If It's Free, It's for Me
Having been on a work-related blogging hiatus for several months, and having come back to the blogosphere with a new site, I haven’t had the opportunity to vent about the threat of the Fairness Doctrine, which is being spearheaded by Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.
...At first, one would think that a law that regulates speech—obviously excluding such things as slander or yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater—would be something that was being pushed by conservative Republicans. After all, over the last few years we’ve had to worry about our free speech rights being raped via the Patriot Act, which would supposedly identify potential terrorists and protect us—at least those of us who are good patriotic Americans—from the evils of…um…well…everything. That’s not to mention the routine attacks on our First Amendment rights from fundamentalist religious organizations, which are “protecting” us from Satanic books, movies, and music by way of trying to ban these blasphemous tools of the devil.
...Sadly, regulating speech has turned into a bipartisan tool.
...For anyone who isn’t aware of what the Fairness Doctrine is, the best description of it has been made by Adam Thierer of the Cato Institute:
...At first, one would think that a law that regulates speech—obviously excluding such things as slander or yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater—would be something that was being pushed by conservative Republicans. After all, over the last few years we’ve had to worry about our free speech rights being raped via the Patriot Act, which would supposedly identify potential terrorists and protect us—at least those of us who are good patriotic Americans—from the evils of…um…well…everything. That’s not to mention the routine attacks on our First Amendment rights from fundamentalist religious organizations, which are “protecting” us from Satanic books, movies, and music by way of trying to ban these blasphemous tools of the devil.
...Sadly, regulating speech has turned into a bipartisan tool.
...For anyone who isn’t aware of what the Fairness Doctrine is, the best description of it has been made by Adam Thierer of the Cato Institute:
The so-called Fairness Doctrine was put in place by the FCC in 1949 to require broadcasters to “afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance.” After coming under attack by the courts, the FCC discarded the rule in 1987 because, contrary to its purpose, the doctrine failed to encourage the discussion of more controversial issues. Still, regulatory revisionists seem to pretend that the world would be a better place if government officials sat in judgment of “fairness” on the broadcast airwaves and have attempted to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine a few times since it was abolished. By requiring, under threat of potential license revocation, that broadcasters “fairly” represent both sides of a given issue, advocates of the doctrine argue that more opinions will be aired while the editorial content of the station can remain unaltered.
...Imagine having a country where the government requires a television or radio talk show host to say something that he or she might not want to say, simply because it’s “fair.” Imagine how far we could go with a law like that now that we have more outlets for speech than we did in the 1980s when the Fairness Doctrine was suspended. Imagine having a blog on which you want to say something in particular, but you quickly find yourself being told that you have to offer an opposing point of view under the guise of “fairness.”
...You might think that such an assertion is a large jump, but how big a jump is it really? Isn’t it a rather large jump in the first place to go from having a First Amendment that guarantees speech that is free from government regulation to speech that is mandated by the federal government?
...In a 2005 Salon article, New York Representative Louise Slaughter, who has authored the Fairness and Accountability in Media Act to bring back the Fairness Doctrine “with new requirements,” said that a speech-regulating law like this is “for the public benefit.” Really? How much does the public benefit from having the state tell them what to say?
...What’s most disturbing is that this issue of regulated speech isn’t a one-side-only debate. The regulation of free speech has now become bipartisan and has become viewed as an implement to silence the opposition—no matter which side of the aisle the opposition happens to be.
...Many liberals have jumped aboard the bring-back-the-Fairness-Doctrine bandwagon because conservative talk radio might be affected the most. The idea seems to be that if the enemy is affected, then raping the Constitution is well worth it. Essentially, the end justifies the means.
...My question thus becomes this: If liberals, who routinely talk about how much they support free speech, are willing to adopt right-wing tactics and push their own laws that mirror conservative anti-First Amendment actions, who will actually defend free speech? Moreover, how can anyone suggest that there’s actually a difference between the two sides?
...It appears as if liberals and conservatives have more in common than they’d like to admit: Both sides want to force their views on us and both sides are willing to craft laws to do it “legally.”
References
▪ The Cato Institute
▪ Salon
