Just in time for my rant on campaign finance regulations comes Ryan Sager pointing out that inconvenient speech is still protected by the First Amendment.
But the years since McCain-Feingold's passage have shown that, whatever supposed risk of corruption may lie in allowing issue ads to run unfettered, there's simply no way to regulate unwanted speech without restricting perfectly legitimate speech.
Plus, there's a tremendous arrogance in the idea of even trying to determine what speech is legitimate and what is unwanted. Who gets to decide? The answer is simple: Incumbents (a k a congressmen) do. And their only agenda is to hold onto what they've got: their incumbency.
Meanwhile, for two elections now (2004 and 2006), grass-roots groups will have gone without their basic constitutional right to criticize their government.
It's time for this farce to end, but, for now, there's no end in sight.
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