It is my thesis that FCC broadcast licenses are unconstitutional "titles of nobility", in that the FCC stipulates that the license operates in the public interest--which means that the FCC essentially certifies the licensees to be truth-tellers.
And that is just the sort of thing that the First Amendment says is outside the purview of government.
As to the comparison of FreeRepublic with ham radio, I think that the Internet in general is the free press grown up--it is "the poor man's soap box" with a global reach. In a way it might be thought of as taking the sport out of DXing . . . and it gives the "operator" the ability to make his text and images accessible globally.
The other difference between ham radio and FR is that ham radio has relatively few channels to operate on, I think--whereas the Internet has basically unlimited capacity to allow people to establish their own addresses for the rest of the world to access. Again, the broadcast licensee has the right to talk, and we-the-people have the right to listen--and the duty to shut up, as far as the licensed bands are concerned. That turns the First Amendment principle on its head.
Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Huh?
There is enough spectrum in one band 70 cm (420 - 450 MHz) alone to allow the concurrent operation of several full-blown, full-motion, color ATV (Amateur Television) stations!
'Ham' radio isn't quite limited like CB (legally, only 40 'channels' allocated) is - there are variety of 'bands' with a varying amounts of spectrum in each ...