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Right, and that's what I'm saying is flawed logic and a bad analogy for speech rights. Putting people in different groupings doesn't change how many votes they get, and saying that "corporations are people means corporations get their own separate vote" is a gross misunderstanding of what we're talking about. When someone says "corporations are people", they're saying "corporations are simply a grouping of people taking an action together".

The people who comprise a group have no extra vote to give: if two friends and I form a group, a new vote allocated to the three of us doesn't magically materialize. By contrast, since there is no quota for speech per person, two friends and I can form a group (eg, an advocacy group) and tomorrow go down to Union Square (or buy airtime, or hand out pamphlets, or stand on a street corner) and engage in whatever legal speech we like, collectively. The claim is that if that group of people happens to be given the structure "corporation", that doesn't automatically allow for infringing on the rights of the people within the corporation to engage in legal speech.

Again, I'm making no statement as to whether I think this approach is wise or good for society or not, but it's astonishing how common it is to see people who completely don't know what they're talking about on this issue and yet are somehow super passionate about it.



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