Nancy Pelosi vs. the Internet 561
selil writes "A story popped up on the ChicagoBoyz Blog. It says 'Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums — nothing.'"
The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:5, Insightful)
"We know what's best for you"
Conservatives Censored by Fairness Doctrine (Score:4, Insightful)
the old, so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting
[Citation needed [wikipedia.org]]
This must be reliable (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Submitter says that the right-wing Chicagoboyz blog says that Congressman Culberson says that Congrassman Brady says that Congressman Capuano says that Majority Leader Pelosi says she wants to stifle free spech?
EVERYBODY PANIC!
Re:Direct link to the letter in question (Score:5, Insightful)
How dare you? If you post the real document people might read it! And see that this - analysis? - is a crock of horseshit.
Re:"so-called"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, since the mainstream media is corporate (i.e. what sells ads) and not liberal, would it really matter?
Spin and counter-spin (Score:4, Insightful)
I read it three times, and it seems pretty standard. Basically, it's mostly about links to non-official websites and standards those outside sites must meet. It's no different than the rules that most corporations place on user-maintainable CMS systems.
Note: it never discusses approval of any particular piece of content (except to the extent that official postings already have to meet certain standards), just having pre-approved sites.
Not "idiots". (Score:5, Insightful)
They just have very specialized knowledge. The knowledge of how to get themselves elected, keep getting re-elected and moving up the chain of authority.
All of that schmoozing and such does not leave much time for learning anything else.
So they rely upon "advisors" for their "information". And said "information" has to be communicated to them in the least technical terms. Which results in statements about "tubes" and "trucks".
But to be fair to them, my CFO asked a little while ago if the power problems we had were a result of her sending an email to Iceland. After all, it must take a lot more power to push the message that far than to push it across the street.
Seems fairly benign (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually more permissive than our Internet posting policies here at work. Right now, you have to work through us (the web services team), as opposted to setting up your own URL and posting whatever you want outside of the official content.
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of these ground rules are
The hyperbole by the obviously conservative-leaning original poster and the TFA is ridiculous and is just a prime example of alarmist propaganda, trying to blow this WAY out of proportion.
It's simply a proposal for ground rules as the committee examines extending the ability of members of congress to post "official" content outside of existing official channels. Rather than being a "clamp down", it's actually broadening the number of venues members of congress can use for posting "official" congressional communications, but tries to ensure that there will be some level of decorum and good taste.
Re:(-1, Troll) (Score:5, Insightful)
Nancy Pelosi is VERY weak (Score:0, Insightful)
She's the Democratic leader Republicans would choose.
Re:This keeps opposition off the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't vote if you don't realize McCain is a senator is this has to do with House rules.
Re:Fairness (Score:1, Insightful)
I wonder how the Founders would have reacted to such proposed restrictions on their conduct.
Hmm. Did they not become founders (of a new nation), because of such restrictions on their conduct (among other things)?
We don't have to ask how they would have acted: we know how they did act.
Of course the Honorable House Majority Leader would claim that right-wing spin, in the absence of "fairness" is the source of that historical account.
If public funds are used to pay for a political message from an elected representative, it stands to reason that some allotment of public funds are available to all elected representatives for such purposes. Let the comm^H^H^H^Hdemocrats pay for their own damn propaganda.
(And, for the record, I am libertarian, and take equal issue with many things the right does as well).
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:3, Insightful)
The hyperbole by the obviously conservative-leaning original poster and the TFA is ridiculous and is just a prime example of alarmist propaganda, trying to blow this WAY out of proportion.
Why do the poster and TFA have to be necessarily conservative? They may simply have been misinformed (i.e., didn't read up on everything) or have some other reason to dislike Pelosi (i.e., she ran over their cat).
Never forget Hanlon's razor [wikipedia.org].
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll counter with Grey's law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Democratic and Republican parties are two sides of the same coin. Neither is there to help you. Both have a long history of trying to steal elections. Democrats claim to be liberal, and Republicans claim to be conservative, but both parties are actually populist. Both want to tell you what you can do in your home and what you can do in business, only in different ways (and honestly, it's not uniform across the parties either.)
