Billy the Great Khan
Uwaa OmO
Lulz, you have literally NO CONCEPT of what Libertarianism is. After about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 posts telling you it's tenants.
I thought Conservatives just LOVED the Constitution?
- Thread starter zappasguitar
- Start date
Liberty
Libertarian Minded
Liberty
Libertarian Minded
Libertarians?
cawacko
Well-known member
No. Green Party or progressives as they call themselves out here.
Liberty
Libertarian Minded
cawacko
Well-known member
Well, Ron Paul if you get the chance?
His economic beliefs are about the opposite of the people who live here.
Billy the Great Khan
Uwaa OmO
Well then sorry to say, but your town needs a massive immigration of arsonists.
Liberty
Libertarian Minded
I wonder if the people there love the DEA, or the IRS?
Bfgrn
New member
Hey Yurt...isn't it AMAZING when the federal government is in the hands of right wing extremists who favor the corporation over the citizen at every turn, you right wing morons LOVE government intervention. Even though the Supreme Court ruled the Fairness Doctrine constitutional, a fucking corporate lawyer appointed FCC head says it isn't?
The doctrine’s demise
From the 1920s through the ’70s, the history of the Fairness Doctrine paints a picture of public servants wrestling with how to maintain some public interest standards in the operation of publicly owned—but corporate-dominated—airwaves. Things were about to change.
The 1980s brought the Reagan Revolution, with its army of anti-regulatory extremists; not least among these was Reagan’s new FCC chair, Mark S. Fowler. Formerly a broadcast industry lawyer, Fowler earned his reputation as “the James Watt of the FCC” by sneering at the notion that broadcasters had a unique role or bore special responsibilities to ensure democratic discourse (California Lawyer, 8/88). It was all nonsense, said Fowler (L.A. Times, 5/1/03): “The perception of broadcasters as community trustees should be replaced by a view of broadcasters as marketplace participants.” To Fowler, television was “just another appliance—it’s a toaster with pictures,” and he seemed to endorse total deregulation (Washington Post, 2/6/83): “We’ve got to look beyond the conventional wisdom that we must somehow regulate this box.”
Of course, Fowler and associates didn’t favor total deregulation: Without licensing, the airwaves would descend into chaos as many broadcasters competed for the same frequencies, a situation that would mean ruin for the traditional corporate broadcasters they were so close to. But regulation for the public good rather than corporate convenience was deemed suspect.
Fowler vowed to see the Fairness Doctrine repealed, and though he would depart the commission a few months before the goal was realized, he worked assiduously at setting the stage for the doctrine’s demise.
He and his like-minded commissioners, a majority of whom had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan, argued that the doctrine violated broadcasters’ First Amendment free speech rights by giving government a measure of editorial control over stations. Moreover, rather than increase debate and discussion of controversial issues, they argued, the doctrine actually chilled debate, because stations feared demands for response time and possible challenges to broadcast licenses (though only one license was ever revoked in a dispute involving the Fairness Doctrine—California Lawyer, 8/88).
The FCC stopped enforcing the doctrine in the mid-’80s, well before it formally revoked it. As much as the commission majority wanted to repeal the doctrine outright, there was one hurdle that stood between them and their goal: Congress’ 1959 amendment to the Communications Act had made the doctrine law.
Help would come in the form of a controversial 1986 legal decision by Judge Robert Bork and then-Judge Antonin Scalia, both Reagan appointees on the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Their 2–1 opinion avoided the constitutional issue altogether, and simply declared that Congress had not actually made the doctrine into a law. Wrote Bork: “We do not believe that language adopted in 1959 made the Fairness Doctrine a binding statutory obligation,” because, he said, the doctrine was imposed “under,” not “by” the Communications Act of 1934 (California Lawyer, 8/88). Bork held that the 1959 amendment established that the FCC could apply the doctrine, but was not obliged to do so—that keeping the rule or scuttling it was simply a matter of FCC discretion.
“The decision contravened 25 years of FCC holdings that the doctrine had been put into law in 1959,” according to MAP. But it signaled the end of the Fairness Doctrine, which was repealed in 1987 by the FCC under new chair Dennis R. Patrick, a lawyer and Reagan White House aide.
