18 December 2008

Fairness Doctrine To Be Resurrected By Congresswoman From Palo Alto

Congresswoman Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) in Strange Victorian-era Garb

A few weeks back, I wrote about the Trojan Horse politics that the progressive majority was going to slip in amidst a sea of smiley faces and unicorns. One of the issues is the Fairness Doctrine, which is a way for politicians and bureaucrats to silence "uncooperative" conservative media outlets under the guise of limited airspace. George Will wrote an article on Dec. 7th about how reactionary liberals were going to try and push it through, and Yglesias and Wonkette called him a crazy old crank. Even Keith Olbermann said that no one on the left was trying to bring the Fairness Doctrine back (and he's a pretty big mouthpiece for the Left).

But Gateway Pundit dredges up a statement from Congresswoman Eshoo, who reigns over the latte-sipping yuppieville of Palo Alto, CA, and she even wants it applied to not just radio, but TV, cable, and satellite services as well. From SF Peninsula Press Club:
Eshoo said she would recommend the doctrine be applied not only to radio and TV broadcasts, but also to cable and satellite services.

“It should and will affect everyone,” she said.

She called the present system “unfair,” and said "there should be equal time for the spoken word."
People in power tend to abuse that authority, and there's no reason to think that the new majority of elected liberals in Obama's America won't try and drown out political speech they deem hostile. Stop being chumps and thinking that all the empty rhetoric about "tolerance" and "fairness" somehow applies to you.

1 comments:

Sholom said...

The primary issue that I have with the "fairness" doctrine is that it erroneously assumes that there are two sides, and only two sides, to every issue.

According to my count, there are at least four sides: The left, the right, the common-sensical, and the kooky.

Take, for instance, the contentious non-issue of abortion.

Left: Abortion on demand. Get knocked up and terminate with impunity, with no regard to personal responsibility.

Right: Jeebus said all abortion is evil, even in cases of rape or incest.

Common-sensical: Overturn Roe v. Wade, let each state legislate for itself.

Kooky: Mandatory abortions for everyone.

Anyway, the whole "limited bandwidth" argument is bunk.