Perhaps it is overly paranoid of me to suggest that Democratic and Republican leadership is working together towards a common goal, but every time I hear about something like this I get the same creepy feeling I get when I saw that commercial with George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton side by side. That could just be because I was being looked at by a sleazeball and a cold-blooded killer, though.
Re:"so-called"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything you said doesn't make the "fairness doctrine" less wrong. It has always been a perverse affront to free speech through the use of technical loopholes.
It should never see the light of day again.
Re:Fairness doctrine was fair (Score:3, Insightful)
What the fairness doctrine did was killing meaningful speech on the radio. What radio station wants to spend all day dealing with complaints that some opinion needs to be balanced having to give airtime to something people may not want to hear?
Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is an attempt to kill conservative talk. It will also kill NPR. But whatever.
So even if the Fairness Doctrine doesn't in a vacuum violate the 1st amendment, it is being implemented to squelch speech. That's its purpose.
It is a tactic worthy of Putin or Chavez.
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:5, Insightful)
impugn the dignity of the congress.
Do you know what to impugn [reference.com] means, or why prohibiting it is an infringement on free speech?
Re:It didn't censor conservative opinion (Score:2, Insightful)
So, freedom is speech is the government telling radio stations what must be played?
I'd only buy into the "fairness doctrine" if ABC, CBS, PMS-NBC, and CNN all were required to have "neutral" spin as well, which we all know won't happen because one cannot be biased to the left--only to the right.
On another note, IIRC, the fairness doctrine was put in place to prevent socialists from running the airwaves. Its funny how if you give the government an inch, it will want a mile--the fairness doctrine is nothing more than a blatant attack on the First Amendment (and, thankfully, the Fairness Doctrine has absolutely nothing to do with this slashdot post).
Re:Not "idiots". (Score:3, Insightful)
And she was wrong? Does it not take more power to transmit data half-way around the globe than to send it acorss the street? The difference isn't enough to dim the lights in your office, but still, the internet is more like a series of tubes than like a dump truck.
Re:This must be reliable (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and the blog post links to the document itself, which says that they're talking about ways to disseminate the exact same information that they publish now using outside hosting services, that everybody's behind the idea, they have some common-sense guidelines for hosting the content, and there's at least one site they can give the green light to right now. They're looking to make sure that when you look at official content of the House of Representatives, you know you are, when you're not anymore, you know you're not anymore. Now, the one possible sticking point:
In light of the context of the letter, that's basically saying if you couldn't put it on the House website, you can't have it hosted next to content that you couldn't post on the House website. You can't have it looking like the House of Representatives is trying to sell you (crap - I've had like three web ads in four years escape my filters, what do they try to sell you these day? car wax, let's say car wax) car wax or wants you to click on a link to Food Not Bombs or your local "militia" after you listen to what they have to say. Even if this is the most draconian fascist nightmare you can imagine (if it is, go to your library, ask where the history section is, and grab three books at random) nobody's "scheming to impose rules". From the letter:
Maybe Robert Brady was aware, but somebody needs to tell zenpundit and selil, and if John Culberson actually wasn't that fucking stupid, he should be ticked off at the words that have been put in his mouth. What they're out to do is go shopping for places where Representatives can post the media they want to, and give them a handy list of places they can post away without having to worry about their disk quota. I don't see how trying to find a content-neutral platform for offsite hosting of exactly the content disseminated now is "censorship", "nakedly partisan", or a move to "reimpose the 'Fairness Doctrine'".
Seriously, if I want to be roped into reading an article with a bunch of total fucking bullshit hype that any fifth grader can see through once they sit down and read the damn thing, I'll go to the checkout line at the drug store. Nice one, Timothy.
Yes, everybody panic. We were all sadly mistaken when we thought we'd seen the worst out of the editors here.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for that; depending on how many states the Greens are on the ballot in, I'll vote for them or alternately Bob Barr, the fake Libertarian. From TFB:
What a load of horse shit. If the "liberals" said domething they had to counter it with a "conservative" stance. Apparently the submitter thinks it's OK to censor Dems but not Repubs. Actually it's the other three parties that are being censored; so much that I bet few of you even know who their candidates are.
