Well, it’s official.
Just so you understand, this will be a first for the United States of America, the birthplace of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, in many ways.
The old misnamed “Fairness Doctrine” was a regulation of the Federal Communications Commission and was scrapped in 1987. Congress considered legislating it back in for a couple years afterward. But the explosion of the multitude of voices that ensued as a result of the demise of the official government censorship was enough to allow cooler heads to prevail.
For instance, there were a total of 75 talk radio shows on the air in 1987. Today there are more than 3,000. Most people would acknowledge that is a healthy development for a free republic – but not Eshoo and many of her Democratic Party colleagues who will not be satisfied until government controls 100 percent of what you are permitted to read, hear and see in the media.
And back then, the FCC regulation only applied in theory to radio and TV terrestrial broadcasting – or what the government euphemistically referred to as “the public airwaves.” Eshoo’s bill will not only apply to old-fashioned radio and TV, but also to cable TV and satellite TV and radio.
Let me tell you how this is going to work in the real world should this bill, or something similar, actually pass both houses of the Democratic Congress and be signed into law by President-elect Barack Hussein Obama.
These anti-freedom crusaders and government-control freaks will set up community and national advisory boards to monitor the content of all shows. Picture ACORN on steroids. These boards will get plenty of assistance from groups like Media Matters and other George Soros-funded political pressure groups. They will drive programmers crazy with protests and license challenges.
In no time at all, cost-conscious programmers will decide it’s not worth it carrying controversial shows no matter how big their audiences are and no matter how much advertising is at stake. There are safer ways to make a living, they will decide.
Then the Anna Eshoos of the world will set their targets on other outlets of free expression. How long do you think it will take for them to realize the Internet is the last bastion of dissenting voices?
Notice who is behind this push to squelch the free flow of information in the U.S. Mostly people who call themselves “Democrats.” Is there anything “Democratic” about government stifling free speech and freedom of the press? Of course not. And there is nothing “fair” about it either. That’s why I think both the party pushing this legislation and the legislation itself are incorrectly named.
If the so-called “Democrats” called their legislation by its appropriate name – “the Censorship Doctrine” – it would not likely garner much support. So that’s why they play pretend. In the name of “fairness,” the anti-Democrats promote an idea that is anathema to liberty and the First Amendment.
It’s more like what we would expect to see in the so-called “People’s Republic of China,” which mastered the art of political disinformation and totalitarian control a long time ago.
What Anna Eshoo wants to do, quite simply, is to eschew free speech. And she’s hardly alone. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on record as favoring some form of this legislation, as is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and many other notable anti-Democrats.
It’s coming, just as I promised it would be.
These anti-Democrats are trying to ensure that they never lose power again. Their modus operandi is to silence all meaningful opposition voices.
I’m telling you this as someone who is not an immediate target, but as someone who recognizes the dangers inherent in passively standing by while someone else’s ox is being gored.
Remember the old poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller?
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then … they came for me … And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
I’m not going to let that happen to me – or to America. How about you?
INSPIRING: Pearl Harbor’s unexpected hero!
Chuck Norris