I'm starting to feel more and more like William Wallace everyday. He was also betrayed by his countrymen.
Posted on 02/15/2009 12:02:43 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Remember when the Left laughed at conservatives’ concerns over the Fairness Doctrine? Barack Obama already said he opposed the reimposition of the FCC rule, they said. After all, Obama’s campaign gave this definitive statement in June 2008:
“Senator Obama does not support re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters,” said press secretary Michael Ortiz in an e-mail to B&C late Wednesday.
“He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible,” said Ortiz.
As our friend Jim Geraghty reminds us, all of Barack Obama’s statements come with an expiration date. Today, Chris Wallace interviewed David Axelrod and asked him directly about the Fairness Doctrine — and suddenly the White House adviser got a lot less definitive:
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Call your reps - even once a week if possible - and tell them we don’t want the “Fair”ness Doctrine, whether they call it the “Fair”ness Doctrine, localism, diversity, etc. - we don’t want it!
I'm starting to feel more and more like William Wallace everyday. He was also betrayed by his countrymen.
“Remember when the Left laughed at conservatives’ concerns over the Fairness Doctrine?”
The Soviet Union used to call dissidents “paranoid” about their government trampling on their liberties. 0bama is following in their footsteps.
“Call your reps - even once a week if possible - and tell them we don’t want the “Fair”ness Doctrine, whether they call it the “Fair”ness Doctrine, localism, diversity, etc. - we don’t want it!”
Yeah, and remind them what a police state we had under Eisenhower and Nixon and Ford and Reagan, how freedom of speech was crushed under the boot of the government and its Fairness Doctrine...then see if Rush will cut you a check.
Obama got burned by talk radio during Porkulus...one thing he learned during his street agitator days was to get even. I think quite a few Democrats in Congress will have trouble going along with reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but wait for Obama’s FCC to go ahead and impose it by fiat. I expect talk radio and others will take this one to the mat and it could end up in the SCOTUS. Passage of Fairness could breathe new life into SiriusXM and bring in 20 million new subscribers if talk radio is banned from AM radio. I fully expect in three years to be getting talk radio only from satellite or shortwave radio from beyond the Obama curtain.
FDR used the Fairness Doctrine in a pretty totalitarian way, combining it with the call to “patriotism” during the Second World War.
After the news media were all shifted over to the far left, beginning with the Roosevelt years when Uncle Joe Stalin was our friend and ally, there was less need for it. But I think we are about to see a new intolerance. Ninety-five percent leftist news is no longer good enough.
Well, he doesn't have that kind of campaign money available to him anymore so conservatives are now beating him on the message front. He's got old media (he's on TV every day monopolizing it even though he knows it's dying) and we've got new media which is cutting edge and more effective.
Thus, his attempts at shutting us down with "Fairness".
“FDR used the Fairness Doctrine....”
FDR had been in his grave five years before the Fairness Doctrine was enacted.
Conservative talk radio will be banned before Summer. It will not go on Sirius/XM because the new owners (and the present ones for that matter) won’t let it. The internet must be neutralized as well... Mark my word this day.
Or, go on offense. Defense might be a loosing strategy....
Fairness
There is currently under way an effort to return the Fairness Doctrine that will in effect limit free speech on the public airways. The Federal Communications Commission can reinstate the rule with no action by the US Congress or the President. The thought is that utterances on the radio must be fair and that a second view must be given equal time.
The public airways are actually a spectrum that has been divided into numerous specific frequency ranges that are corridors along which a radio wave carrying information is transmitted.. This proposed action regulating the information carried is a Federal matter since the airways are considered to be part of interstate commerce and require a Federal license. The states have no say in the matter.
The purpose of this essay is to develop a logical thought pattern that will permit the various States to gain some control of intra state transmission of information. That would be particularly true of my State, Tennessee.
Within the State of Tennessee information is transmitted and transferred by several methods but in this piece consideration will be restricted to two, printed publications and cable TV.
All printed material be it newspapers manufactured within the state borders or magazines, CD’s, DVD’s, recorded tapes or other similar publications from numerous sources are transported on the Tennessee public streets, roads and highways. These transportation corridors are in every respect similar to the spectral corridors regulated by the FCC except the roadways are regulated by the state of Tennessee. It is there fore a very logical step to conclude that based on the logic of information flow regulation by the FCC over federally regulated corridors, a similar regulatory body can be established by the State to assure that fairness is achieved in information carried or transported on the state regulated corridors and roadways. Printed publications must be fair to be transported over public ways.
In a similar vein, the state of Tennessee should be able to regulate the use of rights of way that are actually part of the same streets, roads and highways noted above. These rights of way are heavily used for various purposes including the physical presence of fiber optic and coaxial cable that are in fact information corridors similar to the FCC regulated corridors that are the public airways. The cable companies transporting on the public rights of way should be subject to the same fairness regulations governing the printed media transported on the adjacent roadways. Cable information must be fair to be transported over public rights of way.
There is no difference. Printed media and cable TV information are both transported along public ways .There is no difference between printed media transported over public roads and voice utterances transmitted over radio waves. Thoughts are transmitted over public ways.
Then there is the question of the first amendment and free speech. It can be argued that such regulation is a violation of the First Ammendment to the Constitution. That is obviously not the case or the FCC would not be able to impose the Fairness Doctrine. There is no action in the regulation preventing the free exercise of the right to say what ever the writer or publisher or news commentator desires. They can say what ever they want with no fear of any retribution by the State of Tennessee. If they desire to propagate the speech using the public ways, then they are subject to fairness regulation. The precedent for the State regulatory authority is the FCC regulated Federal authority.
If the public ways are restricted, then how can the speech material be propagated? The answer is quite simple. If the speaker wants to sell his material, he can set up a place of business where the public can come and buy what ever is for sale. The speaker can also go into an out of door site and speak whatever comes to mind to all within earshot. His rights of free speech are not restricted by regulations of the transport of the medium packets. It is the transport of those information packets on public ways that is regulated.
Ronald Reagan reversed the so-called Fairness Doctrine. After than we had Rush, and a lot of conservative talk show hosts followed.
Thank you Ronald Reagan!
“Ninety-five percent leftist news is no longer good enough.”
So true, and so sad.
No he doesn't, now he has billions in federal funds and 3 RINOS that will vote with him all the time.
FDR enacted the Fairness Doctrine in 1934.
The Democrat-Socialist party and its new leader are really pushing their luck.
“go on offense.”
I contacted two local talk show hosts in my area, and one of them got back to me, and covered it on his show the very next day after my email.
Next I will write a letter to the editor.
We must keep fighting, but we all have to fight. I can’t fight the world alone.
The net must be neutralized before much longer because it's the only place with a free voice.
What a legacy: The Obama Administration - Trashing the First Amendment.
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