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I've seen this retort elsewhere. It's not true. It's why corporations are persons with first amendment and other freedoms.

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Corporations are not actually persons. You should read the Citizens United opinion if that's what you think it meant.

Corporate owners are people engaging in voluntary transactions. Their freedom was essentially the question in Citizens United. "Corporations are people" emerged from the media as an oversimplified version.

They are not natural persons, but they are juridical persons and were so before Citizens United.

Exactly this. But remember that "legal personhood" basically just means "able to enter contracts" and does not imply any sort of human rights or humanity. It does not mean anything like what "personhood" normally means.

This has also been the case for the entire history of corporations, which is longer than the history of the US.

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