liberals and freedom of the press
http://www.aim.org/aim_report/4814_0_4_0_C/
It has always amused me, and sometimes frustrated me, how much liberals blather about freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The left side of the political spectrum likes to masquerade as the defender of the 1st Amendment, when in reality it is the liberal that is the sworn enemy of the freedoms contained therein. Take "hate speech" for example. Have you ever noticed how a liberal will spew the worst kinds of invective towards conservatives and then defend their right to do so based on the 1st Amendment? But when the conservative attempts to challenge the attack, liberals label that as "hate speech" and demand that the government regulate it. How about when Michael J. Fox came out with his dishonest campaign commercials? There wasn't a shred of truth to be found anywhere in those ads--they were deliberately untruthful--but liberals said he was protected by the 1st Amendment. When Rush Limbaugh criticized the content of the ads, liberals became apoplectic and began screaming about reviving The Fairness Doctrine.
What is The Fairness Doctrine? The link above will take you to the best explanation of that proposed assault on the 1st Amendment that I have ever seen. In a nutshell, The Fairness Doctrine is a piece of legislation that attempts to silence the conservative voice in the media, and especially on talk radio. For example, if a local radio station carried "The Sean Hannity Show" for three hours, they would be legally required to run three hours of liberal content to be "fair and balanced." Sounds fair, right? Wrong! What happens if the radio station can't find any sponsers to buy advertising for the three hours of liberal content? They have two options--run the liberal content at their own expense, or just decide not to run the conservative show so as to avoid controversy. Which option do you think the station would take? It is a tried and true liberal strategy to give liberal laws or programs a name that is just the opposite of what the law or program actually does. The goal of The Fairness Doctrine is to destroy fairness, silence conservative opinion, and go back to "the good old days" when hard-core socialists like Walter Cronkite told America what to think. Now, more than ever, it is crucial to vote Republican to stop modern liberalism from destroying our civil liberties.
It has always amused me, and sometimes frustrated me, how much liberals blather about freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The left side of the political spectrum likes to masquerade as the defender of the 1st Amendment, when in reality it is the liberal that is the sworn enemy of the freedoms contained therein. Take "hate speech" for example. Have you ever noticed how a liberal will spew the worst kinds of invective towards conservatives and then defend their right to do so based on the 1st Amendment? But when the conservative attempts to challenge the attack, liberals label that as "hate speech" and demand that the government regulate it. How about when Michael J. Fox came out with his dishonest campaign commercials? There wasn't a shred of truth to be found anywhere in those ads--they were deliberately untruthful--but liberals said he was protected by the 1st Amendment. When Rush Limbaugh criticized the content of the ads, liberals became apoplectic and began screaming about reviving The Fairness Doctrine.
What is The Fairness Doctrine? The link above will take you to the best explanation of that proposed assault on the 1st Amendment that I have ever seen. In a nutshell, The Fairness Doctrine is a piece of legislation that attempts to silence the conservative voice in the media, and especially on talk radio. For example, if a local radio station carried "The Sean Hannity Show" for three hours, they would be legally required to run three hours of liberal content to be "fair and balanced." Sounds fair, right? Wrong! What happens if the radio station can't find any sponsers to buy advertising for the three hours of liberal content? They have two options--run the liberal content at their own expense, or just decide not to run the conservative show so as to avoid controversy. Which option do you think the station would take? It is a tried and true liberal strategy to give liberal laws or programs a name that is just the opposite of what the law or program actually does. The goal of The Fairness Doctrine is to destroy fairness, silence conservative opinion, and go back to "the good old days" when hard-core socialists like Walter Cronkite told America what to think. Now, more than ever, it is crucial to vote Republican to stop modern liberalism from destroying our civil liberties.
posted by hondo at 7:51 PM
3 Comments:
Walter Cronkite is a "hard-core socialist"? Have you ever met any hard-core socialists? There are a few of them down here, although not as many as there used to be. Mostly they're soft-corein Australia, Britain and mainland Europe.
Soft-core socialists want the government to nationalise corporations. That means the State running the telephone company, electric and water utilities, other vital economic entities such as petroleum refineries, national airlines, car manufacturers, etc. These operations literally become government agencies -- no stockholders, boards of directors, etc. All decisions made for the supposed good of the society overall.
Hard-core socialists want all that done, plus the government takeover of farms, small businesses and every other organised economic activity. And they want the capitalists who controlled them killed. That's what's hard-core about them. This is what happened when communists took over Russia, China and other countries. They were aiming at pure communism, but they decided they'd have to go through the socialist stage while the masses got smart enough to be true commies. Of course, they got stuck at the state totalitarian stage in those places.
I would expect that you would know this already. It's basic political/economic history. But the fact that you call Walter Cronkite a "hard-core socialist" suggests that you don't know even the basics. I've read lots of Cronkite's writing, and nowhere does he say he's in favour of putting people like Donald Trump up against the wall and shooting them. So when you write things like that, Hondo, you come off as really ignorant.
My suspicion is that you have an utterly black/white mindset. You are mentally incapable of seeing nuance, shades of gray. Anyone you disagree with is an extreme example of what you most despise. It's common in religiously dogmatic people.