And the conrporate media wants to keep it that way so the corporations only have two candidates to bribe.
The only thing the "liberals" want to be liberal with is my money, and the only thing the conservatives want to conserve is their own.
Re:"so-called"? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, because the fairness doctrine as it's usually touted is really focused toward radio. In which the conservatives have a pretty fixed control. Versus TV/print media where the liberal thought is more dominant.
However, attempts at having equal footing in those areas are often rebuttled or dismissed. So really "fairness doctrine" pretty much translates into "legislating 1/2 of conservative talk radio off the air and replacing them with liberals". And essentially forcing the conservatives radio listeners to subsidize liberals. It will likely bankrupt radio. (As the major liberal radio initiatives have repeatedly gone bankrupt even with big bankrolls backing them.) And the money will have to come from somewhere.
It's also the DUMBEST thing the Democrats could ever do. It would be seen as such an illegal affront to conservative radio listeners that nothing would re-mobilize the conservative base more.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fairness (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean 'according to the ridiculously overblown interpretation of conspiracy nuts and politicians looking to create a scandal where none exists.'
First, Pelosi isn't mentioned in the source material at all. Second, the source material mentions updates to existing rules to accommodate new technology, not new regulations. Third, the updates cover official House of Representatives communications (i.e., the House as an organization), not the communications of individual Congressman.
Reading your response, I understand how pernicious memes like "the liberal media" become powerful without any basis in reality.
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:1, Insightful)
The author of the blog is apparently a factually-challenged right-wing nutjob whose reading comprehension places him or her at, generously, a 2nd grade reading level.
Firstly, anyone who actually contends that the Fairness Doctrine targeted conservative viewpoints is so mindnumbingly stupid that it defies belief they have the opposable thumbs to actually type a blog. The Fairness Doctrine applied to both liberal and conservative viewpoints, and anyone who says differently is a liar.
Secondly, even a cursory review of the letter disproves the blogger's rant. The letter itself states that the recommendations do not change any of the rules governing members of congress in their official communications.
Why do right-wing bloggers tend to be so stupid? I mean, stupidity isn't restricted to any one side of the ideological spectrum, but for some reason on the internet the right-wing fruitcakes like the blogger in question exhibit such profound stupidity that it makes you wonder how they function in day-to-day life. I mean, you'd think their mental deficiency would result in them blowing themselves up or poisoning themselves, or getting run over by a train or something.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone read the actual sources? (Score:2, Insightful)
John Katz [slashdot.org] — a long-time Slashdot "editor" — was farther to the left than Gorbachev...
Well, look at the moderation for instant rebuttal of your comment. You are already at 4 "insightful" (my ass), and I'm at 1 "flamebait"...
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do right-wing bloggers tend to be so stupid? I mean, stupidity isn't restricted to any one side of the ideological spectrum, but for some reason on the internet the right-wing fruitcakes like the blogger in question exhibit such profound stupidity that it makes you wonder how they function in day-to-day life. I mean, you'd think their mental deficiency would result in them blowing themselves up or poisoning themselves, or getting run over by a train or something.
Some of it may be stupidity, but I suspect that most of it is merely propaganda. The big lie works best, kind of thing.
Also, many of their supporters aren't exactly the most critical thinkers you could hope to meet.
The Fairness Doctrine and its relevance (Score:5, Insightful)
The crack about the Fairness Doctrine is particularly illuminating because it is so ignorant.
The Fairness Doctrine [wikipedia.org]. was a pre-internet rule supported by both Conservatives and Liberals, used because the government was controlling who could broadcast television and radio.
Since broadcast mass media "speech" was already totally controlled ("non-free") on the airwaves via the FCC (though for reasons of technology rather than politics), the lucky (and very wealthy) few who had been granted the privilege to broadcast were required to provide time to both sides of any controversial issue. This rule was administered by the FCC, who still performs the same function today with regards to moral standards, language, etc... pretty much everything but politics, where they were instructed by Reagan and Bush (sr. and jr.) to stop (and not yet forced by congress to resume, despite several failed attempts).
