Ethics

With regard to an issue raised earlier, the NYTimes says in an editorial today that corporations shouldn't be treated as real persons for all speech purposes because corporations can't vote, run for office, or bear arms.  However, that is true of all associations.  My problem is that the First Amendment protects the right of people freely to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances, which seems to protect the right of people to form associations and to use them for the purpose of speaking freely and petitioning for redress of grievances.  And corporations are associations, or so they seem.  As I said, I'd like to be persuaded that their lobbying activities can nevertheless be limited, but I'm not aware that anyone has suggested a principled way to justify that result.

Does it work to say that the only associations that have speech and petition rights are those that are formed expressly and predominantly for the purpose of speaking and petitioning?  That would exclude business corporations, and, arguably, sub-associations formed by them for the limited purposes of speaking and petitioning.