It is too easy for people to hide behind corporate entities and to the detriment of public accountability.
And it all sucks. I think tethering legislation to making corporations exempt from income taxes, and refactoring taxation on profits and loans secured against corporate ownership might be the only way to get it through.
There is a legal concept of "corporate personhood", but it has nothing to do with "being people", it's a legal term of art. For example, it makes it possible to sue a corporation instead of trying to sue each of its shareholders and executives individually. And it wasn't used in Citizens United v. FEC at all.
I don't like it, I really don't agree with it, but the reality is that's what it would likely take to overcome counter arguments in favor of continuing corporate personhood. As I mentioned, it might be tolerated if it came with tax exemption, in leiu of new taxes against corporate/stock loans and more taxation on profit distribution.
Of course it should, that's the whole purpose of the corporation. That's the premise whole western financial system is built on - that the corporations are right-bearing entities. That doesn't mean they are people - it means that in the western legal system, certain rights can attach to entities other than people. That's no surprise to anybody who would look into how corporations work and why they were invented in the first place.
> as though to cast a second vote
Voting rights have never been part of corporate personhood, what are you talking about?
> Money is not speech
Money by itself is a resource. This resource can be spent on speech - I can pay money to facilitate my speech. If you prevent me from doing that, you essentially shutting down my speech - what is the use of it if nobody can hear or read it, because publishing costs money, and I am prohibited from that? In a separation of labor society - which by now is every society - money is a necessary prerequisite to use the services of society. And no (significant) societal activity can be performed without involving money, one way or another. Thus, money are not speech, literally, but money are a necessary gateway to speech.
> This is tge court's error.
No, that's your error by trying to misrepresent the court's decision in a way that is convenient to you for criticizing it. The court did not say "corporations are people" or "money is speech" - they said something that the opposing side activists turned into such slogans, but if you want to understand and not just scream out your rage, then you need to go to the actual meaning, beyond the slogans.
You don't lose your right because you act collectively, though some things get conceptually awkward.
Stripping unions of their rights might be a bit controversial. On the other hand, "collective representation" is essentially the definition of a union.
Enduring the consequences of one’s actions with complaint is not accountability, it’s a temper tantrum. Whether the consequences are administered by vigilantes or courts is immaterial to the earnestness of anyone’s accountability. The vast majority of people being publicly shamed have an elementary understanding of accountability and their hollow efforts are an insult to the time of everyone subjected to their rambling excuses, projections, victim blaming, lies, and other erroneous thought patterns.
I don’t want more bystanders getting caught up in the courts because they took action when our leaders sat on their hands. That said, I have no sympathy for the public figures having their legacies dragged through the mud after careers of horrendous behaviors get brought to light.
Nice round of victim-blaming. Don't like the random mob vigilantism? Well, it's probably your fault and that's the modern society for you, and again your fault for not embracing it enthusiastically. In fact, you are a bad person for it! Nice.
I’m talking about sexual predators, people who wore black face in the past two decades, domestic abusers, and other unacceptable behaviors. If you think any of this is okay, bugger off.
What are you talking about? Indian mob Justice? Tripathi? Gamergate? Spacey? Weinstein? Trump? R Kelly? Travis Scott? Bill Clinton? Assange?
You: you must love sexual predators and domestic abusers, typical Republican! Bad faith! You should be deplatformed!
Yeah, friend, you present a great case study why twitter mobs are so bad.
I’m not suggesting you love or support these things, but I am concerned that you’ve taken a sarcastic defensive position instead of naming specific people to rebut my points. An omission of defeat perchance?
My point is that mob justice will continue until the government deigns the problem bad enough to enshrine these behaviors into law as crimes. Why are you having such a hard time understanding that this is a fixable problem directly resulting from negligent government?
> My point is that mob justice will continue until the government deigns the problem bad enough to enshrine these behaviors into law as crimes
You mean the solution for mobs hounding people for wrongthink it for the government to make wrongthink a crime? Brilliant.