The Daily Sandwich

"We have to learn the lesson that intellectual honesty is fundamental for everything we cherish." -Sir Karl Popper

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Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States

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Thursday, November 30, 2006

Should we call it paydom of speech?

Newt Gingrich got some attention on the blogosphere this week after suggesting that, in light of the war on terror, it might be time to rethink "free speech." Hey, it worked with habeas corpus.

Now he's backpedalled a bit in just the way you'd expect from a neo-fascist.

But what he would take away with one hand, he gives back with another. In the interest of, he said, "expanding First Amendment rights," he called for the elimination of all limits on campaign contributions, in exchange for candidates' and parties' reporting all contributions on the Internet.

This proposal is not new: Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 informs me that when it was introduced in Congress a few years ago, it was known as "DeLay-Doolittle-Ney." Now that the first of those is under indictment, the third has copped a plea, and the middle one is under serious investigation, one has to wonder: What should you call a piece of legislation when all of its cosponsors are in jail?