The Fairness Doctrine is as irrelevant on the Internet as it is to a newspaper or a public park, since there is no meaningful barrier for anyone to "speak" in these venues.
It will not be thus forever, but today in 2008, TV and radio still have a substantial audience and influence (as evidenced by gross advertising revenues), and it is still only an exclusive, government controlled elite club who can broadcast on these systems. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine essentially allowed the broadcasters as a whole to skew farther to one side of the ideological spectrum or the other legally (where before it would have been very difficult to go too far and stay within the law). Those with wealth and power (and that changes in cycles) can thus use the broadcast media for propaganda purposes, a concept familiar in places like Russia, Italy, etc. and now increasingly familiar here in the USA.
As Rupert Murdoch is now considerably warm towards Barack Obama (see the WSJ [wsj.com]), I wonder if Conservatives who previously thought this was a great idea are now beginning to reconsider.
Murdoch himself has a history of switching the political orientation of his propaganda machine; in the U.K., for instance.
Unfairness doctrine. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fairness doctrine doesn't censor anything.
It allows for equal time and space of people with opposing or different views.
No. It REQUIRES equal time and space for people with opposing or different views. Big difference.
Conservative talk radio is a business, collecting revenue by attracting ears for advertisers. It spends long blocks of time - like three hour chunks - on particular points of view. The fairness doctrine would require stations playing it to give equal blocks of time - in equivalent timeslots - to anti-conservative viewpoints, which would NOT attract the target demographic. This would be a massive financial hit (in a number of ways) on any station that played a talk show with enough of a point-of-view to invoke the doctrine.
The result would be that such stations would drop political talk shows entirely. This would leave the entire political content of stations coming from their news coverage (which has been shown, by an objective scale developed by Stanford and UCLA researchers, to be massively left-biased). The entertainment content is similarly left-biased (though not subject to the methodology used on news coverage.) As one big talk show host says: "I AM equal time!"
The left has just as much opportunity to field its own talk shows with its own biases. And it has tried, several times. But (with a few notable exceptions in extremely liberal areas, such as KGO radio in San Francisco) their content has failed to attract enough of an audience to be profitable. So shutting down political talk radio by reinstitution of the so-called "fairness doctrine" would have the effect of massively suppressing conservative political viewpoints on broadcast media.
A flip side is that the conservatives could potentially start a news organization of their own, covering conservative viewpoints. Indeed, this HAS been done to some extent, in the form of Fox News. But FNN has shown its true colors in the primary season: It covers only ONE of the four or so major conservative factions' positions and is perfectly happy to blatantly suppress the others.
Starting a new wholly-owned NETWORK by buying a little station in each major market is forbidden by FCC rules, which limit the amount of the population stations owned by a single entity can reach to well under 50%. So they'd have to recruit a lot of independents. (And you can bet, if they were succeeding, there would be attempts to invoke the fairness doctrine against them, adding massive legal costs to the equation.)
So with talk radio as the only broadcast outlet for conservative political thought (but not effective for liberal positions), and liberal political thought dominating entertainment content and most news coverage, shutting down political talk radio by reimposing the fairness doctrine would be a massive blow to the right and a victory for the left.
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of these ground rules are
Could this little nugget be used to drop the hammer on an ISP that wants to reframe web pages to include advertising sold by the ISP? I am not going to hold my breath, but it would be nice for something accidental out of Congress to be useful.
Re:Conservatives Censored by Fairness Doctrine (Score:4, Insightful)
See, this is where you and I differ...
I believe that I am smart enough to accept that we all have biases. I have always accepted that Fox News is just as fairly balanced as CNN, MSNBC, etc.
(as in, none of them are)
Fox gets attacked by liberals. The others by conservatives. And whenever someone tries to exclaim that Fox is some right-wing bent while CNN is the straight line. Or vice-versa...I realize that I am dealing with someone who does not have enough intelligence to be honest with their self.
Not far enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the letter doesn't mention the fairness doctrine, I wouldn't tilt at that windmill if I were you.
