Several months ago in Seattle, a proposed gas tax increase of 9.5 cents per gallon was challanged in a referendum by assorted opponents
Though outspent by supporters almost 5-1, the referendum passed and the gas tax increase was shot down. (54.6-45.4% of votes cast).Â
That, however was not the reason supporters of the Bill of Rights should be nervous. During the campaign, the supporters of the increase went to court to get two radio commentors who opposed the tax, labled as agents of that grassroots effort. Said judge ruled thus and stated a dollar value must be placed on their speech. This was done and the judge ordered them to obey spending limits ($5000 in the last 3 week period prior to the vote).
This is currently being appealed to the Washington Supreme Court with the two radio commnetators being represented by the Institute For Justice (http://www.ij.org/index.html).Â
The problem of course with the whole mess, is that limits are being placed on political speech. These limits are enthusatically supported in a bipartisan manner too, neither party has any problem with running over individual rights of free sppech. This is not the only location where the power of the state is being turned on individuals for speech, Florida is yet another place that free speech cannot be tolerated. There, a small newspaper (Wakulla Independent Reporter) folded rather than comply with speech limits. The state regulators deemed the paper an "electioneering communication" because of several editorals and endorsements.
The list is growing despite some limited attempts by the Supreme Court to curb the monster they deemed Constitutional several years. So now the First Amendment joins the list of other endangered Amendments in the Bill of Rights, so far only the Fifth has escaped the decades of Court/political erosion. And of course, neither party seems overly concerned.Â
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Comments: 3
My real beef is not so much whose politics win the day on the radio, but rather that these huge media companies own so much of the radio space and they have no regard for the public they are supposed to serve. I've never actually timed it, but it seems like half the time is filled with commericals. It's unbearable. I have to tune it out - go to NPR or a college station that doesn't depend on the ads.
And then with Rush/Hannity/Boortz... it's the same crap everyday. You learn nothing from these shows for the most part. I don't know who is worse - Hannity or Boortz. Boortz, it seems, scours the Drudge Report and builds his show off that. Hannity, it seems like he makes a direct call to Tony Snow to get the latest talking points.
To be sure, the status quo sucks and I would not mind seeing some drastic changes. And lastly, on a note of revenge, this is what Boortz gets for helping put the dems in power. Hey Neil - you made your bed, now sleep in it.
There has to be a better way....
The public owning the airways is a straw man, if this is fact than treat it like mineral, timber, water, grazing rights, bid them out or outright lock them up with no one using them. We are supposed to have a market system (well, pre 1934 maybe we did) and the deciding use SHOULD there for be based on monies paid. In other words, what is going on right at this moment, let the public listen to who or what they want. Talk radio is lucrative and right now happens to be conservative/libratarian, maybe a year from now it'll be liberal. The fact that it may not please certain government officials shouldn't mean a damn thing. Government (both parties!) want point source failures like the old big three TV channnels for easier control...its so much harder to control the mryiad of news/opinion sources out there now. The whole issue of fairness has bitten every aspect of the political spectrum before; Kennedy jumped those who did not like him and Nixon did the same a few years later. Let the people decide with their listening time and advertising dollars-DON"T DICTATE what we should listen to.
Yes government policy is a very dull chainsaw solution for a problem unsolvable until true representation in Congress and the Senate returns (fat chance of that).
Lastly, the Repubs deserved to lose. No radio talk host had anything to do with that. The Repubs violated every one of their tenents in the last 6 years and enough people got sick of them to either not vote or to vote for the opposition. It's likely the same thing will happen with the Dems one day, thats the unfortunate result of two parties simply differing in minor degrees...