Submitted by Claude Bogardus, Jun 26, 2007 07:52

Any law, purporting to regulate speech for any reason, enacted by Congress and requiring the offices of an Official Censor, is in violation of the explicit Constitutional prohibion imposed on Congress by the First Amendment. The language could not be more lucid: "Congress shall enact no law..." If the finely wrought ethicists watching over an unruly Electorate determine that certain thoughts should remain unuttered, then let them repair to the several States and attempt there to compel Alabama to conform to semantic patterns common to Oregon, for example. The States are constrained by their own peculiar Constitutions and customs. If human speech is besmirched by vulgarity, profanity, and falsehood, as it seems to be from time to time, then let the States wrestle with the problem. The Federal Legislature and Courts have only made a botch of it.

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