Controlling speech
Controlling speech
Charles Fried takes on McCain-Feingold, and asks why the New York Times is entitled to better treatment than the NRA or the NAACP.
There are two impulses at work in this law, one admirable and one not. The first seeks to respect the bedrock principle that a person must be free to speak his mind and spend his money doing so. The second comes from the belief that government knows best not only who should speak but also how much. With its limits on speech by ideological organizations just before elections, McCain-Feingold unconstitutionally turns this second impulse into law.