This has been bugging me for a while. Why do so many people believe that money is speech, and corporations are people?

This seems like strategic conceptual cross-pollination by plutocratic think tanks. More importantly, it appears untrue.

We'll know corporations are people when Texas executes one.

LanDroid wrote:We'll know corporations are people when Texas executes one.

okay, that was funny

Interbane wrote:This has been bugging me for a while. Why do so many people believe that money is speech, and corporations are people?

This seems like strategic conceptual cross-pollination by plutocratic think tanks. More importantly, it appears untrue.

Corporations are not people in the eyes of the law. They are "entities"

Btw, which people are you talking about specifically?
can you provide an example?

Our latest Republican Presidential candidate--you know, the Mormon--said that corporations were people. He actually said that.

People believe money is speech and corporations are people because it is true. Due to several recent rulings by the Supreme Court, it would take either major changes in legislation or an amendment to the Constitution to change this.

Ant is correct that corporations are technically entities. However, although they do not have physical hearts or larynxes, corporations do have many human characteristics and rights. Remember one word for money is specie. I will use the term "speechie" to refer to money spent by corporations as free speech (in contrast to funding internal operations, etc.). Corporations use large numbers of speechies to influence or even procure congressmen and senators. Those special humans change laws accordingly so corporate entities increase profits and thereby "earn" even more speechies. Corporations use speechies to directly influence the free speech of actual humans by funding and even controlling politicians at all levels that benefit corporate activities. Corporations also influence human free speech by dramatically altering the media landscape, using speechies to control friendly networks and programs or launch last minute vicious attack ads against political opponents for example.

Wealthy humans also benefit from non-human entities. They spend huge amounts of speechies to create PACs and super-PACs, allowing them to also procure legislators or modify political campaigns and the media in secret.

Although corporations do not have the human ability to vote, this is becoming less of a problem. Lower and middle class humans have vastly less speechies than corporations or wealthy individuals and therefore have much weaker influence on the political process. This new concept of speechies, the idea of spending money as free speech, invokes the first amendment and therefore makes it much more difficult to change this situation.

Landroid wrote: Remember one word for money is specie. I will use the term "speechie" to refer to money spent by corporations as free speech (in contrast to funding internal operations, etc.).

Although the words resemble each other, the etymology is different. I took it as satire.

We selectively prohibit speech. Try swearing in a classroom. The need for prohibition is based on the circumstance. When money(speech) = votes, then a single entity is allowed extra votes by extension of his money. This should be enough for us to prohibit the way money flows freely in elections.

Corporations are also not people. People are a type of entity. Corporations are a type of entity. But corporations are not people (1 is a number and 2 is a number, but 1 does not equal 2). Corporations are composed of people, and each of these people have freedom of speech. So why duplicate this?

Etymology - heh! Yes satire, I made up the term speechie to refer to a specific type of spending. I agree corporations are not identical to people, but in the world of politics they might as well be equal; corporate entities wield more flexibility and power than any human except perhaps for a few individuals that own extraordinary amounts of speechie. So while I agree we should be able to regulate these corporate powers and money should not equal free speech, as the Supreme Court has spoken these are the facts of life for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the inevitable corruption will create a reform movement with sufficient countervailing power some time down the line?

Just because the letter of the law doesn't designate corporations as people perse, doesn't mean that they aren't treated as such by practice of the media and the courts. On paper you can have all the ideals you want--it's when the cards are on the table and the lawyers are done hamming it up, that's when you see the writing on the wall.

Just because the letter of the law doesn't designate corporations as people perse, doesn't mean that they aren't treated as such by practice of the media and the courts.

To say a corporation is a person is to commit a fallacy of composition. It simply isn't true. It doesn't matter how widespread this mistake is. It could be written in the bible that corporations are people. The supreme court could say that corporations are people. Elvis could have said corporations are people. Yet it still isn't true.

On a side note - a fallacy of composition is something like this: An apple is a fruit. An orange is a fruit. Therefore an orange is an apple. / A corporation is an entity. A person is an entity. Therefore a corporation is a person.