Rich Lowry on the Renewed Fairness Doctrine Debate

I started whining on Sunday about Senator Feinstein's mention of bringing back a debate on the Fairness Doctrine. This, you recall, could force media outlets into providing balanced amounts of time to different viewpoints.

The list of reasons, from principle to enforcement, is longer than I care to type but in a concise little syndicated column, National Review editor Rich Lowry strikes down this absurdity.

I liked the following comparison:

This is why Spanish-language radio is such a growth commodity. Not because broadcasters have an agenda to Hispanicize America, or because there’s a structural imbalance that favors Spanish-language over German- or French-language programming, but because there’s an audience for it.

Rich Lowry

A Rare Retraction

This morning, I posted my disgust at Diane Feinstein's willingness to revisit the Fairness Doctrine.  The notion of more selective government intervention in my daily life was pretty awful.  However, maybe there would be some benefit to a den mom holding court here.

My ill-conceived premise, you see, was that for every issue, there's simply going to be a for- and against- side.

My dear reader, that's simply not the case.  If the government included white-noise time for those of us who either don't give a crap, or see the issues of the day for the shams they are, I might be willing to take part in this social experiment.  Let's hear it for apathy!

I provide below a few of the test cases I'd like to try out:

• Gay Marriage. This so-called issue was invented primarily to rile people up. The main tactic has revolved around inventing a queer boogeyman you should be legitimately scared of raping your children...because gays are all pedophiles, you know.

• Outsourcing.  The Democrats main contribution to this "debate" has been to carry on, like John Kerry, about companies setting up fake PO Box headquarters offshores.  This comes from the same man who voted for NAFTA.  The GOP's no better, so there is no real debate here, either.
  

• The Border Scare.  I joked here about yellow peril the other day, but if anyone really thinks that the Mexican border is in the top f*cking ten places we're vulnerable to terrorist attack, I'll have some of what you're smoking.