Obama Would Toss Limbaugh, Hannity From Radio

Newsmax ^ | 10/27/08 | Brad O’Leary

[onlylewis]

Barack Obama has a stunning lack of tolerance for free speech. And one thing Americans can expect from an Obama administration, and a Democratic-controlled Congress, is a legislative attempt to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which will limit free speech and diminish the conservative influence on talk radio.

A new ATI-News/Zogby International poll released on Oct. 26 made it clear that those who intend to vote for Obama support re-establishing the Fairness Doctrine.

[VOA]

Can the FCC step in and say that stations must change format because
a certain format is not on in a given city, or regulate musical content?

I don't know the actual answer to that. But I'm enough of a
"graybeard" (literally) that I can remember how BORING AM talk
radio was before Rush came along.

The first time I heard a Rush Limbaugh broadcast in Oklahoma,
I had (most likely) the same tingling that oppressed folks in
the USSR had when they heard their first Voice of America broadcast.
(my FR handle was born from talking with a family that escaped
one of the Baltic States after The Berlin Wall fell.)

With Sixty Democratic Senators and a majority of Democrats in
The House...
I suspect The ObamaMessiah can try (and maybe get) any sort of
lunatic legislation he pleases.

[Chickensoup]

Remember it is the Censorship Doctrine.

[Rightly Biased]

The Best news is Rush has enough money to battle this and he will.

[calex59]

Why should the “(un)Fairness Doctrine” only apply to talk radio? Why can’t it apply to NPR?

The last time the "fairness doctrine"(quotes because there is nothing fair about it)was implemented it applied only to radio, not to TV or newspapers and the internet didn't really exist for the public at that time. This ensured that no one would talk about right wing values on radio because the stations got swamped with people calling all the time wanting airtime to "refute" the conservative broadcasts, so they simply didn't have them, or at least very few.

This time I am sure they will include the internet and expand the conditions of the "fairness doctrine" so that we can't use the internet as we do now.

You have to remember the whole purpose of the fairness doctrine is to shut up conservatives and to stop all opposing views, just like communists have done the world over since it reared its ugly head out of the swamp ooze.

If I were Rush I would move to TV if they shut me down on Radio and didn't apply it to TV, if they apply it to TV then it is self defeating and the MSM will have to give equal time to conservatives.

However, I am sure they will cover that little item somehow.

Bozo and the boys are the most dangerous people we have ever had running for President, and while I don't think we will ever cave in to them I think the country will suffer huge waves of violence before we finally rid ourselves of this blood sucking parasite that calls himself a man.

[raccoonradio]

yes...I started listening to talk radio around ‘87 or
so with Jerry Williams in Boston and no doubt it was very
boring before then what with the FD. (btw Jerry, who has since passed on, had mentioned on air that in the early days before the time-delay was developed they were not allowed
to talk directly with the callers on air. “OK, so you say
you just bought a new Ford and you really like it? What do
you like best about it. Uh huh. And you say...” That’s
right—the caller could not be relayed over the air!)

In Boston Rush began as a weekends only show on what was
then WHDH AM 850 (now sports as WEEI). They later picked
him up daily, live, etc.

[Ancesthntr]

I think it would be as explosive to attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine as it would be to try and gut the Second Amendment from the Constitution. That’s the kind of stuff revolutions are made of.

Isn't that what you'd expect from someone who wants to "change America," and who has demonstrated not only his contempt for the 1st Amendment but also for the entire Constitution itself? Notice that they are not stupid - evil, maybe, but not stupid. They have to know that such an upheaval in our most basic laws would not be received well (and that is an understatement). Maybe people of that ilk don't fear revolution, but want it?

[george123]

I don't think so. For some reason the democrats are able to recruit people who have nothing else to do but monitor conservative talk shows, listening for a slip.

They would be able to recruit these same kinds of people to harass, to call in and request their point of view be presented.

I think most Republicans work for a living and don't have time to do that kind of thing.

[Skid Marx]

This ‘Fairness Doctrine’, if it were to be reinstated, will generate a lawsuit, whereas the SCOTUS will strike it down as unconstitutional, as it should.

We were sure that McCain-Feingold would meet that fate too. It should have, but didn't.

[Skid Marx]

Wow, you’d think that having the presidency, the legislature, 90% of newspapers and magazines, 90% of Hollywood, 80% of news broadcasters, 90% of Universities and public schools, 80% of the Internet infrastructure they’d be content.

They don't call it 'Totalitarian' for nothing.

[Skid Marx]

...The Fairness Doctrine is a two-edged sword...

And a strange one as well, with both edges on the same side. Political enforcement is always discretionary enforcement. Never ever forget it. When the bolsheviks were hauling their victims off to their doom, each of them was certain that if Stalin only knew of the injustice happening to them, he would make it go away. Hope springs eternal. Change though, can be unexpectedly ugly.

[Brian S. Fitzgerald]

This is one thing that will not happen - because we won’t let it.

[Skid Marx]

Dust off all the old tomes on “civil disobedience” so beloved of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and begin to apply their principles.

I listened to a lecture by King quite a while back. It was delivered to a Jewish organization in NY, in 1966 or so, the topic was Non Violent Direct Action. One of the best, most relevant talks I have ever heard. Wish I could remember more details.

[Maverick68]

It may end up being alot more than “civil disobedience”.

[ladymac]

Maybe we (conservatives) could lead a campaign to cancel our cabel/sattelite network subscriptions and turn toward sattelite radio and internet. I would be willing. Of course I would somehow have to figure out how to watch the Alabama football games.

[Klepto]

Thanks!