Speechless In Seattle
Will: Speechless In Seattle - Newsweek George F. Will - MSNBC.com
This is the America produced by “reformers” led by John McCain. The U.S. Supreme Court, in affirming the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold speech restrictions, advocated deference toward elected officials when they write laws regulating speech about elected officials and their deeds. This turned the First Amendment from the foundation of robust politics into a constitutional trifle to be “balanced” against competing considerations-combating the “appearance of corruption,” or elevating political discourse or something. As a result, attempts to use campaign regulations to silence opponents are becoming a routine part of vicious political combat.When the court made that mistake, most of the media applauded, assuming, mistakenly, that they would be forever exempt from regulation. If Washington state’s Supreme Court does not quash the idea that the government gets to decide who gets to say how much of what on the air, the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to reconsider the wisdom of deferring to governments when they limit speech about government.
What is this country coming to that we are allowing our government to control what we say about our government? The founders of this country are spinning faster than Kerry in his flip-flopping prime. This country was founded on freedom of speech. The framers of the constitution thought this concept was so important that they didn’t want to leave it to the wording they found somewhat ambiguous in the constitution, so they crafted the first amendment specifically to protect us from these kinds of laws. We need someone to take one of these cases back to the supreme court so they can reverse it, and if they do not, we need to get the politicians to impeach them on this issue for not upholding their duty to interpret the constitution according to the oaths they took upon taking office.