If the first amendment applies to individuals, it applies to groups of individuals.
Corporations are a legal fiction that is created to drive profits, and a corporation's interests do not always align with citizenry's interests. What bugs me most is that corporate apologists invariably bring up that point whenever corporations are criticized for legally/ethically dubious behaviors, e.g. "Corporations are
merely trying to maximize shareholder values," yet when time comes for elections they do a 180° and pretend as if corporations were high-minded civic agents. You cannot have it both ways.
Furthermore, a ruling of
Citizens United is that speaker's (corporate) identity cannot be the basis of spending restrictions. There is a subtle difference between this statement and the notion that corporations equal people. Corporations are subject to lots of speech regulations - commercial/professional speech regulations, trade-secrets doctrines, intellectual property laws, etc. are examples of strong speech restrictions on corporations that do not apply to citizenry at large. Yet somehow they now have a much bigger free-speech right than natural persons
in elections.
I originally supported this rationale that speakers identity cannot be the basis for speech regulations. But subsequent court rulings revealed the conservatives' true colors; they ignored their own principle on that point while continuing to rule for the moneyed interests in the election contexts. The conservative majority on the court does not care if little people's speeches are restricted - especially if those little people are seeking damages or compensations from corporate defendants, or blowing whistle on their wrongdoings. (exception: anti-abortion protesters and Kim Davis's of the world) Their anti-union attitudes all but confirm this laughable double standard. So now I think the lofty rhetoric of free speech in
Citizens United was simply a pretext laid out by the conservative judges who wanted to push their
ideological partisan goals, just as they invoked, astoundingly,
Equal Protection to gift presidency to W. in 2000. (Who knew W. was a victim of an intentional discrimination? Hah.)
Neither is a keyboard. But if I ban you from using keyboards, your ability to communicate is abridged.
Neither is your underwear that you wish to take off in public to express your outrage against anti-nudity laws. And do not forget that a keyboard should meet regulatory standards and its manufacturers and dealers are subject to trade laws and labor laws. Are those laws and regulations are impediment to free speech as well?
That is the point here. You can turn just about everything in life into a matter of speech, but I have never seen anyone taking that principle to its logical extreme. There is a good reason for that abstain, as you can well imagine.
Those who disagree with
Citizens United do not deny that money has a role to play in politics. Question is, whether content-and-viewpoint neutral laws can regulate money in politics so that its corruptive effects and inequality in participatory democracy can be minimized.
Citizens United answered categorical "no," answering on so-called "independent" expenditures. And we are now observing in 2016 the fallout from that decision and how it has backfired, spectacularly on the GOP field. There will be lots of discussions about the decision in the coming years and how it did not work out as the conservatives expected/hoped.