Mark Levin interviewed the co-author of ‘A Manifesto for Media Freedom‘ Brian Anderson:
From Brian Anderson’s recent commentary in the Investor’s Business Daily:
A Democrat-controlled Washington will use sweeping new rules to shush conservative political speech. For starters, expect a real push to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. True, Obama says he isn’t in favor of re-imposing this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan’s FCC junked it in the ’80s, required broadcasters to give airtime to opposing viewpoints or face fines or even loss of license. But most top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, are revved up about the idea, and it’s hard to imagine Obama vetoing a new doctrine if Congress delivers him one.
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Obama, like congressional Democrats, also wants to regulate the Internet, the only other medium in which the right does well, via its influential bloggers. The means here: something called “network neutrality.” Neutrality, if enacted, would give government overseers at the FCC the power to ensure that Internet providers treated equally all the information bits surging across the Web’s “pipes”  its cables, fiber optics, phone lines and wireless connections.
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Frightening. Absolutely frightening. Please, PLEASE America. WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!!!!!!!! We are on the edge of a horrific future. 1984 was not written about right wingers. It was written about Obama and his gang of hooligans. How can we be this close to such a future????
Please God, be with us in our hour of need. Please touch the hearts and minds of all those who would be swayed by the false promises of this false messiah. Watch over us, Lord. Keep us strong.
Amen.
It is precisely “Political Speech” that the first Amendment was designed to protect.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Abridging or reducing the scope of the ability to freely criticize the government or a political party either in a public square, a newspaper, a television station, a radio station, or, on the Internet clearly violates the First Amendment.
The Bill of Rights is NOT a listing of the powers given to the government but a statement of limitation beyond which the government is PROHIBITED from reaching across.
The democrat concept of “fairness” assumes that every issue, every statement, or every opinion, has an equally weighted and opposite counterpart that must be heard in an equal amount over the same media. The traffic cop in this case would be the FCC monitoring millions of hours of air time checking each phrase against thousands of pages of what constitutes a partisan political statement. Of course, the manual would be written by democrat staffers. We all know what the target of “Fairness” is. It is Conservative thought.
The 1st Amendment makes NO such reference to “fairness”. It only puts the Government on notice that it CANNOT deter, obstruct, or get in the way of a citizen exercising his/her right of free speech.
If a colonial citizen had something to say, he would go to the town square, stand on a soapbox, and make a speech. If anyone else disagreed with him, they HAD THE RIGHT to place an article in the town’s newspaper or make a speech in the town square to make their point, especially if the issue was political in nature.
There is no superior law derived from the Bill of Rights that gives government the job of ensuring that both sides of every issue are aired with equal time!
In the case of the “Fairness Doctrine”, there is another dimension involved; free-enterprise. A Newspaper that prints mostly liberal opinions that serves a mostly conservative readership will likely go out of business. Likewise, a radio program that voices conservative political views will attract conservative listeners. If the people freely chose to listen to the program and enjoy its content, whether it be music, comedy, or political discussion in nature, and the number of listeners is large enough to drive good advertisement sales, the program will be a success. The Government has no right to interfere with a private business that is operating under the law, paying taxes, and providing a product that the public wants. This is an intersection of free speech with free markets. To encumber a radio station with complex operational procedures because one of their shows which is very successful discusses a specific political philosophy is “abridging” free speech as well as “abridging” free-enterprise.
The Internet is clearly an electronic version of the “town square”. It gives everyone a means of expressing their opinion. It is not a stretch (and I don’t mean Pelosi), to apply the 1st Amendment to the Internet and extend the basic right of anyone to express free political speech without interference from the government.
Again, there is NOTHING in the Bill of Rights that gives the government the duty of ensuring “neutrality” of thought. It is the other way around: The government CANNOT prohibit an individual’s right of free political speech no matter what the medium!
Slickillyman,
What you say is correct, however before this can occur you have to have standing and show damages and by the time that you can do that we will already be compromised. Then you have to appeal to Federal Courts (or they do) and work your way up the judiciary to the Supreme Court and that takes time. I suggest, should Obama win, that we start enriching Landmark legal right now, to take up the cause because this will become an issue.
I had dinner last night with some Croatians who have deep sorrow and remorse for what is happening in the US because they know what it was like under Tito. Their parent’s property was nationalized and they walked the streets for two and one-half years. Any freedom compromised by the Patriot Act will seem like blue laws compared the vast network of government that will be fabricated to maintain this utopian New World Order. Within one generation all resistance will be removed from the brainwashed drones that government schools are required to create. I see what it is like in Germany today and how they tax taxes and expand their probing government agents into every aspect of your life. You know how the system works. It is a hierarchy of benefits from the people in your neighborhood that report back to the community organizers about what you do, then it goes up the chain of reporting till it reaches the favored party officials who then determine what action to take. The snitches are paid and rewarded. People are pitted against each other. Re-read Animal Farm and 1984 and you can get a glimpse of what this evolves into within a few decades or less. These novels warned us about the left, not the right.
Worst of all is that today’s technology is very sophisticated and it is very difficult to avoid detection and recrimination. Someday every transaction will be by plastic and they will know everything that you buy and what you eat, where you travel and spend and what you read. Basically they will know how you think and feel. Under such a system the Matrix will seem like free enterprise and lassie fare capitalism. Already Charlie Reingold talks about preventing you from removing more than 50% of your assets from this Country. When will it be 100%? Who can stop them? What type of walls can you expect them to erect? Are we going to have to appeal to the courts for every Constitutional violation as happened under FDR? An Obama Presidency spells irremediable trouble.