Someone needs to explain why it is that conservatives continue to insist that liberals want to reinstitute the FCC’s 1949 Fairness Doctrine. While it is true that the old regulation is brought up from time to time, it has no traction in either the House of Senate. The administration is opposed to it. The Supreme Court would rule against it. Still, conservative talk radio continues to chant about the "Hush Rush Bill" as if it were a real threat that has real backing. It isn’t, it doesn’t, and it’s not going to happen. Nor will the sky fall.
Before you start to write your commentary about Nancy Pelosi, stop for a moment. The Speaker of the House has been quoted as saying she supported the Fairness Doctrine by John Gizzi, Political Editor of Human Events, which calls itself the “Headquarters of the Conservative Underground.” He asked a yes-no question and she said yes at a Christian Science Monitor luncheon they both attended. She also said no, she didn’t think it would come to the floor for a vote. It is an issue on which the Speaker does not express a majority opinion.
Perhaps someone can also explain how it is it that conservatives (“disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change”) use the word "liberal" as an adjective of derision as in the term liberal media or liberal socialist agenda such as “state aid for the betterment of the working classes.” That socialism is some kind of evil.
How could mainstream media be anything other than liberal (“favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties”)? Being liberal minded requires reporting both sides of any issue, which defines fairness in and of itself without any regulation to be fair.
The conservative mantra that their champion Ronald Reagan struck down the Fairness Doctrine is incorrect. His son Michael claims in his blog, Michigan Redneck II, “My dad, President Reagan, killed the ‘Fairness Doctrine.’ As a result, this rule change allowed Rush, Hannity, and me to have radio talk shows — that’s why the new proposal to bring it back is being called the ‘Hush Rush’ bill. Now the liberals are dying to shut us up.”
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
If it's a fake debate, why was a bill to make the Fairness Doctrine law almost passed last time the Democrats controlled congress back in 1989?
If it's a fake debate, why won't they allow the Pence Amendment to even come to the floor of the house for debate?
If it's a fake debate, perhaps you could explain Rep. Maurice Hinchey's Media Ownership Reform Act which includes a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.
If it's a fake debate, perhaps you could enlighten us about why we shouldn't worry about the incoming Attorney General's history of wanting to restrict free speech on the internet?
Dave
2 - Tommy Mack
Those are interesting questions, Dave. In general the debate is “fake” because making the Fairness Doctrine a law is not going to happen. The FCC can reimpose it without congress or the White House or the Justice Department.
"Almost" means it did not pass congress in 1989 or in 1993. There is dwindling support for such legislation, nor would the President be likely to sign it into law.
The Pence Amendment lacked sufficient signatures to make it to the House floor.
Maurice Hinchey's Media Ownership Reform Act seeks to restore the regulation to an existing act of congress. Even so, as I wrote, the doctrine applies only to matters of public importance, not to political opinion.
As to worrying about “the incoming Attorney General's history of wanting to restrict free speech on the internet,” the Justice Department has no influence over the FCC.
The bottom line is that the FCC dropped the doctrine recognizing it as unconstitutional.
I hope this helps.
Tommy
3 - Brunelleschi
Why is it that the more educated one becomes, the more they are accused of being the hated "liberal intelligentsia," - and the less educated they are, the more they like right-wing hate-talk radio?
It's pretty clear that the dumber you are, the more likely you are going to be conservative.
:)
How does that work anyway?
4 - Roger Nowosielski
Bruno,
What makes me wonder, where do these people come from? They should all die out by now, and a new generation springing in their place. Is it that we've been undergoing the dumbing of America?
5 - Clavos
How does that work anyway?
Duh, dunno...Wut wuz da kweschun???
(I guess this proves I am dumb -- dumb enough to respond to, and thus encourage, a troll.)
6 - Brunelleschi
Either there is a scarcity of education, or an unequal distribution of brains.
Oh well, someone has to take out the trash and vote GOP.
:)
7 - Clavos
Oh well, someone has to take out the trash and vote GOP.
Except that those who take out the trash belong to the SEIU and invariably vote Democrat (if they vote -- if not, their union does it for them, with dollars donated to Democrat candidates)...
8 - Dan(Miller)
someone has to take out the trash and vote GOP. I think he's got it! Alas, the superabundance of trash and the scarcity of voters willing to remove it make this very difficult.
Dan(Miller)
9 - Hope and Change?
Here is proof that Democrat suffer from a mental disorder and lower IQ's that Conservatives....
Did they really say these things....
” I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
" Bill Clinton, 1998
“I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go?”
