Silencing the Opposition

Townhall.com ^ | March 18, 2009 | Terence Jeffrey

[Scanian]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at a June breakfast for reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, took a bold position on whether government should resume regulating political speech on the radio.

“Do you personally support revival of the Fairness Doctrine,” asked John Gizzi, political editor for Human Events.

“Yes,” said Pelosi.

While this declaration was little noted in the mainstream media, it sent shock waves through the conservative blogosphere. If the new Barack Obama administration were to make moves now to revive the doctrine, however, it surely would become one of the most hotly debated issues in America.

Nicknamed the “Censorship Doctrine” by conservatives, the so-called Fairness Doctrine was a long-time regulation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required that “when a broadcast station presents one side of a controversial issue of public importance reasonable opportunity must be afforded for the presentation of contrasting views.”

[EagleUSA]

Anyone who thinks she is not a flaming Marxist is a fool. As anti-Constitutional as they come.

The written law in this country is a party joke with the radical socialist left.

[GeronL]

the internet will be next.

[william clark]

T-ahirts at the ready:

[william clark]

Obviously, that was supposed to be “t-shirts.” The hazards of late-night laptop typing.

[DB]

I think that makes her more of a fascist than Marxist.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If the government is funding "community organizations" for the purpose or with the effect of generating opposition to the continued broadcasting of a spokesman for opposition to the president's policies - which is IMHO the actual threat Rush faces, not the "fairness" doctrine as such - that should be recognized by the courts as an open-and-shut case of political censorship. And if the framing timbers of that assault on Rush are already in place, Rush has standing now to sue to stop it. And should not delay in doing so.

In such a suit he should demand that the opposition to him have a network of radio stations of its own, to compete with the EIB. We could call it Air America II. And no one much would listen to it, any more than they did to Air America I. The niche for leftist propaganda being actually filled to overflowing by so-called "objective" reporting.

Claiming to be "objective," as the Sophists of old claimed to be wise, is at best self delusion and has the effect of sophistry in any event. And in what Rush calls "the long form," attempts at sophistry tend to expose themselves. If Rush were being manipulative, his audience would detect it and fall away. We don't fall away because Rush is, as he says, actually engaged in a search for truth. He is actually a "philosopher," in the original meaning of the term. He does not argue from the assumption of his own virtue, although he does joke about it in a mock-heroic way.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT