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Monday, May 4, 2009

FCC Undaunted: Silencing Talk Radio Number One Priority

As you know, earlier this year GOP attempts to legislatively proscribe the reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine (aka Censorship Doctrine) was quashed by Democrats in both the House and Senate. Clearly, the fight to block liberal reimposition of any insidious form of the Censorship Doctrine is not over. To be sure, liberal attempts to reimpose the doctrine in another guise, e.g. "diversity ownership" and "localism", are well underway with a vengeance.

With the vocal support and clandestine encouragement of the likes of Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the usual parade of other left wing nuts such as Chuck Schumer, Jeff Bingaman, John Kerry and Diane Feinstein, among other ignominious elites on the me-first left, the FCC's Henry Rivera, a strong proponent of the Censorship Doctrine, is meeting with the FCC's newly-formed Advisory Committee On Diversity For Communications on May 7th. (Forewarned is forearmed. If you value free expression on the air waves, keep your eyes on these unsettling developments, and push back fervently and frequently.)

Reportedly, participants in this advisory committee include no less than 12 left wing grievance organizations and but a sparse sprinkling of TV and radio companies. (So much for diversity when it doesn't serve the interest of the power elite, huh?) Participants who represent conservative defenders of the first amendment are, as might be expected, precious few and far between.

Under the rubric of the innocuous principle of "localism", the FCC's new purpose is to facilitate diverse ownership of/minority control over local broadcast stations. Relying upon "diversity" as its lofty rationale, Obama's FCC will expect broadcasters to better ensure that women and minorities are properly represented in broadcast media on the local level. (Gee, I wonder what mischief Obamaniacal community organizers might have in store for local broadcasters and their listeners?)

Of abiding concern to liberals is, as always, conservative domination of free market-driven talk radio. For the liberal elite, freedom of expression is tolerable, so long as the exercise of that freedom doesn't jeopardize their own political power. If eliminating competing viewpoints in the free market of ideas serves to promote their power, then freedom of expression will be ruthlessly, albeit stealthily, silenced. Make no mistake, folks: diversity of political opinions is anathema to the liberal elite, and, to them, conservative and Christian broadcasting are inimicable to their longer term goal of political domination.

For the most part, the printed media has been effectively co-opted by the left, rendering the media's credibility as objective dispensers of balanced information and reporting deeply flawed. No longer willing to speak truth to power and to act as responsible purveyors of the truth, the printed media is no longer a threat to the liberal elite, but broadcast radio remains a painful and annoying thorn in their side.

The last holdout for the free, open and diverse exchange and expression of opinion is unregulated conservative and Christian talk radio. It is now manifestly obvious that silencing opposing viewpoints remains a central objective of the progressive tyranny. If you want a free expression and exchange of ideas, you'll have to fight for them.

Conservative and Christian talk radio is now all we have left in our democratic arsenal to oppose the expanding tyranny. I urge everyone to continue to email/telephone their representatives and the FCC itself to keep government's intrusive hands off what remains of America's free press and free speech. If the leftist tyranny is able to silence talk radio, America is absolutely finished as a republic. Unsettling though the prospect may be, will secession be our only recourse to restoring a constitutional republic? I, for one, will NOT abide living under anyone's tyranny, whether it comes from the left or the right. None of us should tolerate the intolerable. We do so at our own peril.

("The security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson, 1823)

("The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter..." Thomas Jefferson, 1787)