Posted on 01/30/2007 6:41:41 PM PST by pabianice
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is now on Fox. He is reintroducing the "Fairness Doctrine" to be passed into law. He does not like conservative radio and blogs and is intent upon ending them by making broadcasters air "opposing opinions" for each "conservative program." He is ripping Hannity for "not letting him talk" even as he is interviewed. I suspect the House will pass this. Don't know about the Senate.
That's what I figure would happen. Satellite radio would be the benificiary.
Not sure if Giuliani makes a 'good' Denethor.
Maybe not a fair comparison. I do trust Giuliani in a fight with the enemy, whereas Denethor was broken down to become a coward.
If they ever tried that I would hope and pray the PERL source code gets 'accidentally released'.
If they thought one FR was bad imagine them dealing with a few thousand off shore servers.
Hysterical, yet insightful, post.
What constitutes "fair"? What issues need "fairness"? Who gets to identify sides? Do Libertarians get "fair time"? Monarchists? Communists? Secessionists? Therein lies the lie - and to cover it back up, Kucinich et all will happily answer all the relevant questions, and bury their opponents therewith.
Framing the debate decides the results. "Tastes great" or "less filling"? Gov't-imposed false dichotomy.
Anyone who votes for this will be considered a fascist in my book, and that is NOT an overreaction.
You miss your own case.
Sure, 3 hours of Rush would have to be balanced with 3 hours of, say, Al Frankin. Thing is, where do those second 3 hours come from? they come from 3 hours already allocated to another right-leaning talker (Hannity, Medved, Savage, whoever). 3 hours of currently right-leaning politicals is silenced; maybe not all of it, but upwards of fully half. Which of those "deserves" to be silenced? Methinks Savage, being the less popular and more extreme, is de-scheduled ... but should he be silenced for his views?
What about timing? one 3-hour slot is not equal to another. Would the interlopers be content with the 9pm-9am slot? NOT.
This of course does not necessarily help the leftist talker, for listeners cannot be compelled to do so - switching to another channel which, gee whiz, happens to schedule its right-leaners to be on when another has its leftists on.
This also ignores other views. Sometimes there's more than two sides. Does a hardcore Libertarian get an equal, or voter-proportional, slot? Greeenies? Monarchists? There is no quantification of what is being allocated. With Savage being viewed as extreme, does one hour of him balance with 3 hours of a "centrist"?
Air America had its chance. Leftist hosts had more help getting started than any right-wing talker ever did. Result? listeners don't want 'em. They're not on because listeners tune elsewhere.
It is censorship. Someone WILL be shut off to make room for the unwanted.
Pres. Bush would probably sign this piece of excrement law.
He signed McCain-Feingold while observing how unconstitutional it was.
They would stop anyone from being banned. Trolls running wild. Nuclear Flame Wars!
Exactly. He'd probably sign it as part of the "new tone" in D.C. or some other such nonsense.
Thing is, where do those second 3 hours come from? they come from 3 hours already allocated to another right-leaning talker (Hannity, Medved, Savage, whoever). 3 hours of currently right-leaning politicals is silenced;
ok, I believe you.
bush will veto it anyway, so the point is moot.
that's right. toothpaste is way out of the tube now on this site
67 posted on 01/31/2007 8:44:43 AM EST by Getsmart64
Yes, that is precisely what the government (the FCC and the FEC) are doing now. It is in a real sense what they exist to do.To: Getsmart64
I believe we have what is called a Supreme Court, currently and for the coming future conservative leaning, we have what is called Due Process rights which does not allow for selective prosecution, how a liberal station would be recused from following that doctrine I fail to see.
69 posted on 01/31/2007 11:14:18 AM EST by pennboricua
This is all about the interest of Big Journalism, which Big Journalism conflates with the interest of the public. It would take major stones for Roberts, Alita, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy to rule correctly on the merits of a lawsuit against the FCC and the FEC. But Kennedy was on the side of Thomas et al on the case that upheld McCain. If his vote held as in that four-year ago case, and Roberts and Alito went with him, there would be a 5-4 majority voting to vindicate our constitutional rights.To: pennboricua Are you saying that someone will take the notion that the MSM leans left all the way to the SC? Are you saying that someone will take a newspaper all the way to the SC to show that they are mis-leading or stating down right lies about current issues when a TV station is using their articles as a basis for it's bias????..That's crazy....
