A Stitch in Haste

"Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."
--McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Yet another politician confuses the U.S. with China or North Korea:

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.

One wonders what goes through the minds of hillbilly legislators when they proclaim their idiocy to the world in this manner. One wonders how such people figure out which shoe goes on which foot. (Do they even wear shoes in Kentucky?)

One can I suppose forgive Mr. Couch for not being an attorney, but can one really forgive him for not asking an attorney whether anonymous speech (such as, e.g., The Federalist Papers) is protected by the First Amendment? Or whether the question of anonymous Internet posting has been previously addressed? Or can one really forgive him for not taking all of ten seconds, four words and Google to find his own answer?

And, most importantly, can one forgive him for not giving a damn one way or the other? He had a jackass proposal tailored to his jackass constituents. What does the Constitution have to have do with it, right?

Just another hard-working day for another hard-working politician. Unfortunately.

(Via Slashdot.)