the attempt to silence talk radio, pt. 1

this new "report" from "think progress" (link to pdf at their website) has had conservative talk radio in a lather today. their (think progress's) concern, as it's often voiced, is the overabundance of "conservative" talk radio due to what they see as a monopolizing of radio stations by a few companies who won't give "progressive" talk radio any airspace. i recently dealt with this locally, as one of my good friends wanted to start an extremely low power station (would cover maybe a 1 mile radius, in perfect weather), because of the apparent impossibility of anyone with a "progressive" attitude to buy a "real" station.

the salient point here is that nobody wants to listen to "progressive" talk radio. Air America, despite millions of dollars donated from the likes of george soros...and stealing from children's charities in new york to pay the bills...STILL can't get a decent audience, even in heavily "blue" areas...even with star power such as al franken, chuck d, jerry springer, that garafalo chick (whatever her name is), and the lovely and endearing randi rhodes. this "business model" just won't work. liberals hate "big business" and anything else that has even a whiff of corporatism/capitalism, so they tend to gravitate towards things like FREE public radio, TV, etc... on the other hand, conservatives fully embrace capitalism and competition, and will actively pursue corporate sponsorship for their radio shows, and the corporate sponsors enthusiastically jump on board to advertise and pay for the privilege of having their product hawked on conservative talk radio. and it works!!! i've never been to a ruth's chris steak house, but i'm damn sure gonna if i ever visit somewhere that has one! i wonder if people who listen to Air America even know who their sponsors are? and, why would any company in their right mind advertise on a show which has such an antipathy towards them?

liberals argue that the airwaves are the "property" of the public. i was listening to neal boortz today, and he made an incredibly logical, obvious point:

....We'll just say that the public owns the airwaves! And since the public owns the airwaves, we, as their loyal representatives in Washington, need to step forward and exercise control over what happens on those airwaves, just as we can manage access and behavior on any other government property!

I know most of you have never really thought about this before, but this argument is ridiculously easy to destroy. On just what basis does the public own the airwaves? Is there a purchase contract somewhere that I just haven't seen yet? Just when did the public acquire ownership of the airwaves? Did the public own the airwaves when there were no broadcast signals traveling at the speed of light from antennas to receivers? Or did that public ownership suddenly materialize when Marconi sent his first signal over the distance of about 14 feet? Maybe public ownership didn't happen until the KDKA broadcast some presidential election results in Pittsburgh on that night about 85 years ago. But, at whatever moment in time we're talking about, what even took place that suddenly granted ownership of all broadcast frequencies to the public? Did the public invest huge sums of money to develop these frequencies, or was this done by private entrepreneurs? Did the government go out and purchase or trade something for these frequencies as it did with the Louisiana purchase or Alaska? Just what happened? Where are the ownership papers? Where's the evidence that the public even had something to do with the very creation of these broadcast frequencies?

The answer is that there is no evidence of ownership. None. The public "owns the airwaves" only because the politicians in the early part of the last century said so. And that's it. They saw a new means of communication coming forward, a means of communication that had the promise of someday being more powerful than the Constitutionally protected printed word, and they wanted control. They wanted control, so they took it.

and, to go even one better...as how anyone with a brain knows what this "Think Progress" effort is all about--the re-establishment of the "Fairness Doctrine":

It would be easy to argue that government should control newspapers as it does broadcasting. Trust me, the left wing ideological tilt of the nation's newspapers is every bit as pronounced as is the conservative influence in talk radio. If it were not for the First Amendment, would these politicians be able to conjure up some sort of "public ownership" excuse to perhaps apply a fairness doctrine to newspapers? Well ... let's give it a try.

Let's see .... you can print a newspaper all you want, but it really doesn't do any good unless you get that newspaper to the people. You have to load those newspapers on to trucks and get them to the newsstands, the hotels, and to the people who deliver them to your front door. And guess what! To do this you have to use the public's roads! There! See how easy that was! We've created an excuse for government control of the content of your daily newspaper! All we had to do was show that the newspaper publishers use the public's roads and highways to get their news and opinion to your office or home!

read the entire boortz transcript here

one of the great things about conservative talk radio is the willingness to mix it up with opposing viewpoints. for example, the conservative talkers are nearly monolithically opposed to the bush administration's support for the kennedy illegal immigrant amnesty bill. they bring on guests from the administration (i.e. Michael Chertoff, Tony Snow) and give them a forum to explain to the people "why" america needs this. these guys are getting ABUSED by the people, but they still get a chance to state their case. liberals constantly get to come on and say their piece as well. the thought is, if you hear opposing viewpoints, it challenges you to crystallize your thinking and persuasive powers...therefore solidifying what you believe to be true and providing a logical basis to defend it.

on the other hand, liberals tend to stifle debate...by name calling: "the religious right", "conservative bigots/homophobes/etc...", "BIG Oil/Pharmaceautical/Business/Tobacco/etc...", in other words, they don't intellectually explore what they're talking about, they just demonize...and then they get mad because conservatives refer to them as "liberals". they seek to limit the range of discussion through such orwellian means as "political correctness". all this tends to make for very one-sided exchanges: "bush sucks!", "war for oil!", "bush knew about 9/11 beforehand". no matter how outrageous the thought, it is usually given somewhat a pass, for fear of appearing JUDGEMENTAL (towards fellow libs). talk radio is SUFFOCATED in this atmosphere.

audio link where Sen. James Inhofe claims he overheard Sen. Boxer and Sen. Clinton talking about reigning in talk radio