winter wrote: 
That they are not tax-exempt is besides the point (even if they can get away by not paying taxes at all), as far as the right/concept of freedom of speech goes. By itself it is recognized as a (usually limited) universal human right granted to individual citizens, not to organizations of any stripe. Does an army have freedom of speech? Does a ministry (as in cabinet) or a collective of bureaucrats have it? Not really. The individuals in those organizations do, esp. when they speak off the record or by not being in an official capacity.

As an interesting aside, by becoming part of a corporation or any other organization, we may often be required to give up that right to some degree (NDAs, trade secrets, media protocol, etc.). Also, it's fairly obvious that statements made by a person working for an organization aren't the same as statements made by a faceless organization (of course there can be a face in the form of a CEO, PR person, etc). There are sufficient examples of either party refusing ownership of certain statements by employees, or by explicitly mentioning that the views are 'personal', etc., etc.

I suspect there might be different rules for advertising vis-a-vis both parties, but I'm not an expert of the regulations on advertising. Aside from that there are differences in 'product' and differences in regulations governing those products (extra requirements for certain medical or financial products, etc.)

While talking about free speech, what is really meant it is free spending/purchasing power. In short, money talks.

Finally, to equate corporations (or other organizations) with people is just silly. Corporations aren't people, they are made out of people — and lots of other stuff. Conversely, people aren't corporations either.

 RichardPrins wrote: 



Corporations aren't generally tax-exempt.

What's the fundamental difference between a political party spending money to get out its message and a corporation doing likewise?

 winter wrote: 
Charities, Churches and Politics

A corporation is a group of people - like a church, or a social club, or a political party. As much as I'd like to see less commercial influence over our government, it's hard to see how banding together for business purposes gives people less right to express themselves than if they'd joined a church or become Republicans.