"Barack Obama on the campaign trail 2008
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
"John Kerry, fumbling his next run for the Dem nomination in 2006
“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it ”
"John Kerry on his vote to “support” the troops in 2004
“My staff tells me not to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway, in the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it’s true.”
" Harry Reid, Senate Democrat Majority Leader, 2008
“I remember landing under sniper fire”
" Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail 2008
“Hiiiiaaaauuuugh”
" Howard Dean rousing the faithful in 2004
And… Anything ever said by Joe Biden
"Joe Biden, any time, any place
Hope and change =affirmative action gone wild!
10 - Brunelleschi
The smarter ones organize and make more money, while the dumber ones get jealous because they are not smart enough to. Instead they bury their misery listening to hate radio.
Who did Joe the Fake Plumber campaign with, and was he a genius?
11 - Dave Nalle
What makes me wonder, where do these people come from? They should all die out by now, and a new generation springing in their place. Is it that we've been undergoing the dumbing of America?
The problem is that the left has deliberately dumbed down education in our schools so that they could keep the dependent class dependent on them because they are too fat, lazy and uninformed to get better jobs or question what their leaders tell them.
The regrettable side effect is that occasionally people who come out of that system discover that they've been cheated and lied to all their lives and without ever having been equipped with basic reasoning skills they react against the leftist establishment and veer to the right politically.
And that's how you get Ron Paul supporters.
Dave
12 - zingzing
"The problem is that the left has deliberately dumbed down education in our schools so that they could keep the dependent class dependent on them..."
ok, dave. you're as bad as pablo, you know.
13 - Roger Nowosielski
Bruno:
"Who did Joe the Fake Plumber campaign with, and was he a genius?"
You may be wrong here. I've heard him interviewed by BBC (he's on a worldwide tour), and he's quite articulate, sensible, and coherent - the kind of vocabulary and fluency you wouldn't expect from the average Joe Six-Pack. It almost blew my mind!
Which makes me think. I certainly don't want to be adding any fuel to the conspiracy theorists (not that they need push and shove), but it really
occurred to me that he may have been a plant.
14 - Brunelleschi
#11-
Change a few words around, and you are describing what churches do to people.
:)
15 - Roger Nowosielski
"The problem is that the left has deliberately dumbed down education in our schools so that they could keep the dependent class dependent on them because they are too fat, lazy and uninformed to get better jobs or question what their leaders tell them."
Dave, that's a tall statement. I might agree on the detrimental effects of public education up to K-12 grade, but I don't think you want to say that of liberal arts colleges and universities. The Left (to be distinguished now from the Democrats or any party) has no interest in doing what you propose. And it is from the Left that most of the faculty is drawn. They espouse a different perspective than you would like them to, but that doesn't substantiate your high claim.
16 - Roger Nowosielski
zing,
Are you and Pablo in a feud?
17 - zingzing
no, roger, but pablo is a paranoid conspiracy theorist. much like dave, apparently.
18 - Roger Nowosielski
If that's Pablo's only fault, I am quite ready to live with it. I'd say that his intellect, erudition and facility with language more than make up for this one possible defect. Don't you?
19 - zingzing
i dunno. he's on the correct side of my political dial, but he kinda makes a mockery of it now and again. he's got his plusses and his minuses, that's for sure.
20 - Arch Conservative
It's pretty clear that the dumber you are, the more likely you are going to be conservative.
Yes all one has to do to witness with their own eyes the intellectual superiority of liberals is watch how they behave when a guest speaker who does not share their political views comes to a University to speak.
Nothing says we're smarter than you than forming a loud, screaming, unruly mob chanting meaningless catchphrases, rushing the stage like insolent five years olds and yes....even throwing pies in someone's face.
21 - Roger Nowosielski
But Arch! That has to do with manners and with intolerance. Surely both sides are equally guilty on the latter count.
22 - Arch Conservative
Roger I'll give you one hundred dollars for every example you can cite where conservative students or faculty have tried to silence those on campus who disagree with them or otherwise behaved like obnoxious toddlers while those in opposition were attempting to express themselves if you will give me one dollar for every example I cant cite where liberals have done this.
When's it all said and done you will have mortgaged your home to go tit for tat with me.
23 - Roger Nowosielski
You may be right, Arch. The reason may be why the liberals are so much more rabid is their conviction that the Right is so dead-wrong. No excuse!
24 - Tommy Mack
You are correct, Arch.
It is indeed tough for obnoxious toddlers to express a logical argument based on the Aristotelian concept of good reasons [logos " logical appeal based on “good reasons”], especially while wearing Underoos and teething.
Tommy
25 - Clavos
[Pablo's] facility with language...
Heh. Good one, Roger.