Let me see if I understand this. A Texas court invalidated a law that placed a special $5 tax on pole dancing. The court said that pole dancing is protected by the First Amendment and that the law was invalid because Texas could not come up with a "compelling government interest" to impose the tax. Similarly, begging is protected by the First Amendment. I guess there is no "compelling government interest" there, either.
It almost seems like the only thing not protected by the First Amendment is the right of two or more people to pool their money and put a commercial on TV or radio that mentions a candidate’s name within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Congress claims they have a compelling government interest to prohibit this: they want to avoid even the appearance of corruption. Of course, that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that they don’t like people saying bad things about them just before an election. It makes it too hard to get re-elected.
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