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On the Limits of Government, Part 2

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In 1776 the Continental Congress submitted to a “candid World” the “self-evident” truths that “all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness....” Government, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed, is merely the means to a noble end. Its signers did not want to live in anarchy; they wished to reaffirm the principle, handed down to them through the ages, that holds that government is formed as the protector of people’s rights. “To secure these Rights,” states the Declaration, “Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” To speak of power coming legitimately from the “consent of the governed,” or being exercised by representatives of the people, is therefore to address only half of the matter. Mobs exercise power — but ...

The Campaign-Reform Crime, Part 1

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In 2002, Congress passed and George Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The McCain-Feingold Act was supposed to create an era of clean politics — uncorrupt, untainted, and far loftier than what Americans had experienced in prior decades. If the 2008 election proved anything, it revealed that politicians cannot be trusted to clean up politics. Instead, the “reform” laws they pass are usually nothing more than attempts to suppress criticism and protect incumbents against challenge. At the time the McCain-Feingold Act was being debated, the supposed problem plaguing American politics was the proliferation of so-called soft money — money given by individuals or political action committees in amounts not limited by federal regulations. President Bush’s solicitor general, Theodore Olson, told the Supreme Court that soft money is “a euphemism for money that’s going around the system ... money that is prohibited to go to ...

The Campaign-Reform Crime, Part 2

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We saw in the last issue how the McCain-Feingold Act — the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) — sought to fundamentally change the American political landscape. Politicians did not allow the Act’s power to lie idle in the first presidential election after its enactment. The BCRA’s issue-ad ban — the peril that Justice Antonin Scalia targeted in his dissent to the Supreme Court decision upholding the act — quickly helped muzzle potential critics of incumbents. The BCRA “protects” citizens from exposure to a sweeping array of messages. The AFL-CIO noted that the act prohibits pre-election ads that call upon a Member of Congress to support or oppose imminent legislation, or ask viewers or listeners to urge the member to do so; inform the public, or express an opinion, about a Member of Congress’s votes, legislative proposals or performance ...