The Left's Gag Rule
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Thursday, October 18, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Fairness Doctrine: The Democrats' assault on the First Amendment has run into a wall. Republican Rep. Mike Pence is determined to see that freedom of speech isn't repressed in the U.S. as it is in tin-pot dictatorships.

For years, the political left has been setting the country up for a rerun of the Fairness Doctrine, looking for a Reichstag fire to whip up public support for a regulation that is clearly unconstitutional despite the Supreme Court's absurd 1969 ruling.

The Fairness Doctrine was instituted in 1949 as a Federal Communications Commission rule that required broadcasting licensees to provide balanced views on controversial issues. A Democratic Congress voted to turn it into law in 1987, but Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill and the rule was scrapped. In the bloom of freedom, conservative talk radio has dominated.

Which is why Democrats want to revive the Fairness Doctrine.

The market, in which people make decisions without government interference, has chosen. Conservative talkers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity rule the airwaves because they offer the opinions and analyses most Americans want to hear. At the same time, there is little market for the rantings from the Democrats' worldview. The public has heard both sides and has found the ideas on the left to be wanting.

So Democrats, jealous of the right's success and frustrated over their failures (they can't understand why everyone doesn't think correctly, as they do), aim to fix things with authoritarian regulation. Apparently the legacy of liberty left to us by our founders is an archaic notion. Censorship is the new freedom of speech.

Though he'll get no praise from the mainstream media for his vigorous First Amendment protection, Pence is pushing through the House a bill with more than 200 co-sponsors that prohibits the FCC "from having the authority to require broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance."

Should Pence get 218 House members to sign the discharge petition he filed Wednesday, the Democratic majority will be forced to bring his bill, the Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2007, to the floor for an up-or-down vote. Given that 113 House Democrats voted in June in favor of a one-year moratorium on the Fairness Doctrine, it's likely the Indiana congressman will draw the required support.

Getting the Senate to pass a ban will require a greater effort. Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman has tried, but Democrats have blocked his bill from seeing the floor for a vote. Apparently their definition of fairness is the absence of opposition to the leftist agenda and their voices' artificial domination of the airwaves.

From me: The Fairness Doctrine usually surfaces around election time. It's a law that the Left want brought in to ensure that both sides will have a chance to give their side of the story. Sounds good, right? Yes, on the surface it does. The problem is that it's a form of censorship. Talk Radio is overwhelmingly conservative. In order to comply with this law, Talk Radio will not be able to present their side unless they have someone on the Liberal side to give their opinions as well.

Liberal media is not constrained this way because much of their opinion is presented as news. Look at the mainstream media. All of the "alphabet" newsprograms (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC - you get the idea), are liberal in nature - and in reporting the news. Fox is also biased to the right to a certain extent. I believe their newsprograms report more the news than their opinions. Now, their commentators, such as O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes, don't "report" the news; they comment on it. That's why they are called "commentators".

Liberals cannot succeed in Talk Radio. They tried with Air America and it failed miserably. It may actually still be on the air, but it doesn't present the threat to Conservative Talk Radio (CTR) that the Left wanted. Their "talking heads" don't present both sides, they present only their views. If they have other people on, it's usually as back up for their views. So, if they can't beat CRT on the airwaves, they'll just try to shut them up.

CTR presents both sides. I listen to many programs and the hosts have guests of differing opinions on. Of course, they have people representing their opinion, but they also allow the "other side" on. It's how CTR hosts prove their points - by showing the flaws in the arguments of the opposing side.

And, whether the Left wants to admit it or not, Talk Radio presents the opinions and views that most people want to hear. CTR would never have gotten as big as it is if they couldn't draw people to their shows. Air America couldn't draw enough listeners to get advertisers to pay the costs of running a radio network. That's why it was an abomitable failure.

The Fairness Doctrine. It's not fair to anyone but the Liberal cause.