A year after the doctrine’s repeal, writing in California Lawyer(8/88), former FCC commissioner Johnson summed up the fight to bring back the Fairness Doctrine as “a struggle for nothing less than possession of the First Amendment: Who gets to have and express opinions in America.” Though a bill before Congress to reinstate the doctrine passed overwhelmingly later that year, it failed to override Reagan’s veto. Another attempt to resurrect the doctrine in 1991 ran out of steam when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto.
Bfgrn
New member
You said it ALL with this statement
You didn't mention the 'actual airwaves' because you refuse to understand that the airwaves are not for sale to the highest bidder. They are the public trust.
Do you understand the 'commons'? It goes back to the Magna Carta.
What don't you comprehend about the Supreme Court ruling?
It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.
A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.
— U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.
Bfgrn
New member
You keep telling me what I don't know. You even have the total lack of ethics to alter my post, but that is ALL you have said and done. If there are '100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 posts telling me it's tenants', YOU have contributed ZERO posts to that total.
I have a very clear understanding of what you right wing Monica Lewinskys for plutocrats, Rush Limbaugh and war criminal despots like George W. Bush 'call' libertarianism. You are just too dense to comprehend what you stand for. You have some childish view that the only entity we have to guard against in our lives is the very thing our founding fathers created to insure a free and open society. A government of the people, by the people and for the people must be replaced. The power and views of the modern day British East India Companies knows what's best for our country...the military industrial complex, multinational cartels, conglomerates and corporations.
It is the military industrial complex and multinational cartels, conglomerates and corporations that knows what is best for We, the People.
I am a liberal, but I have more true libertarian beliefs than anyone on this board ever forwards. Where is the outrage when there is REAL government forcible intrusion into our lives? When a SWAT teams break down an innocent person's door and causes his death? Where is the outrage when the 'feds' target union representatives with the intent of fabricating enough charges to lock them up? Where is the outrage that growing a plant in your backyard can land you in prison? Where are those libertarian voices when the government passes a 'Patriot Act' that gives government the right to invade you privacy?
WHERE are those libertarian voices???
Here is a libertarian I share a lot of beliefs with, the late Harry Browne. WHERE are all the Harry Browne libertarians? Harry ran for President of the United States as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000.
Your Innocence Is No Protection by Harry Browne
George Bush, Lying, & the Dogs of War by Harry Browne
Goebbels Rallies the People by Harry Browne
Libertarians & War by Harry Browne
Why I Am Obsessed with War by Harry Browne
W
WinterBorn
Guest
Completely and totally irrelevant. You have refused to answer the simplest questions, and launch into grandiose speeches which have little or no bearing on the subject.
Why not answer the questions? Who will pay the costs of broadcasting your alternative message?
Bfgrn
New member
Irrelevant??? It has EVERY bearing on the subject. It is the very HEART of the subject. Are you really this dense? You want to turn the Supreme Court ruling around 180 degrees to read:
A broadcasting license permits the licensee the constitutional right to monopolize a frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which will permit the Government to require a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the broadcasters, not the right of the viewers and listeners, which is paramount.
— Winterborn's fascist Supreme Court, upholding the UNconstitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Scare v. FCC, 2011.
REAL ruling:
A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.
— U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.
W
WinterBorn
Guest
Ok, we have established that the airwaves are owned by the public.
But it takes more than airwaves to broadcast a program nationwide.
Lets see if I can simplify it enough for you. Suppose I am a sound engineer. If I am working for Limbaugh Ltd, they pay me for my skills and experience.
If I am to work to put your alternative message out there, who will be paying my salary so I can feed my family, pay my mortgage, put braces on my youngest son, help my oldest daughter with college, ect ect ect??
Who will pay the bills for broadcasting your alternative message?
But it takes more than airwaves to broadcast a program nationwide.
Lets see if I can simplify it enough for you. Suppose I am a sound engineer. If I am working for Limbaugh Ltd, they pay me for my skills and experience.
If I am to work to put your alternative message out there, who will be paying my salary so I can feed my family, pay my mortgage, put braces on my youngest son, help my oldest daughter with college, ect ect ect??
Who will pay the bills for broadcasting your alternative message?
