The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, June 28, 2007
UPDATED Snakebit Pols reveal their REAL target: Talk Radio
With their approval ratings plummeting faster than the flooded Titanic, Congress--especially the would-be Stalinists therein--are on a search and destroy mission for scapegoats. It is becoming more and more obvious that the voices that the elites want to silence the most are yours and mine. And--in their minds--there is no faster way to silence the people than to pull the plug on talk radio.
This rankles on many levels, but when you cut through it all it comes down to this: the concept of governing according to the will of the people doesn't seem to fit with these guys; the elites obviously believe that to have things their way, an informed public is a barrier and/or impediment. They may crow like so many primping roosters about "Democracy" and use catchy slogans like "power to the people", yet the end of all their actions is the furthering of the cause of totalitarianism.
By silencing talk radio--thereby leaving the electorate clueless about what is really happening behind the scenes--the "do as I say not as I do" playbook of the Marxist nanny-state is: what the people don't know won't hurt them (the elites). And at the very heart of this world view is the corollary that if we the people aren't aware of their treachery, the repercussions of that treachery won't come back to haunt them. This doesn't exactly sound like the party of "the common man" to me...
For example, it is quite clear that all of the recent hyperbole about the "danger" of talk radio is related to the impact the grassroots have had on this Immigration bill: the real danger here is that the people are becoming educated about the fraud going on under their noses in Congress and the Senate. Twice now (in two days) Harry Reid has paraded to the microphones to blame "talk radio" for his and his fellow Senators' inability to put together a bill that the people want. And--although one expects this sort of thing from the Left--when people like Trent Lott join the chorus of usual suspects on the Democrat side, calling for the regulation of free speech in the guise of "fairness," then we are very close to the precipice my friends.
My suggestion for those who want "fairness" is to insist that it must first start with the public-funded airwaves: how about demanding "equal time" for the likes of Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh on NPR and PBS? When my tax dollars are paying for Limbaugh's views to the extent they are already paying for the views of Bill Moyers and Garrison Keillor--or some anonymous lefty editor of "All Things Considered"-- then I might have some confidence they could be "fair" with other media. But we all know that is a pipe dream. And what of the editorial decisions of TV and Newspapers and Radio as far as which stories get edited in and which stories get left in shreds on the cutting room floor? Admitted leftists routinely make those very decisions for Big Media every single day: who is going to police that?
The very thought of some pencil pushing bureaucrat monitoring content of TV, Radio, the Internet, and other media to ensure "balance"--as opposed to the natural democratic selection of the free marketplace--is enough to make the thought of hell itself palatable. And any representative of the people who advocates wanting to control the information that you can to read, view, or listen to is evil incarnate. What differentiates this behavior from that of Stalin? Or Hitler for that matter; in the 1930's Hitler's SS burned books in an attempt to eradicate ideas that were not compatible with National Socialism. Today the Thought Police of America, led by Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Diane Feinstein--(and now Trent Lott and Lindsey Graham..)--want in effect to do exactly the same thing. Will we be saying "Sieg Heil" to them next?
This column has been edited and changed for the sake of improved readability.
UPDATE: Good news; the House sends a strong message about the "Fairness Doctrine."
This rankles on many levels, but when you cut through it all it comes down to this: the concept of governing according to the will of the people doesn't seem to fit with these guys; the elites obviously believe that to have things their way, an informed public is a barrier and/or impediment. They may crow like so many primping roosters about "Democracy" and use catchy slogans like "power to the people", yet the end of all their actions is the furthering of the cause of totalitarianism.
By silencing talk radio--thereby leaving the electorate clueless about what is really happening behind the scenes--the "do as I say not as I do" playbook of the Marxist nanny-state is: what the people don't know won't hurt them (the elites). And at the very heart of this world view is the corollary that if we the people aren't aware of their treachery, the repercussions of that treachery won't come back to haunt them. This doesn't exactly sound like the party of "the common man" to me...
For example, it is quite clear that all of the recent hyperbole about the "danger" of talk radio is related to the impact the grassroots have had on this Immigration bill: the real danger here is that the people are becoming educated about the fraud going on under their noses in Congress and the Senate. Twice now (in two days) Harry Reid has paraded to the microphones to blame "talk radio" for his and his fellow Senators' inability to put together a bill that the people want. And--although one expects this sort of thing from the Left--when people like Trent Lott join the chorus of usual suspects on the Democrat side, calling for the regulation of free speech in the guise of "fairness," then we are very close to the precipice my friends.
My suggestion for those who want "fairness" is to insist that it must first start with the public-funded airwaves: how about demanding "equal time" for the likes of Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh on NPR and PBS? When my tax dollars are paying for Limbaugh's views to the extent they are already paying for the views of Bill Moyers and Garrison Keillor--or some anonymous lefty editor of "All Things Considered"-- then I might have some confidence they could be "fair" with other media. But we all know that is a pipe dream. And what of the editorial decisions of TV and Newspapers and Radio as far as which stories get edited in and which stories get left in shreds on the cutting room floor? Admitted leftists routinely make those very decisions for Big Media every single day: who is going to police that?
The very thought of some pencil pushing bureaucrat monitoring content of TV, Radio, the Internet, and other media to ensure "balance"--as opposed to the natural democratic selection of the free marketplace--is enough to make the thought of hell itself palatable. And any representative of the people who advocates wanting to control the information that you can to read, view, or listen to is evil incarnate. What differentiates this behavior from that of Stalin? Or Hitler for that matter; in the 1930's Hitler's SS burned books in an attempt to eradicate ideas that were not compatible with National Socialism. Today the Thought Police of America, led by Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Diane Feinstein--(and now Trent Lott and Lindsey Graham..)--want in effect to do exactly the same thing. Will we be saying "Sieg Heil" to them next?
This column has been edited and changed for the sake of improved readability.
UPDATE: Good news; the House sends a strong message about the "Fairness Doctrine."
Labels: Congress, Illegal Immigration, Media Bias, Media War, Talk Radio, The "Fairness" Doctrine, Thought Police, US Senate
