From this morning’s MTP is the exchange I mentioned this morning:

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: You close down any Web site that is jihadist.

MR. RUSSERT: But who makes that judgment?

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: Look, I—you can appoint three federal judges if you want to and say, “Review this stuff and tell us which ones to close down.” I would just like to have them be federal judges who’ve served in combat.

MR. RUSSERT: Are you concerned, however, that with carte blanche, that the government could move in and say, “This mosque is closed, this Web site is shut down”?

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: No. You have—you have more censorship in the McCain-Feingold bill, which blocks the right of free speech about American campaigns than you have from the FBI closing down jihadists. We’ve already limited the First Amendment right of free speech by a set of rules that are stunningly absurd. In California, you can raise soft money to run negative commercials attacking your opponent through the state party and you cannot raise soft money to run a positive commercial on behalf of your own candidate. That’s California state law. It’s stunningly stupid and a clear infringement of free speech.

So we’ve had a 30-year period of saying it’s OK to infringe free speech as long as it’s about politics. But now if you want to be a jihadist, and you want to go kill people, well who are we to say that’s morally wrong? I think that’s suicidal. I’m using the word deliberately. A country—a Supreme Court justice once said “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” This country has every right to defend itself, and you saw the same thing recently on this U.S. Airlines provocation, where you had six people go way out of their way to cause trouble, and then claim they were infringed upon. And I think, frankly, the president should invite that U.S. Airlines crew to the White House and thank them, because we ought to set a standard that if you’re provocative about killing people, we’re not going to show you any mercy.

Numerous things come to mind.

First, how does one know which web sites will result in terrorist activity? Where is magic the Divining Rod of Truth going to be found that can be plugged into a governmental USB port to let us know that, “yep, this is one bad site. Shut’er down!”

Second, if we are going to start targeting and shutting down “hate” sites that might led to violence are also going to shut down white supremacist sites, right wing anti-government sites, extreme environmentalist sites, anti-immigrant sites? Where will we stop? The ability to abuse these kinds of powers is immense. Might not a liberal-leaning panel of judges worry about sites (or at least the commenters) at blogs like Little Green Footballs? We have already seen the government of India decide that some US blog, like The Jawa Report are too dangerous to allow in the country. Do we really want to empower the US federal government in like fashion? I find the fact that someone like Gingrich is so vocal in support of such a position to be very disturbing.

Third, in general, conservatives have long argued that “hate laws” are problematic because it is difficult to quantify “hatred” when assessing a crime and enforcing penalties. The argument has long been that the issue at hand is the action of the individuals, not how much “hate” a person might harbor in their hearts.

Fourth, why in the world would judges with combat experience be better suited to render decisions on the content of websites and their likely influence over behavior? I have great respect for those who serve in our armed forces, but there is nothing about service that necessarily equates to greater wisdom than civilians. Further, in this type of proposal–one that goes directly to questions of the democratic rights of citizens–it is a pernicious thing to assume that having been in combat provides special insight. What would being shot at have to do with one’s ability to discern when the First Amendment ought to be abridged? Indeed, one with a military background might well be predisposed to more order than freedom (although perhaps that is Gingrich’s goal).

Fifth, if current speech restrictions are “stunningly absurd” why does that somehow translate into Gingrich thinking that more speech restrictions are therefore okay? There is some serious intellectual discontinuity going on here.