July 5, 2006

Shut Up If You Know What's Good For You

An editorial in the Wednesday Tennessean says that the current legal distinction that says limits on how much a candidate spends on their campaign would violate their First Amendment rights but limits on how much individuals can donate to a candidate doesn't violate their First Amendment rights is a distinction that "may be based more on pragmatism than philosophy."

In other words, says The Tennessean, while there may be no philosophical reason to justify limiting an individual's freedom of speech by limiting how much that individual can give to a campaign, doing so serves a pragmatic purpose so let's do it anyway.

It's odd that The Tennessean calls the latest Supreme Court ruling, upholding the constitutionality of limiting how much individuals can donate to political campaigns, a "victory" in "the never-ending effort to craft a political system worthy of the American people."

Do the American people really deserve a political system in which they are limited in some way as to how much they can participate?