The first part is true, the second part is not. Or at least the second part grants the unsubstained allegation that the recommendations are that evil. The letter reads, to paraphrase:
Nothing about unoffical postings is being mentioned (a member's twitter account, for instance.) And it seeks to expand, not limit, options.
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is widely known that Pelosi supports the fairness doctrine. The reason she wants to restore it is to censor talk radio. This is because she is very widely reviled, not only by ordinary Californians, but by the hosts of the biggest talk radio shows in her state. I know because I listen to them. So while arguing about history let's not dismiss the immediate facts, eh?
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems that the time is right for a 3rd party to step up to the plate, but it would require a really charismatic candidate to pull it off.
I think Ross Perot demonstrated that money is more important than charisma.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the conrporate media wants to keep it that way so the corporations only have two candidates to bribe.
What a load of crap. The media is more than happy to cover 3rd party candidates if anyone cared. Ross Perot got lots of coverage and so did Nader back in 2000. It's just that the 3rd party candidates this year are longer than long shots and no one cares.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno... alternatively, would you really put McCain on a ticket you wanted to win?
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:4, Insightful)
Fairness Doctrine possibly made sense, but not now (Score:2, Insightful)
The fairness doctrine, though it did reduce liberty, at least had a rationalization. A large portion of the media used a very limited public resource (radio spectrum) and thus could theoretically be monopolized by some opinion.
I don't see a "very limited public resource" existing today. No one voice can monopolize speech now.
Pelosi wants to oppose liberty for no gain. This isn't merely along the currently popular lines of reducing liberty for expedience; this is for nothing.
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:3, Insightful)
And they just happen to be the ones who are telling you she wants to shut down/censor Conservative radio. Sounds like they are making up their own "immediate facts" to create outrage while there is none.
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't that a congress critter can't do something the "impugn the dignity of congress" they just can't do it and stamp it as an "official" congressional document. It simply is not an official opinion of the congress, but rather that of the individual.
They're still perfectly welcome to post whatever bile they want on airportbathroomstalltoetappers.com, or whatever website they wish. This isn't terribly unique either, I can't go around posting whatever crap I want for the company I work for and label it an official company position. I can still say whatever I want, I just can't pretend that I'm somehow representing my company while doing it, and similarly a member of congress, working for Congress and our government as a whole can't state things and represent it as the official position of Congress and our government arbitrarily either.
This story is good for one thing, however... (Score:4, Insightful)
You only need to read through the posts in this thread that came from people who couldn't bother to RTFA to see that slashdot has indeed been overrun by conservatives. Several good posts have already shown that the article in question is fud (and even that is stretching it). Yet there are many, many, posts here claiming this to be a sure sign of Nancy Pelosi bringing on the apocalypse.
Re:The Hen or The Egg (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the letter is two pages, with quite a bit of white space. The second paragraph explains that the current rules are overly restrictive and need to be relaxed. If it is a case of being misinformed, it is because they willfully did not read the primary source. That usually only happens when the story you are hearing is in line with your own prejudices already.
Add to
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are talking about the *reaction* of the two major parties to third parties, yes, they do feel as if the third parties are illegitimate and "stealing votes."
If you think that the third parties are actually created by the two major parties as a diversion, then I think your tinfoil hat is a little too tight...
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:2, Insightful)
"third" parties are a ploy by the two big parties to siphon-off people who demand change, into irrelevancy, so that the big-two aren't forced to change at all to accommodate these 'extremists'?
unlikely. Nearly every systematic public alignment winds up the same way (think religious denominations, gender): the extremes rarely align with the complacent middle, nor vice versa.
Need to have editor moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
In this instance, either Timothy didn't RTFA or he did and chose to post this troll to the front page anyway.
Either way, Timothy needs to lose editor karma.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:2, Insightful)
There's nothing any 3rd-parties can do. They wax and wane, but it all comes down to the fact that we have a stupid system where everybody has to pick one person. No run-offs, no Condorcet, no nothing. In a country this large you can't have a "majority rules" method for selecting candidates, or it always will boil down to 2 people. But it is a catch-22: As long as the 2 parties are in power they won't let it change, and as long as it doesn't change we will only have 2 parties in power.
