It doesn't matter whether the corporation is a person, because the free speech clause is not limited to persons.
"First 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, adopted as a group in 1791.
They are a collection of guarantees of individual rights and of limitations on federal and state governments that derived from popular dissatisfaction with the limited guarantees of the Constitution."
United States Bill of R...: West's Encyclopedia of American Law (Full Article) from Answers.com
Come on man, you should know this already.
Individuals can only be persons.
A corporation is not an individual or person.
Even so, let's pretend that you're right that it has to come from a person. GM hires my friend Joe as a political consultant, giving him $25 million/year to do whatever he thinks would help the company's political position. He uses that $25 million to make a whole bunch of ads supporting candidates that he thinks will help GM.
In that case, there are only individuals making decisions. Is that okay?
GM can not hire anyone, only someone working for the business can.
But that is completely fine with me.
This is not a logically defensible distinction. You agree that if the government tried to prevent a church from doing things to advance its cause, it would run into constitutional issues. How then can you argue that banning a corporation from doing the same would not?
Using your logic, a law prohibiting the Catholic church from practicing its religion freely does not impose any burden directly on individuals, so it would not be problematic. To take your words from earlier, why couldn't the government say "The Catholic church cannot pay priests, an individual must do so. The Catholic church is not an individual, so it has no rights. Sole owners or a group of owners can hire priests, but the Catholic church cannot do so."
That's exactly what you said would apply to corporations, but I think we can all agree that if the government tried to say this, we would consider it an infringement on religion.
If the people who own(or want to own), a church, are prevented from establishing the church, it violates their individual rights of freedom of religion.
They, on an individual basis, are being prevented from practicing their religion.
They church is not inferred rights of people because it can not logically exercise any rights, it is not human nor is it living.
Similarly the GM owners can establish their business but the business itself has no rights, only the owners do.
The owners can donate money in anyway that they wish but the business itself cannot, it is illogical because businesses are not living entities.
And the relevant portions of the first amendment are not limited to persons, so I don't know why you keep on repeating this.
Because the first 8 amendments of the Bill of Rights is meant for individuals, not for non people.
Which has what to do with anything? You don't get to abrogate a constitutional right simply because you're mistakenly applying an irrelevant sociological principle.
You said, "The existence of that corporation makes their speech simpler and more beneficial" but it doesn't always work like how you say.
No, what violated the principle of "majority rule but not at the expense of the minority" was the unconstitutional law passed by a majority that infringed on the free speech of public interest groups, unions, and corporations. Thankfully, that's been fixed.
I don't care about whether or not the law was passed, repealed or thrown out.
This is a discussion about corporate personhood and how illogical that is.
The fact of the matter is that these groups have undue sway over policy at the expense of an individual that is not part of a group.
