Here we go again.

The House has passed its version

of campaign finance "reform," proving for the ten thousandth

time that there is nothing in American life that is working well enough

that some politician won't try to "fix" it.

Whenever you see the word "reform"

attached to a bill in Congress, you can be sure that the result will be

something that is more complicated, harder to understand, more difficult

to enforce and provides more opportunities for abuse than whatever is

being reformed.

The one possible exception

is the welfare reform passed back in the '90s.

In the other cases, inevitably

these kinds of reforms get foisted on the American people because the

proponents couch the debate in terms that unfairly put the opponents in

a bad light.

They'll come up with some monstrous

reconfiguration of Social Security and name it something like "The

Help for Widows and Orphans, Prevention of Childhood Disease and Promotion

of Brotherhood for All Mankind" bill.

What?! You're opposed to help

for widows and orphans, prevention of childhood diseases and promotion

of brotherhood for all mankind?!

Now we're reforming campaign

finance, which amounts to tweaking previous laws that attempted to govern

campaign finance, which were reforms of still earlier campaign finance

laws.

And guess what lawyers for

big companies, unions and other organizations that like to give big money

to political campaigns are doing, along with lawyers for political parties

and political consultants?

That's right. They're studying

the new legislation to find out where the loopholes are ... and they are

definitely there ... so they can keep on doing what they have been doing.

And who benefits from such

legislation? That's right, the lawyers and consultants. Clever, these

Americans.

Meanwhile, one provision of

the bill is clearly an attack on your constitutional right to free speech.

Well, "clearly" may be too strong of a word. Experts studying

the bill can't figure out absolutely for sure whether the bill will reduce

or increase the number of political attack ads paid for by groups that

are outside the actual political arena.

You know the ones ... "Sen.

Bullmoose is opposed to the Smith/Jones Environmental Protection Bill,

which will save the planet from utter destruction and prevent horrible

diseases in newborn infants. Tell Sen. Bullmoose you are opposed to his

desire to inflict disease on newborn infants and utterly destroy the planet

(i.e., vote against Sen. Bullmoose and set fire to his house if you can

get away with it). Paid for by the Committee for Everything Good and Decent."

Hey, I agree, some of those

ads are awful, and you can never tell who is really paying for them.

That's the whole soft money/hard

money argument. I'm only allowed to give so much money to Bullmoose's

opponent, but I can give a boat load to some thinly disguised group that

will saturate the airwaves with this kind of junk.

So why would I be opposed to

reforms that would prevent this kind of thing? Well, there's this little

matter of the Constitution of the United States and its guarantee of free

speech, which, unlike the provisions of the campaign finance reform bill,

is crystal clear.

You want campaign finance reform?

I'll give you campaign finance reform. Here's my bill:

You can give any amount of

money you like to anyone's political campaign you choose as long as that

money is duly reported and those reports made available online, by fax

or mail to anyone who asks. If you want to run politically oriented advertising,

knock yourself out, as long as you have a detailed list of all contributors

available online, by fax or mail to anyone who asks.

If you think all big oil companies

are evil, and a candidate's money all comes from big oil companies, don't

vote for him. If you like oil companies but don't like the AFL/CIO, and

a candidate's money all comes from AFL/CIO, vote for the oil company guy.

It's called freedom. Are we

grown up enough to handle it? Apparently not.