Yeah for Corporate Personhood!

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes but the problem arises from the fact that:

(a) A corporation is an association of stockholders;
(b) Stockholders need not be citizens;
(c) Stockholders need not be persons.
(d) Stockholders need not otherwise be affiliated with anything US-American at all.

This suggest that this First Amendment cannot apply to corporations in general. And that is completely ignoring the fact that:

(e) Corporations are not held to the same laws as other persona entities.

Things military service do not apply; taxes are a completely different ball game; and social security/ bailout seems to be remarkably one-way. A citizen is generally expected to repay his debt, but it is accepted business risk your corporate debtors may go bankrupt and its debts must be written off.

[Xiahou]

Yes but the problem arises from the fact that:

(a) A corporation is an association of stockholders;
(b) Stockholders need not be citizens;
(c) Stockholders need not be persons.
(d) Stockholders need not otherwise be affiliated with anything US-American at all.

That's an interesting line of argument. However, our constitutional protections are typically extended to all who are legally in our country regardless of citizenship. So I wouldn't lose too much sleep over whether some stockholders may or may not be citizens.

[KukriKhan]

So corporations, which may or may not include individual US citizens, enjoy the rights and benefits of US citizenship. They are a person.

But that person is not accountable to all US laws and sanctions. If Microsoft's CEO directs the murder of Apple's CEO, and the act is carried out by a MS employee... Given that MS is a person, entitled to freedom of speech, religion, association, press; freedom from unreasonable search and siezure, and retains the right against self-incrimination and the right to trial by a jury of (its?) peers...

should not all members of that corporation be arrested and held responsible for the murder? Every Board member, every employee, every stockholder?

Ridiculous, of course. Not every such "member" is responsible for the act.

Yet every member, by dint of having owned a share of stock or having been an employee - is accorded constitutional rights. Therefore, corporations are not merely "citizens", they are Super Citizens.

"First Among Equals".

We fought a revolution over this a few years back. Maybe we gotta again.

Bill Gates gives $2K? Fine. His opinion, his money. I give $2K? Fine too. My opinion, my money.

Microsoft or the Post Office, or John Deere Tractor Co gives $2K? Not OK in my book.