So speech of an individual is near sacrosanct, but that of a group organized around an interest has none? People organize around things that concern them.
Of course that's sacrosanct. We call such organizations "not for profit", specifically ones joined because an individual affirms everything the group advocates. They are groups formed specifically to advocate for or against issues, and so are nothing but the collective speech of the members.
I don't think corporate money is such a great thing without some restraints, but still they have a right to pursue policies they favor. As do others who think corporations have to be regulated and restrained more.
There is no "they" when it comes to corporations. The only way a corporation could qualify as a group that engaged in collective speech, there would have to be unanimous approval from every shareholder. Without such approval, those who decide what the corporation is going to advocate are stealing the speech and interest of those shareholders who don't agree -- and stealing their wealth to do it!
"They" means human beings, and corporations are only pieces of paper.
Just because a lot of corporate speech may be "bad" from our point of view in what policies are pursued or opposed, you just can't brazenly go on that they have no right to promote their own interests.
I don't care what a corporation "advocates", because they have neither brain nor mouth. There is no way a corporation can "speak" without engaging in tyranny by stealing the speech and wealth of any shareholders who don't agree.
If you want to pretend that entities whose beings are mere pieces of paper can have speech in the first place, demand of them some basic attributes of human beings. Let's start with a mortal life span -- say, an absolute limit of seventy years, coupled with a requirement that any bankruptcy be considered a mortal event, ending the corporation. Then allow them no political participation whatsoever for the first seventeen years of their existence.
Apart from that, the only interest a corporation has is to earn money and distribute profit to its shareholders. Any spending done in the political realm is a departure from that, and for the sake of justice for the shareholders must be forbidden.
I think we try to do a better job to try to hold corporations to account but you and others go too far deciding what constitutes free speech... you do tend to think outside the box which often is good but occasionally you're solutions are as headscratchingly misguided for the deep, curious intellect you clearly do have, as here on the limits of what constitutes "speech". I'm nowhere as well versed or gifted intellectually as you are I know, but can clearly see that in cases like this you need to pull back the reins and say, "whoa"!
If corporations are to have speech, then holding them to account must be done just as for human individuals: if a corporation commits negligent behavior that results in the death of people, for example, the entire corporation should go to prison -- that means that it would be sentenced like any citizen, so that during the time of its sentence it would be permitted only those communications a citizen in prison would... no internet, no mass mailings, all mail read by the warden/guards, etc., and all its belongings and premises subject to search at any time the authorities might desire, with no warning.
If corporations have speech, then we must grant rocks and the wind and computers speech, too -- all are inanimate objects. Indeed, rocks and the wind and computers have more of a claim to speech, because they are at least actual entities, not mere concepts set down on pieces of paper.
And BTW, the same goes for unions, churches, foundations, or anything else that isn't specifically formed by citizens fr the specific purpose of engaging in collective speech -- and in nothing else.
