Tuesday, February 17, 2009

BIG BROTHER AWAKENS

If there is one underlying theme to the modern Democrat party, it has to be irony. In yet another scheme designed to spin our founding fathers to maximum RPM in their centuries old graves, some members of our allegedly representative Congress have stepped out onto the limb of totalitarianism and advocated for the "fairness doctrine". For those of you who don't know, the mis-named "fairness doctrine" is anything but. Rather, it is a way for the government to destroy one of our founding principals...freedom of speech.

In a nut shell, the fairness doctrine is legislation designed to force the press to give equal time to both sides of an issue in their coverage. Sounds good, huh? Not so fast there Hot Rod. Time to apply some brain juice to the subject. First, who ever said that there are only two sides to a story or only two opinions on any given topic? Second, there is a little thing called the Constitution of the United States. You see, there's this little thing in there called the First Amendment. It states as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

You would think that those who are sworn to defend the Constitution would actually understand it as well...but apparently not. Don't get me wrong, as a conservative, no one is more disproportionally represented in the media than those who advocate my philosophy, but as an American citizen who knows how to read, I understand the implications of forcing another person to voice my opinions under penalty of the law. Do I consider it a kick in the crotch that Keith Olberman and Chris Mathews rarely give a fair shake to the right? Yes. But for me to propose government intervention that would control the content of their shows would make me an accessory to the destruction of their right to free speech.
That's what makes so little sense to me though. Why do Democrat talking heads want to institute something that would be as much of an abomination to the left as it would be to the right? After all, if producers of shows like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are forced to air liberal view points equally, then host like Ed Schultz and Allan Combs would be forced to air the view points of the right under the same legal precedent. Do they consider that when they promote democrats on their shows?
Sure, I would love to debate Ed and/or Allan on the national stage, but not at the expense of their right to produce their own show as they see fit.
Some believe that the fairness doctrine would be limited to AM talk radio, but not so. Once that precedent is set, it will be used for cases in all corners of the media. That means that CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and even lesser known publications like the Mother Earth News or High Times will be required to present points from the right side of the issues.
Since it seems to be mainly the "fringe left" who are in favor of this unconstitutional garbage, I have no choice but to question their sanity. Between conservative talk radio hosts being obligated to debate and consequently destroy their liberal counterparts on a daily basis, and liberal hosts being forced to air conservatism for a change, it turns out that the "fringe left" are the ones who would suffer most in the long run under the fairness doctrine. Political suicide, or simple masochism? You decide.

Imagine the government forcing McDonald's to start selling Whoppers, or Ford to start selling Chevy's on their lots. Actually, that last one might be a bad example, now that the government is going to be the controlling interest in the "Big Three", they might be doing that soon.