The rationale for censorship

We're too dumb to hear all opinions and still make an informed choice, according to anti-free speech activists. Bert Gall refutes such idiocy:

Democracy 21, which lobbies for strict restrictions on free speech, warns ominously that the [Citizens United] decision “is a disaster for the American people.” Common Cause asserts that the decision has created a “political crisis.” On its Web page, Public Citizen proclaims, in huge red lettering, that “SUPREME COURT UNDOES DEMOCRACY.”

This hyperbole betrays a belief—common among proponents of restrictions on political speech—that Americans, like lemmings, are merely dull creatures who can be easily led off a cliff. Thus, unless the government “protects” us from hearing corporations’ speech about politics, we’ll always vote in ways that benefit corporations because they will spend lots of money to convince us to do so.

This conclusion is as ridiculous as it is patronizing. If corporations are capable of making the public do their bidding, then why isn’t everyone driving their Edsels to Circuit City to purchase Betamax video recorders?

The answer, of course, is that Americans are not imbeciles who mindlessly succumb to corporate advertising campaigns. We are fully capable of evaluating corporate speech on its merits; thus, we do not need “protection” from it.