I see this condition in many mentally ill people. However, these people are usually unable to function in society. They cannot hold jobs, maintain relationships with family members or even construct grammatical sentences. What interests me about you, Hondo, is that even with your rigid, dogmatic mentality, you are still reasonably functional. It's a waste of my time trying to talk sense into you. But still, it's interesting to see the philosophy of someone who I consider to be persistently politically mistaken. You're like a specimen in a behavioural experiment. I used to be able to rely on my mom for a look into what hard-core Republicans were thinking, but lately even she's disgusted with the Bush Crime Family. So it's up to you to give me a peek under the right-wing Kool-Aide brain.
www.americaslastdays.com/power.htm
Yes, Bukko, Walter Cronkite is a hard-core socialist. He believes that America should give up our national sovereignty and submit to a one-world government under the control of the United nations. He believes that the U.N. should have the right to regulate our economy, our schools, our churches, and our defense. He believes that the U.N. should have the authority to forcibly tax us (confiscate our property) here in the U.S. for the purpose of reallocating wealth--kind of a Robin Hood mentality. He calls this "democracy." I call it globalism and socialism, and it is insanely wrong. Cronkite is part of that secular progressive wing of the Democrat Party led by such mental midgets as Dennis Kucinich, Nancy Pelosi and Julia Carson. That's who Walter Cronkite is. You can rattle on about the state of my mental health (get in line!) if you wish, but it doesn't change the facts about who Comrade Kronkite is or what he wants to accomplish.
One other point: I notice that you didn't even attempt to respond to the actual point of my post concerning The Fairness Doctrine. Does that mean that you agree with me? Or was your response about my ONE SENTENCE concerning Cronkite simply a very transparent liberal attempt to divert attention away from a conservative truth that you couldn't refute? Hmmm....
I checked out your Cronkite link -- I have some free time on my hands because my wife flew off to Byron Bay (a hippie resort town on Australia's easternmost point) with a friend who's visiting from S.F. Lucky them, getting to enjoy the South Pacific surf while I have to stay behind working at wiping arses and bandaging oozing wounds... I also cross-checked Cronkite references on Google because I don't trust anything I see on the 'Net without verifying. (You know, of course, that RR didn't invent that phrase; he parroted a Russian saying.)
It taught me a new facet about Cronkite's philosophy. I gotta say that I agree with him.
Foremost, that link shows Uncle Walter is anti-war. What's wrong with that? I'd like to see U.S. troops stop killing people, and I'd like to see Tamil Tigers stop it, and Muslims stop killing black Africans in Darfur, and Chinese communists murdering Tibetans, all of that. It's not going to happen overnight, or in our lifetimes, or probably ever. No reason to stop working toward it, though.
I didn't see anything about socialism, just stuff about making the world better for everyone. Noble goal; almost religious. Nothing wrong with that. He's not proposing taking your cow and giving it to some milkless Mexican.
As for the U.N.. Cronkite is not saying the world should be governed by a United Nations set up as it currently is. There was mention about a "weighted voting system" and other vague plans. It didn't say the United States should turn control of the country to the U.N. tomorrow. But as a long-term goal, it's one I support.
You see, the world is more interconnected than ever. The atmosphere is the best example. Exhaust fumes from one part of the world affect other parts. Global warming IS real. It's not just Al Gore who's saying it -- Rupert Murdoch has adopted Gore's position, so soon that will become an inbuilt bias of Fox News. Then it will become OK for you to believe it. (Unless you're waiting for Rush to admit the truth. He never will, but I don't think he's going to be living a long time. Obesity, smoking and drug abuse shorten the lifespan.)
We're seeing it here -- the Murray River, Australia's equivalent of the Mississippi (although WAY smaller) is dried up on the upper reaches. Worst drought ever. Wheat crop down by 2/3 this year, fruit crops killed by freak late-spring frosts because there's less moisture in the soil to modulate the temperatures... You're seeing more drought in the U.S. too. And steps will have to be taken to change that, or lots of people die. Including people in the United States.
So world governing bodies are necessary, starting with treaty organisations like the Kyoto Protocils. The question is how they will work, and how it will be done fairly, but not whether they need to be done.
You rightists are SO hung up on the unique individuality of the United States. You know what, mate? It's just another country. It's not God's paradise on Earth. It's done some good things, but it's also done some baaaaad things like killing the Indians and enslaving the blacks. I don't agree with the idea that it's so special that any ceding of sovereignity is anathema.
French, Germans and other Europeans used to have that idea. Now they're unifying. And you know what? It works! Have you ever been to Europe, especially recently? On different trips, I've seen it change. It's fascinating now how you can see things like cars with Polish tags driving on Italian highways, this mix of cultures and languages with everybody getting along. It's going to happen throughout the world, if civilisation lasts long enough. We will have a world government eventually.
The U.N. holds a special place of horror for you rightists. I can't get the psychology of that. Can't get the horror about sex, either, but that's another topic. In Australia and Europe, they LOVE the United Nations. It's a positive name. Aussies ask me in puzzlement "Why does the United States hate the U.N.?" To them, it's like hating cricket, mum and kidney pie.
Well, this has gone on too long. I have a list of chores. As for the Fairness Doctrine, I haven't given that a lot of thought lately. In my previous career, I was a newspaper reporter during the 1970s and 80s, so it didn't apply directly to me. The doctrine was in place then, and there was a lot of freedom of expression. From a socialist perspective, with the idea that the air above America belongs to the citizenry as a whole, that gives society a right to regulate it. Just like society has a right to regulate whether your lead smelter puts out poisonous fumes. So I'm basically in favour of it, although it's not one of my core issues.
I just found your comment about Cronkite ludicrous. Who's going to go down better in the history books, Hondo -- Walter or Rush?
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