Jonah Goldberg has the best commentary I've seen on the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding pretty much everything in McCain Feingold. I'm surprised. I was telling my students last year that the important part of the law was the rules on the limits on contributions, because forbidding organizations from posting advertisements on political issues close to election time was clearly unconstitutional. My theory was that everybody in Congress knew that part would be struck down, but they liked the little-publicized large increase in the maximimum contributions to candidates. Maybe my theory was right--I'm sure Congress is as surprised as everybody else.
Goldberg starts with this good discourse:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm in favor of censorship, and, in all
likelihood, so are you. The only difference is, if you're a typical American, you either
won't admit it or you don't know it. But look: If you think it's a good idea for the
government --federal, state, or local --to keep Triple-X porn off of Saturday-morning
cartoon-hour TV, you're in favor of censorship. If you don't think neo-Nazis should be
allowed to make presentations at your kid's public school's career day, you're in favor
of censorship. Heck, if you think the federal government is right to block cigarette
companies from advertising to kids, you, my friend, are in favor of censorship.
So the relevant question -- which is invariably overlooked -- isn't whether or not you
are "for" or "against" censorship. The relevant question is, What do you want to censor?
Or, how much censorship do you want?
The McCain Feingold part is this:
But political speech is what the First Amendment is about. The artistic types who think
the First Amendment protects every taxpayer-financed bit of sacrilege on every public
museum's wall, may have every right to be angry about government censorship of art, but
art wasn't what the First Amendment was primarily designed to protect. The First
Amendment was first and foremost designed to protect the expression of overtly political
speech, of criticism of the government and elected officials.
But for some unfathomable reason, we've turned this logic on its head in this country.
Today, highly educated people hurl their salad forks in rage over the "censoring" of a
performance artist when she doesn't get free money from the government. But they nod
approvingly when the federal government tells the ACLU it can't say what it pleases,
when it pleases, about George Bush....
The government might say: Sure, take out an ad in the New York Times denouncing the war
in Iraq, or the partial-birth ban, or the way squirrels steal nuts from your birdfeeder,
for all we care. But don't you dare spend any money on that ad. Or, don't you dare spend
that money when people are actually holding an election or considering a law, or even
when they're discussing the issue in question.
And then we come to an excellent discussion of the purpose and meaning of the First
Amendment.
To me, all of these people who screech about how shifting a movie about Ronald Reagan
from CBS to Showtime is "censorship" are buffoons, for reasons too extensive to recount
in this limited space. The folks who exclaim that banning cigarette advertising to kids
is censorship are right, but at least there's an argument to be had over whether keeping
kids off cigarettes is a legitimate state interest.
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