Rigging The Debate
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY |
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007 4:20 PM PT
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=267835655351756
Media: Thanks to talk radio, Fox News, bloggers and other challengers
of the dominant media's liberal orthodoxy, the forces of freedom have
been winning the debate. What's a sore loser to do? Rig the game once
again.
On "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Dianne Feinstein suggested reviving the
Fairness Doctrine that gave the state power to regulate political
views expressed over the airwaves.
"In my view, talk radio tends to be one-sided," the California
Democrat complained. "It also tends to be dwelling in hyperbole. It's
explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot
of information."
That sounds like a fancy way of saying people aren't thinking the way
the government wants them to be thinking.
Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin agreed. "It's time to re-institute
the Fairness Doctrine," he told The Hill newspaper. "I have this
old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the
story, they're in a better position to make a decision."
Of course, today there are a lot more than "both sides of the story."
Thanks to the popularity of political blogs, there are hundreds of
"sides." Which ones out of that ocean of free expression will Durbin
and the state-appointed broadcast commissars who regulate a new
Fairness Doctrine deem acceptable? Will 9/11 conspiracy theorists get
equal time? How about moon landing hoax proponents?
Liberal Democrats can't stand it that there's now a cable news network
that doesn't accept their ideology, lock, stock and barrel — and which
has overtaken CNN in ratings. They don't like it that AM radio has
enjoyed an unexpected nationwide renaissance courtesy of entertaining
hosts who make the case for lower taxes and defeating terrorists.
They want to force a return to the days when the choice before
American TV viewers was between the Rather, Jennings or Brokaw brands
of liberalism.
That is to say, they want to tilt the playing field some more in the
national exchange of ideas.
Rep. Mike Pence, a former radio and TV broadcaster, and a Republican
from Indiana, sees exactly what is going on. This week, he introduced
the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which would prohibit the Federal
Communications Commission from requiring broadcasters to present
particular opposing viewpoints on political issues.
An "archaic remnant of a bygone era of American radio," as Pence
described it, "there is nothing fair about the Fairness Doctrine."
And he added a crucial point: "In a free market, fairness should be
determined based upon equal opportunity, not equal results."
In other words, there comes a time when certain ideas win the debate,
and the losing ideas are relegated to the ash heap of history.
Under a new Fairness Doctrine would the government force-feed
Americans with, say, the discredited idea that we should repeal
welfare reform? Or that we should return to 15 income tax brackets,
with the top one at 70%, like during the days of Jimmy Carter?
When President Reagan in effect abrogated the Fairness Doctrine in the
mid-1980s, it "opened the public airwaves to free and vigorous
discussion of controversial issues by individuals of all political
stripes," as Pence pointed out.
And as Pence quoted John F. Kennedy, "a nation that is afraid to let
its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation
that is afraid of its people."
Feinstein and Durbin and the many other liberal Democrats who want to
re-impose the Fairness Doctrine are indeed afraid of the people.
Because they know that the freer the exchange of ideas is in America,
the more chance they will lose at the ballot box.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Celibacy in healthy human beings is a form of
insanity. -- Captain Compassion
"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
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