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Comment by megaman821 | Hacker News Reader

Blah, this generic sentiment is so tired. What specific rights should we take away from groups of people but are present as individuals?

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They should go to prison like individuals. Instead of the endless settlements suspend their business for a while. They would pay way more attention.

Write the Attorney General, corporations don't shield individuals from criminal liability just financial.

If we are making a wishlist; government bailouts to corporations should trigger a termination clause for the the whole c-suite.

Corporations are systems generally set up to earn as much as possible disregarding everything else, definitely not "groups of people"....

Corporations are what their shareholders want them to be. Since a lot of the shareholders came to be shareholders by buying in, they generally want to see a return on investment.

It doesn't have to be that way if you can convince the shareholders differently. You are free to bring up a vote to Disney shareholders to change their mission into finding every mouse in the world and naming it Mickey.

That's why I said generally

By the way, there's a very widespread view that companies are legally required to maximize their shareholders' monetary profit.

Can you name many corporations that in the long term were shown to not having behaved so?

Corporations aren't democratic organizations though so every individual in the group doesn't really have an equal access to these rights.

What’s not clear to me is why a corporation’s specific governance would matter. When a company “speaks”, it’s still an individual ultimately expressing themselves, just with the benefit of compensation.

And a nearly impregnable shield from criminal liability.

Sure, expressing themselves...

You may not like their motives or incentives, but I don't see a compelling argument that makes their expression less legitimate than mine.

The compelling argument is that it should be quite obvious that companies do not speak for all of their employees, cause most of them are - to what degree can be argued until the end of time - basically coerced to express the "opinion" of the company. At most it's the opinion of the owners, artificially amplified.

And to the question why the owners should not be able to express themselves: They can express themselves individually all they want, but if they want to use a company to do it they should also be personally responsible for everything the company does. And since one of the primary reasons to have a company is to isolate the owners from being sued personally ... there's a bit of a problem here.

But that’s not the claim. A “company” doesn’t speak, individuals do. Just because the individuals do as a result of compensation, doesn’t mean they lose their right to free expression.

You’re focusing on the “group” aspect of this, but that’s irrelevant to the argument. A PR spokesperson has individual rights, even if they choose to use that voice to advance a company’s goals.

"Corporations free speech" usually refers to the freedom of giving money to politicians, not the freedom of a PR to speech

Yes, and the reasoning holds; an individual decides to do that. There’s a name on that check, a specific person who authorizes the transfer of funds. How could you ethically stop a person from authorizing that check?

Disregarding the fact that I see many ways to ethically stop corruption, when an individual *acts* in the name of a corporation, the action is a result of the corporation's functioning, not of the individual's will (were it not so, the individual would have misappropriated the funds, to my understanding).

That’s what we’re discussing; I’m saying that an individual is protected in their speech while operating on behalf of a corporation, and that it’s not corruption. You declaring it so doesn’t make it so.

And yes, the individual risks acting in ways their company doesn’t like, but they can do things to lower that risk, such as asking other individuals within that corporation what their desired action is.

But it’s still individuals acting, so they’re afforded all of the protections the Constitution provides.

No, it's simply not so

A better comment would attempt to explain why is my point. Thus far, you've been insistent on refusing to explain yourself or being open to alternative views.

I think I did explain more than enough

If you think that someone acting in the name of a company can act in his name there doesn't seem much to discuss.

"Because I believe differently than you, there isn't much to discuss." is a terrible way to convince others of your belief.

You're presupposing your conclusion and seem completely closed to the idea that you may be wrong.

No, I explained my conclusion multiple times but you don't seem to have noticed it.

I'm not a lawyer, but the fact that a representative of a company can't manage the company's funds however he wants is:

* what I've always known

* obvious on the face of it

* apparently confirmed by quick searches of terms like misappropriation and embezzlement

You seem to be just trying to win a debate competition and I have zero interest in that; especially since there isn't someone around to judge it.

That’s true, but it’s not what I said. It seems like you may need to reread what I wrote in order to respond to it, but then again it’s probably easier for you to pretend to misunderstand me than it is to actually address what I’ve written…

It's definitely you who has to read again the thread.

I did and I've gotten the nth confirmation that you're not really reading what I write, and maybe not really here for a discussion

You've said over and over again how you don't want to talk about the subject, yet you keep replying. I'm just making sure people understand this isn't the strategy of someone who knows what they're talking about, and you're cooperating magnificently.

You keep replying without addressing what's been talked about.

I know you're not supposed to say that here, but at this point I can't imagine you're doing anything else than trolling.

Honestly anyhow I have a distaste for US right of speech and its enormously broad interpretation, so I'm not too interested in debating its applications.

(I support the right to express your opinions, at most)

I also think that at the base of most US problems there's the freedom to corrupt politicians ("lobbying"), so, yeah, I really don't care much how legal it is

But you seem utterly incapable of justifying those beliefs to others...

Your beliefs are worthless to everyone else if you can't explain them, and no all you've done so far is declare what you believe to be correct, and have crumpled at the slightest sign of resistance. That demonstrates the weakness of your belief.

My reply is: whatever.

If you're here to win debates for the sake of it, you can have the last word.

I only mentioned those beliefs and I'm not interested in debating them in a hacker news thread, right now.

This isn’t a debate, this is me getting you to reveal how little weight you have behind what you believe.

This is useful because if anyone else reads this, they will get a pretty standard idea of how people who think like you can’t really justify their beliefs when challenged.

I do appreciate it, but I doubt you do. Easier to dismiss me and ignore any dissent, than it is to consider that you might actually be the bad guy here.

I told you this approach weakens your advocacy. Too bad you can’t listen.

I TRIED to debate the core of the issue, and you haven't read what I said.

This branch of the thread was just about a mention of some ideas that I have no intention to discuss right now.

Not that you offered any support for your ideas, other than "I think that my constitution says so".

If you're for freedom of companies corrupting politicians and politicians lying to everyone, you're free to be, maybe you're on the side who benefits from it.

I was hoping to have closed the discussion about eight messages ago, I'm not really here for this.

Tyranny cloaks itself in morality. Nothing new. I hope most people know we don’t need that kind of advocacy.

Morality is what separates us from animals. The suggestion right and wrong don’t exist is the real tyranny. It's what evil people say to do evil things.

Presumably the board could stop corporate speech the majority does not agree with. It would be interesting to re-litigate this case with a company like Facebook where Zuckerberg has special voting shares. If donating to a PAC is just a group of people exercising their free speech, can you delegate your right to free speech to someone else?

The most f* up aspect is interpreting corruption as "free speech", for both individuals and corporations.

Publicly traded corporations are democratic organizations. You get one vote per share you hold. If you want something to happen, the shareholders can vote for it.

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