I figure if the First Amendment is ever going to catch up to the Second Amendment in its infringements, it still has a way to go. Get cracking, Congress!
So in that spirit, I offer these suggestions to our fine, constitutionally-minded legislators pondering this important matter. For the children, of course:
- Print ads 60 days before an election must be read at a rate no more than 1 word per second. Speed readers and fast talkers (referred to as fully automatic) will hereby be prohibited from engaging in civilian political speech. They will be reserved for government and law enforcement use only.
- 'High-capacity' words that might mean a lot, like 'epistemology', 'Constitution' or 'macroeconomics' will be prohibited from political speech. No word used in a political advertisement by a civilian may contain more than 10 letters. Words and ideas such 'racism', 'hate', 'Enron' and 'Marxism' fall under the capacity limit, and are thus permissible for civilian use.
- Words and phrases describing entities, such that can be descibed by acronyms, thus collapsable and easy to conceal, will be prohibited from use in civilian political speech. These include acronyms such as CFR, GAO, FBI, IRS, DEA, CIA, ATF, POTUS, FLOTUS, SCOTUS, and BOHICA. Words that can apply to a large group with a single usage must not be manually truncated below a certain length. "Sawed-off" words such "gub'mint", "libs", and "pols" will be prohibited from use in the political speech of civilians.
- Political speech and ideas sent from one private individual to another via any medium (mail or other carrier) must be accompanied by an FBI background check of the person receiving the political speech and ideas in question. Failure to meet acceptible standards for posession of that speech will result in the prohibition of the recipient from receiving any further political speech, until such time as posession of that speech or idea is approved by the Federal Government.
- Political speech in one state may not be freely transported to another state. Speech must be sent via a federally registered speech licensee (FSL). However, political speech mentioning the FSL, if employing the acronym and thus easily concealed by civilians, is banned.
- Some small words, which are small enough to be used by any civilian, in some states will require a license to use. Words such as "vote", "recall", or "impeach."
As you can see, the First Amendment has a lot of catching up to do. Good to see our legislators so hard at work at it!
Good job.