Bfgrn
New member
Who will pay? The owner of the station, who entered into an agreement with the people to gain the PRIVILEGE to use their airwaves, fully aware of the guidelines of that agreement. They calls those far left thingies contracts.
W
WinterBorn
Guest
Oh, so for the priviledge of using the public airwaves, they have to put out someone's message for free?
Sounds like a really good deal for the person who gets their message out for free.
Ok, now we finally got you to answer that simple question, lets try one more.
Who will determine the alternative message? There are numerous alternative messages or sides to most issues. Who gets to determine what message goes out?
Bfgrn
New member
The second question was addressed in the Fairness Doctrine. It is in the excerpt I am posting.
But before I do that, let me add my two cents, because I grew up when the Fairness Doctrine was in place. The Fairness Doctrine was not draconian in any way, shape or form. The intent was to set guidelines for use of a public trust. Much of the intent was to ensure broadcasting stations served the local community their signal reached...requiring news, setting content hours (i.e. times more adult content could be shown), offering a platform to debate local issues that effect that community or region, set aside so many hours per week for children/educational programs and to help protect that community...issue severe weather warnings, evacuation information etc.
And there were NO infomercials...
How it worked
There are many misconceptions about the Fairness Doctrine. For instance, it did not require that each program be internally balanced, nor did it mandate equal time for opposing points of view. And it didn’t require that the balance of a station’s program lineup be anything like 50/50.
Nor, as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly claimed, was the Fairness Doctrine all that stood between conservative talkshow hosts and the dominance they would attain after the doctrine’s repeal. In fact, not one Fairness Doctrine decision issued by the FCC had ever concerned itself with talkshows. Indeed, the talkshow format was born and flourished while the doctrine was in operation. Before the doctrine was repealed, right-wing hosts frequently dominated talkshow schedules, even in liberal cities, but none was ever muzzled (The Way Things Aren’t, Rendall et al., 1995). The Fairness Doctrine simply prohibited stations from broadcasting from a single perspective, day after day, without presenting opposing views.
In answer to charges, put forward in the Red Lion case, that the doctrine violated broadcasters’ First Amendment free speech rights because the government was exerting editorial control, Supreme Court Justice Byron White wrote: “There is no sanctuary in the First Amendment for unlimited private censorship operating in a medium not open to all.” In a Washington Post column (1/31/94), the Media Access Project (MAP), a telecommunications law firm that supports the Fairness Doctrine, addressed the First Amendment issue: “The Supreme Court unanimously found [the Fairness Doctrine] advances First Amendment values. It safeguards the public’s right to be informed on issues affecting our democracy, while also balancing broadcasters’ rights to the broadest possible editorial discretion.”
Indeed, when it was in place, citizen groups used the Fairness Doctrine as a tool to expand speech and debate. For instance, it prevented stations from allowing only one side to be heard on ballot measures. Over the years, it had been supported by grassroots groups across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, National Rifle Association and the right-wing Accuracy In Media.
Typically, when an individual or citizens group complained to a station about imbalance, the station would set aside time for an on-air response for the omitted perspective: “Reasonable opportunity for presentation of opposing points of view,” was the relevant phrase. If a station disagreed with the complaint, feeling that an adequate range of views had already been presented, the decision would be appealed to the FCC for a judgment.
According to Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of MAP, scheduling response time was based on time of day, frequency and duration of the original perspective. “If one view received a lot of coverage in primetime,” Schwartzman told Extra!, “then at least some response time would have to be in primetime. Likewise if one side received many short spots or really long spots.” But the remedy did not amount to equal time; the ratio of airtime between the original perspective and the response “could be as much as five to one,” said Schwartzman.
As a guarantor of balance and inclusion, the Fairness Doctrine was no panacea. It was somewhat vague, and depended on the vigilance of listeners and viewers to notice imbalance. But its value, beyond the occasional remedies it provided, was in its codification of the principle that broadcasters had a responsibility to present a range of views on controversial issues.
American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations, for publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a republic. And when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one person, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership or dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them. It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people.
— Rep. Luther Johnson (D.-Texas), in the debate that preceded the Radio Act of 1927 (KPFA, 1/16/03)
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
LOL Give em hell Harry!