You might recall that in 2002, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act became law. This piece of legislation, which had John McCain as a key sponsor, coalesced with preexisting campaign finance regulatory statutes to further violate the First Amendment rights of individuals. Regardless of what the Supreme Court of the United States decided in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, limiting the amount of money used for advocating a position is indeed a freedom of speech violation. Instead of going into detail on the caveats associated with BCRA, I'll let George Will and Reason Magazine handle that task. Oh, I probably should mention though that BCRA prohibits minors from making contributions.

Having the GOP candidate for president only a couple of years ago spearheading legislation that severely limits free speech expounds the due diligence that party members need to exercise when selecting a candidate for office; via convention or otherwise. This diligence shouldn't be exclusive to federal office candidate selection either - it should be applied to selecting candidates at every level down to the local level. Certainly it's impossible to agree with a candidate 100%, but viewpoints such as those espoused by candidates like John McCain are completely incompatible with those who are true conservatives.

Originally, I was intending on writing strictly about how campaign finance laws are in complete contradiction with the First Amendment (yet again, SCOTUS be damned), similar in fashion to my previous entry about how government intervention into labor relations are immoral. However, I decided that the conservative community (bloggers and non-bloggers alike) would be better served with a piece that attempts to do a little more than editorialize. You know, maybe attempt to give a bit of helpful advice or some derivative thereof? This in turn lead to what you just read now - a warning about how extremely crucial it is to appropriately select candidates that truly stand for conservative values.