have free speech, they also have to be held accountable for what they say. The same can be said for corporations.

That's the brain dead way out of the issue. In the math world your answer might be labeled a "degenerative solution", e.g. 1=1

A corporation is not a person.

How is a corporation "held accountable"? Furthermore, once "held accountable", how can our laws prevent the corporation's bad action from happening again?

It is a hard thing, since a corporation can represent or maintain the livelihoods of citizens themselves. We can't lump all corporations into the 'evil empire' pile, but we do have to realize that a corporation as a whole shouldn't have the same rights as the individual person in court.

Personally I think that there should be a strong definition of what is opinion based and what is factual information in regards to news media. As far as elections are concerned though, I think that advertisements have gotten too grossly overdone and it is more american idol than it is American Democracy.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, I just hope that as individuals our rights are maintained and not changed in ways we might not even foresee in the immediate future.

**~~hawgballs~~** · 03-26-09, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by rock_lobster

Originally Posted by hawgballs

My take is that corporations should not be considered as individual citizens, and shouldn't be afforded rights equal to individual citizens.

Not saying I agree or disagree, but what would you have them be? And who is held accountable for the actions of said corporation, should a problem arise?

They would be corporations, and just that, a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. They ought not have any type of personhood, in terms of constitutional rights. Who is held responsible now? Apparently not anyone. I would like to think that the corporate board members ought to be held legally liable for their corporation's actions, and shareholders ought to be held financially liable. I think corporation's abuse the individuals citizen's "right to petition government" ought to be curbed. I would like to see their rights to bankruptcy protection ought to be deeply limited, Owens-Corning is a good example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens-Corning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_petition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

**rock_lobster** · 03-26-09, 11:52 PM

Hmmm...I guess I can go with that. I dunno if I'd go as far as to hold each and every shareholder responsible for certain actions, but that's just a personal opinion. I do, think that members of the executive committee and/or the board members should, from now on, be held responsible for any illegal doings.