How the Mighty Have Fallen

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For 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." ~John F. Kennedy

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." ~Noam Chomsky

"Take away the right to say "f***" and you take away the right to say "f*** the government."" ~Lenny Bruce

"You can cage the singer but not the song." ~Harry Belafonte, in International Herald Tribune, 3 October 1988

How ironic that the party that embraces these men is the same party that is now contemplating the imposition of a "Fairness" Doctrine to muzzle their opposition.

Never mind the fact that the major broadcast television networks are openly supportive of the Democrats and their Messiah, or that the vast majority of newspapers published in this country exhibit an extreme bias toward liberal thinking. There shall be no curtailment of their speech. Only talk radio, the one bastion of conservative thought that has proven impossible to defeat through free market tactics is to be targeted.

Air America, the progressive radio network, began broadcasting on March 31st, 2004. Nearly five years later, their most popular hosts, Thom Hartmann and Lionel, are estimated to each have over 1.5 million unique listeners a week. Simply put, no one cares to listen. Liberal radio cannot compete with liberal television, liberal newspapers and liberal magazines. There are only so many liberals available, and with such a plethora of available information sources, they are all otherwise occupied. In October, 2006, Air America filed for bankruptcy. With no listeners, it's difficult to find sponsors in a free market system.

Contrast that to the wild success of conservative talk radio. Rush Limbaugh averages nearly 15 million unique listeners a week, Sean Hannity more than 13 million. While their numbers are not as impressive, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin each have more than triple the listeners of Air America's star attraction. With virtually no other palatable choices, conservatives flock en masse to talk radio, and are fiercely loyal to their preferred host(s). No one forces them to listen, just as no one bans anyone from listening to Air America. They listen because they are desperate for sanity in this crazed political era of ever larger entitlements and ever smaller freedoms.

This drives the liberals mad. They refuse to recognize the extreme imbalance which exists in the media, focusing only on that one last bastion of conservatism that they do not own. They have not been able to destroy it through competition, so they wish to legislate it out of existence with a narrow, likely unconstitutional, definition of free speech. They are not bothered in the least that almost every other medium is in the tank for their side - no demands for "fairness" will be imposed on network television or print media. Only the domain of the opposition must be regulated, forced to provide "balance." The true hope, of course, is that radio stations will not be able to tolerate the pain of ensuring equal time or the financial losses caused by airing liberal talk and will refuse to continue broadcasting conservative talk, thereby destroying that which the liberals could not crush through honest means.

I suspect they will have problems passing this bit of legislation. We conservatives tend to be somewhat laid back, not given to demonstrations or protests. But, as least for me, this would cross a line that is absolutely unacceptable. Democrats may well find that they have misjudged the strength and passion of free men and women this time...

"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." ~Tommy Smothers