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Comment by yasp | Hacker News Reader

How do groups of people not have the rights of people?

Let me ask you the inverse— should an entire HOA all go to jail if one resident commits a crime? No. It’s not “groups” of people, like you’d find at a concert/meetup/HOA/whatever.

If it was, then the whole group should be convicted of crimes everytime the corp ignores a law and commits a crime.

But no— different groups exist for different purposes, on paper incorporated under a set of laws.

It’s a business, intent on generating profits and many times they break laws. Next time you want a corp to have ”people” rights, consider the inverse to

> Let me ask you the inverse— should an entire HOA all go to jail if one resident commits a crime?

If all the people in the HOA conspire to commit a crime, using the HOA organization meetings to plan, HOA funds to execute the crime - then yes?

They already do, as people.

A group of people together have no right to free speech but individually they do?

I don’t see how that could possibly work.

Who said that? They continue to have rights within the group as well, and they can make whatever group decisions they would like.

This doesn’t imply that we need to accept corporate personhood for all purposes.

No this is not what he said. You don’t need to treat the group differently. Since all people have free speech in the group, then the group effectively has free speech as well no?

Right, which is basically what the Supreme Court said.

A group of individuals as a corporation still have constitutional rights.

Arguing in favor of making clear legal distinctions between humans and corporations does not automatically imply denying them a right to free speech. It may seem that way when we say: the declaration of human rights does not apply to corporations, because they are inhuman, but we actually argue in favor of a declaration of corporate rights, not against it. The key point is that Corporations are more than just groups of people. But more so we want this distinction because we want an effective Corporate Criminal Law.

We give corporations certain legal rights that humans do not have, such as the ability to avoid individual responsibility for corporate crimes or debts.

It sort of makes sense that you can't stack rights - you either get to choose your human rights, or your corporate rights (which may have limits that your human rights cannot).

That's a non sequitur.

You asked: How do people, as groups of people, not have the rights of people?

I answered: They do, as people. Nothing about their position in or outside of groups affects that.

Where is the non sequitur?

Corporations exist as creations of congress and legislated into existence.

Congress may not pass laws that seek to silence our ability to speak freely.

What you’re suggesting is that because these special entities are run by private individuals and not government employees they’re not effectively bound by the first amendment.

Schools exist as creations of legislation as well, but they are run by government employees. Speech cannot be silenced by schools.

Your assertion is that since companies, created by legislation, are run by private individuals they can silence speech all day long.

The question is, does the 1st amendment apply to government employees or anything borne out of legislation by congress?

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