REBLOG: A very good article about the United Citizens decision

Here’s a really interesting article by Stanley Fish in NYT.com.

The malleable line between speech and action seems to be at the crux of the consternation regarding this latest decision concerning the First Amendment and free speech. It seems like the author is suggesting that the justices had it well within reason to have found a decision more unfavorable to the “corporate person” if they had the will to do so in the majority.

While I’m a fan of how the corporate personhood concept shields the individual agent from liability to a large degree, as this enables risk that I believe in as an entrepreneur, I’m pretty disappointed by the recent ruling as it makes the personhood concept seem ridiculous in it’s logical extensions.

Some common sense realism as the Scots would have considered it, or the Legal Realism of Cohen mentioned in the article, would have been nice in this case. Maybe some interdisciplinary backgrounds to future justices will help? If I remember my history correctly, John Marshall didn’t have a law degree, and that worked out ok.

How the First Amendment Works