[Steve0113]

the FCC license proclaim that the FCC licensee is "more equal" than you and me. An FCC license makes the licensee's voice in politics louder than yours and mine, and proclaims that what the licensee says and does not say, and what the licensee shows and does not show, is "in the public interest."

Up to a point. You're overlooking the most obvious reason for FCC licensing, which is that the airwaves would be unusable without somebody imposing order on who broadcasts on which frequency. Read up on the early days of radio, when it was completely unregulated. It was chaotic, with stations "stepping on" one another. FCC broadcast licensing prevents that chaos today. You don't have to agree with how the FCC awards licenses to see that such licensing is necessary.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the most obvious reason for FCC licensing, which is that the airwaves would be unusable without somebody imposing order on who broadcasts on which frequency.

Of course. But you have to look at the issue not from the audience's POV but from the performers' POV. It is no accident that the First Amendment doesn't say that you have a right to hear, or to read, what others say. Rather, the First Amendment declares the right to speak and to print, and only by implication do you have the right to hear or read - if you are within sound of the speaker's voice or, or if you have bought or borrowed a copy of the writer's text.

It would be completely outside the spirit of the Constitution for it to say that the government has a right to subsidize a newspaper, and hire editors who will propagandize for higher taxes. But the government does in fact promote - under the rhubric of "objectivity" - a concensus of journalists who do in fact propagandize for exactly that.

And that concensus, pretending to be objective, actually defines the Democratic Party of today. Liberal politicians operate out of the mindset that people don't pay attention, really, to the issues - that all that really lmatters at any given time is that you get good PR right now.

That is exactly the kind of governance we got from Bill Clinton, and it led directly to 9/11. But you gotta admit, it got Bill Clinton in the the oval office and kept him there for eight years . . . that's what counts, right? </sarcasm>

The rule of the FCC is that you have a right to be able to pick up some stations on relatively crude electronic equipment. You pay for that "right" with the influence which those broadcast stations have to promote things which you consider anathema, and with the duty you have to shut up and let them do it. That is what a "right to listen" means.