Free Speech Be Damned

Free Speech Be Damned

by Mark Luedtke

Liberals are up in arms because at a recent breakfast meeting hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, George Bush signaled his and Republicans' support for the so-called Fairness Doctrine which would require TV network news to give equal time to conservative news broadcasts to balance their regular liberal news broadcasts. President Bush said for the good of the American, people, the FCC would judge the fairness and equal time according to Republican direction, not consumers. Liberals say this isn't fairness at all, but censorship and a violation of the First Amendment, freedom and free markets. Liberals say this is just another example of Bush's tyrannical rule.

I'm sure everybody recognizes this attempt to control the media is unconstitutional. Except President Bush didn't say it, Nancy Pelosi did. Republicans don't support the Fairness Doctrine, Democrats do. TV news isn't the target, conservative talk radio is. And conservatives are up in arms, not liberals.

Watch the expression on the face of liberals turn from outrage to glee when they finish that last paragraph. To liberals, since the target is talk radio, it's suddenly OK. After all, it's for the good of the American people. To conservatives' credit, they've never tried to use the power of government to force newspapers and TV broadcasters to present fair news coverage.

But the Fairness Doctrine isn't about fairness. Nobody is stopping liberals competing fairly in talk radio. They just can't compete. Liberal talk radio project Air America couldn't compete despite siphoning funds intended for inner city youth. (Air America refunded the money before it shut down.) To make a radio station present 3 hours of liberal talk radio to counter Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity isn't economically viable. Nobody wants to listen to Al Gore or Al Frankin. The Fairness Doctrine would force radio stations to drop conservative talk radio to stay profitable. The Fairness Doctrine is about censorship.

With a Democrat tsunami likely in November, everybody should be scared of this looming attack on free speech. Rep. Mike Spence introduced legislation, called the Broadcaster Freedom Act (HR 2905) to permanently end the Fairness Doctrine this session of Congress, but despite an online petition with 113,628 signatures and counting, Nancy Pelosi made it clear she won't allow a vote this session. She and her Democrat caucus want to silence talk radio, not support the Constitution. Leading Democrats including Sen. Durbin, Sen. Feinstein, and Sen. Kerry all support the Fairness Doctrine.

But the Fairness Doctrine is just one example of liberal intolerance for opposing viewpoints and contempt for freedom of speech. At campus colleges all around the country, liberals shout down conservative speakers. Liberals regularly assault conservative speakers and chase them from the stage. Liberals keep passing hate crime laws to punish speech and thought. This has gone so far in Canada that liberals have set up kangaroo human rights courts to try anybody publishing offensive comments, including trying Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Steyn's book, “America Alone”.

Some have mistakenly taken solace from Barack Obama's campaign's statement that Obama doesn't support the Fairness Doctrine. Just a few months ago, Obama supported public financing, until it wasn't in his best interest. Right now, while he courts conservatives, it's not in Obama's interest to come out in favor of the Fairness Doctrine. But if Obama becomes president and Democrats pass the Fairness Doctrine, he'll sign it.

But even while rejecting the Fairness Doctrine, Obama presented a more intrusive vision of interference in the broadcast industry. Obama wants to use government force to open up the airwaves to diverse viewpoints. If the airwaves aren't diverse enough for Obama, it's because there's not a big enough target audience for those viewpoints.

Obama is specifically concerned about black radio stations, but liberals won't limit their use of force to just putting blacks on the air. Under the Fairness Doctrine, liberals would force broadcasters to put on a black, Hispanic, Arab, and whatever else they decide is fair program for each white (as liberals see the world) program. They would force programmers to put on a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and whatever else they decide is fair program for each Christian program. It won't matter what the costumers or broadcasters want. It just matters what elitist liberals want, freedom and free speech be damned.

If you think I'm alarmist, remember these are the same people who want to lose the Iraq war as we're on the verge of winning it, who want to disarm Americans, making them easier prey for rapists and murders, who want to turn the greatest health care system in the world into a socialized medicine system as bad as Canada's and Britain's, who want to double down on the policies that so ruined our schools that 17 of the 50 biggest school districts in America fail half of their students, and who refuse to allow American companies to extract oil from ANWR and off the coasts, forcing us to import nearly all our oil, or build nuclear and coal power plants despite knowing full well demand for oil is rapidly outstripping supply and we're racing toward $200 per barrel.

These policies are so unreasonable, dangerous and extreme they border on insanity. None of those positions is good for Americans. All of those positions promote tyranny over freedom. The Fairness Doctrine will be no different.

And after they destroy talk radio, they'll come for libertarian columnists.