When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that the basic tenants of the campaign finance reform measure passed by Congress it upheld a limitation on the rights of free speech.  This legislation restricts when candidates, parties and their proponents can run adds prior to elections.  It sets up a window of time in which political speech in the form of endorsements, advertisements and other paid commercials are not permitted by the citizens of this country under penalty of law.  I repeat, it is not allowed under penalty of law.

I know that this is often too much to ask but do we even read the Constitution any more?  Do our judges and our legislators understand the words that are written there if they actually do?  Do I have to reprint the first amendment every time an issue like this comes up?

“Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The bolded text says it all.  “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”.  There is no qualifier on what type of speech and the word “no” is about as absolute as you can get.  But today we live in not only a society where Congress blatantly ignores Constitutional mandates and where absolutes are no longer absolute, but where the Supreme Court actually supports such a law based upon no legal argument or consideration of the Constitution.

Free speech is not a right that can be legislated away.  It is a right instituted by men to ensure our unalienable and God-given rights.  Speech cannot be restrained except in cases where it violates the God-given rights of the people of this nation and of the world.

But that is exactly where we stand now.  We stand at a time where free speech means nothing.  It means nothing because we have allowed Congress and our Courts to place a restriction upon this right.  Such a first intrusion upon our rights serves as nothing except as a doorway through which will walk the second infringement, then the third and so on until there is no such right to free speech despite what the Constitution says.  Once the Pandora’s Box of allowing the government to deliberately infringe upon our rights is opened, the battle to close it again and undo these wrongs will be a harder battle than most will be willing to fight.

Forbidding free speech for a certain number of days before an election serves no useful purpose.  It serves a purpose to be sure, but definitely not a useful one.  Disallowing political campaigns via paid commercials by the citizens of this nation creates a dead zone prior to election day where one cannot potentially respond to accusations levied against them and where they cannot bring to the forefront issues that may arise.  It does not, however, prevent news agencies such as papers and television networks from going out and following around their favorite candidates and reporting on them favorably or chasing down their most hated candidates and reporting on them negatively.  But if you are a private citizen with a message to get out, look out.

This is not what America was founded upon.  It insulates the candidate that gets in the last shot at his opponent.  There are now restrictions on the potential avenues of response which means that unless you have a media outlet willing to give you airtime you better hope that whatever is said is not too damaging or distorted.  It insulates the candidates that are incumbent to the system because they have a platform ready made from which to speak.  All the incumbent has to do to discuss whatever issue he desires is call a press conference and media will flock to the words and report them.

In the end, it is simple and pure infringement of free speech.  And it is infringement now given the blessing of the highest court in the land, which is charged with upholding the Constitution and the words “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”.  For this there can be no excuse.  For this, every member of the Supreme Court that blatantly violated not only their duty to uphold the Constitution, but their solemn oath to do so must be called for impeachment.  Such a decision cannot be allowed to stand without retaliation by the American people through the channels legally prescribed to them by the Constitution.

Not only must these judges be held accountable, but so too must every member of Congress that signed their name to this piece of legislation.  Even those that signed it believing full well that the Supreme Court would never uphold it and sought to gain political favor must be held to the fire.  They violated not only our trust, but also the laws of our Constitution, which are greater than any man or woman that serves in Congress.

This whole process, from the drafting of the bill, to it’s passage into law, to the ultimate upholding of the law by the Supreme Court has shown the flaw of what happens when the system becomes corrupted and no action to correct it is taken.  And now that both Congress and the Supreme Court have spat upon the Constitution and allowed for the legal limiting of free speech we will see how long it will take for more such infringements to be heaped upon us contradictory to our rights.

Once again, the government has shown that it has a disregard for the people that they are supposed to serve.  Government has shown that its first loyalty is to itself.  Not until we, the people, stand up and confront these persons and their actions will anything change.

The political motives be damned.  The future threat of potential imaginary abuses of speech be damned.  This country and her laws and her Constitution are worth more than the political lives of those that would be the ruling class who show time and again that they do not hold any of them in the high regard that they must.

It is argued that we must do this because money makes good people do bad things.  Or so Senator McCain would say.  I say that if he or any of his fellows are to be so easily corrupted by the money of politics then they were not “good people” to begin with.  Such an excuse is a cop out by those tainted by the scent of money who cannot admit to themselves the blame they have in destroying this Republic.

Money may very well corrupt.  In such a case, the object should not be to restrict the Constitutional rights of free speech.  It should be to allow all the money that people want to donate to be donated and move to full disclosure of these funds for all to see who donates to who and how much.  Then we the people can decide if a candidate is tainted when he flip-flops his stance on the issues after a nice $40 million dollar contribution.

The answer to corruption is not the limitation of rights but the proliferation of rights.  Hindering speech does not allow discourse on the topics at hand.  Only the unfettered practice of our right to speech short of causing malicious harm by blatantly lying (and hence potentially infringing on God-given rights) can solve the corruption of money in politics.  Only by the free flow of ideas without the worry of breaking rules on campaign speech will we shed light upon the corruption that exists in the system.