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Comment by bastardoperator | Hacker News Reader

Corporations are essentially citizens, and citizens have the right to free speech. We can agree or disagree, but this where we've allowed ourselves to get.

HE is within their rights to say no, we will not host or route to KF, to stop us would violate our constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression. They would then point to a litany of issues surrounding KF, how it would impact their business, and then win their case with ease.

I'm kind of shocked EFF went to bat for KF If I'm being honest. When your speech is unaliving people, or responsible for wide scale harassment of minors, guess what, I'm not interested in doing business with you, and that's perfectly fine. The fact that they use such a weak argument like utilities, and mail service as a comparison to commercial internet service is wild.

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The idea of corporations being legal people is questionable in the first place, but now you’re going to argue that they’re not only people but citizens?!

I don't disagree. If a corporation has civil rights, they're akin to being a person/entity in which those rights are guaranteed aka citizenship. Some might argue that America is a "corporatocracy" for this very reason.

No, you’ve got weird ideas about citizenship and civil rights if you think that’s the case.

Plenty of rights are conferred by merely being within the borders of a country, regardless of citizenship status. You can be a tourist or even an illegal immigrant in the US and have the right to habeas corpus or the right of non-self-incrimination, for example.

Talking about elevating corporations to be on par with citizens is a fascist idea, which is absolutely adjacent to corporatism.

You can think these ideas are weird, they're not mine, I think a corporation having civil rights is weird too. The infamous line "corporations are people" comes from American politicians, so as weird as it may be, the government itself is inferring it and a court is justifying it as the law of the land.

A key tenet of fascism is protecting corporate interest and power... but okay.

Is that some sort of subtle trolling? I mean, with that Newspeak verb randomly thrown in, it must be, but then again it wouldn't surprise me if there exist communities on the internet who'd develop slang that ends up being basically Newspeak.

It's basically just making a very poor case for corporate personhood. The more elegant argument is that the organization has no right, but every human being that is a member of that organization has rights You have an individual right to practice religion, and you have a group right to practice religion. Your ability to practice religion is not limited by joining a Parish or church organization. The Citizens United of Citizens United v. FEC wanted to Produce, Advertise and Air a documentary. They have an individual right to make a movie, and the court affirmed they have a right to make speech as a group. Citizens have a right to address political Grievances. So do Citizens United

It's also worthwhile to note that the FEC's argument included that there was no limiting principle to their power. They could ban a book if a single sentence advocated for a person or ban a union from hiring someone to write a book. It is completely unsurprising that SCOTUS ruled against unlimited cosmic power.

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