70 posted on 01/31/2007 12:43:22 PM EST by Getsmart64
Given that we can't count on Bush - after all, he signed McCain - and that there are enough McCainiacs in the Senate to vote for cloture on the issue there, It seems all too likely that we will have no other recourse to keep FreeRepublic online. Crazy it may be, considering the propaganda barrage that Big Journalism - indeed all of the media - would launch against a faithful reading of the Constitution on this issue, our problem in a legal sense would not be to find a coherent legal rationale for a lawsuit, but to find a rationale which would allow SCOTUS to allow us to keep going without making such a broad ruling that it would be an unacceptably complete transformation of the media landscape. A ruling so dramatic, IOW, that Clarence Thomas would be fully revenged on Big Journalism.The facts are these:
The second Amendment comes nearer to saying the you have a duty to own a rifle (for a "necessary" militia) than the First Amendment comes to saying that ownership of a printing press by the Sultzberger family is of any benefit to the Republic. It is just something they are allowed to do, not something that is a public service like joining the National Guard.
- The Sultzbergers, Mrs. Graham, nor any other owner of a press has a title of nobility which entitles any of them - or all of them - to define "fairness" or "objectivity" in a way that the government has a right to rely on and/or which can bind the people. For the government to do that would be to make a "law bridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Presumptively The New York Times and The Washington Post - and Human Rights and The Nation and National Review - are equally political. None of them can be cited in a court of law as authoritatively correct and objective as regards any political matter (or in any matter at all without the writer being subjected to the laws of perjury and to cross examination). Half the truth may be a great lie (Franklin), and it is not possible to prove that no such "great lie" exists in any newspaper. That is an unprovable negative.
- Therefore, what The New York Times does or does not report does not obligate you or me to accept as objective or fair. And yet that is precisely what we are told by the FCC that we must respect; we may not on our own initiative rebut any FCC licensee by transmitting without an FCC license. The FCC licenses broadcasters to "broadcast in the public interest," and the broadcasters - lacking any other standard of fairness - seize on the standard of what print journalism goes along with.
- Since journalism doesn't produce food or shelter or clothing or security, journalism - whether print or broadcast - has an incentive to promote talk over doing. Every journalist has the option of abandoning himself to the proposition that, pace Theodore Roosevelt, the critic not only counts but is more important than "the man who is actually in the arena," providing our necessities. If he does so, all who do likewise will acclaim him to be "objective" - even as he does likewise for them. If he does not do so, he is "not a journalist, not objective." Precisely as Rush Limbaugh, or any other conservative commentator, is treated by Big Jounalism.
- Those who abandon themselves to the idea that criticism is more creditable than actual performance, but are not journalists, are given positive labels by those who are journalists. They are called "progressives" or "moderates" or "centrists" or "liberals." Any such person who gets a job as a journalist, having the selfsame attitude as all other journalists, instantly becomes labeled by all the others as "objective." Anyone who does not commit himself that way, is called a "conservative" - and probably cannot get hired as a journalist at all, let alone be considered "objective."
- It follows that the Fairness Doctrine's - and McCain-Feingold's - implicit division of perspectives into three camps:
is a false dichotomy. There are conservatives and liberals, in a general sense, but there is not a dime's worth of difference between the perspective of a "liberal" and that of an "objective" journalist.
- "conservative"
- "liberal"
- "objective journalist"
- Since freedom of speech and of press is explicit in the First Amendment, and since the framers did not even think that a bill of rights was necessary (meaning that the body of the Constitution should be interpreted as implying everything in the Bill of Rights, and possibly more), the burden of proof that there is a difference between the perspective of "objective" journalism and that of "liberalism" logically is not to be presumed but proven by its advocates. And IMHO it cannot be proved. I think that the proposition that there is a difference between "liberalism" and "objective journalism" can be disprove.
Bush signed McCain-Fiengold while noting its unconstitutionality. He already signed one political censorship bill, why not another?
Maybe not a fair comparison. I do trust Giuliani in a fight with the enemy, whereas Denethor was broken down to become a coward.
Denethor represents the state of those in the Republican party who want to run Giuliani. The "moderate" RINOs lusting after power, but are cowards to stand up for anything.
And, you can skip the sneaky private message responses. At least have the filberts to say what you want to openly...
hey, I didn't say it. but nothing would surprise me
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