The founding fathers were good with politics, but weak on mathematics :)
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't created to target Conservatives, however what the purpose of reviving it appears to be geared towards targeting Conservative talk radio.
Walk with me, if you will. You can get both Conservative and Liberal leaning news from websites, television and newspapers. However, the same cannot be said about radio. It is dominated by Conservative talk radio, and the only Liberal talk radio has survived essentially subsidized by the government.
Any medium of news is subsidized through ad revenue, and ad revenue is based upon the ratings of the shows during which they air. Rush Limbaugh along generates a constant 13.6 million listeners during the course of his 3 hours show. On the other hand, the best ratings I've found for Air America is 1.5 million unique listens over a week. Air America just doesn't generate enough ad revenue to keep it in enough markets, proof being that they had to file for bankruptcy.
Now how does all of this and the fairness doctrine show an attempt to censor conservative talk radio?
Ratings show that liberal talk radio just cannot compete against conservative talk radio. It doesn't get carried, or it gets dismally low ratings. Radio stations that carried shows like Rush's would be required to carry liberal shows (or at least the liberals mentioned) for the same amount of time. Mind you, the Fairness Doctrine applies to stations, not the individuals that produce the shows the stations carry.
Now with the fairness doctrine, a station would almost certainly be forced to carry 3 hours of Air America for every 3 hours of Rush's show in order to make close to the balance required by the act. You won't get Rush letting liberals on his show to defend themselves against his points, so the stations need to adapt as best they can. Here's where the problem comes, since the liberal shows will not draw as much revenue as the conservative ones, it may cost the station enough revenue that they wouldn't be able to operate in the black. Since they're hijacked by the law to reduce their revenue, they either go out of business, or get non-controversial programing that allows them to operate in the black.
Re:Just to follow up (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the problem was that you couldn't express an editorial opinion without opening the television studio's door to every wacko in town. While the original intent may been good, the result was that most stations avoided doing anything that was even mildly controversial.
How would you like it if you owned a newspaper and you couldn't write an editorial without supplying equal space to anyone with an opposing view?
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:5, Insightful)
It's mathematics, really: given our current plurality voting method, if there were ever more than two options with a snowball's chance in hell, then coalitions would form until there were, again, only two options. (Your only escape: ranked voting methods such as Condorcet. But why would any two-party member support that sort of change?)
The players may change (we did lose the Whigs), but it takes a serious, serious shake-up, and settles back down to one-on-one very, very quickly.
And consider this: do you know who runs the pressidential debates? If you said "The League of Women Voters," you're wrong. They used too, but since that old Ross Perot nonsense almost worked, those are organized by a joint project between the Democratic and Republican parties. So good luck getting any third party candidate recognition. Sure, there are other venues: but every single one has these same kind of roadblocks errected by the current duopoly of parites.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:4, Insightful)
So who exactly do you think Pelosi wants to target with the Fairness Doctrine?
Re:Who's not a critical thinker? (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need to think to be a libertarian, you just need to memorize the party mantra, "The Free Market Will Fix It." No money for Health Care? TFMWFI. Lost your job due to outsourcing? TFMWFI. Your grandmother has gout? TFMWFI.
Re:Unfairness doctrine. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I actually remember the fairness doctrine in operation, and while bloviation was nothing like the industry it is now, it wasn't like you couldn't find public affairs programming.
What used to happen was that every so often you'd get some private individual on TV giving a two minute editorial attacking an opinion stated or implied in the station's news coverage. As I recall, it was usually the arch-conservatives who took advantage of it.
The fairness doctrine is only part of what changed. The other thing was that ownership rules changed allowing people with enough money to control more of the media, which makes it attractive to people with an economic interest in swaying public opinion. The same viewpoints that used to be delivered in fairness doctrine are now the mainstream media party line.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Democratic and Republican parties are two sides of the same coin. Neither is there to help you. Both have a long history of trying to steal elections. Democrats claim to be liberal, and Republicans claim to be conservative, but both parties are actually populist. Both want to tell you what you can do in your home and what you can do in business, only in different ways (and honestly, it's not uniform across the parties either.)
Well , that's exactly the opposite of populism .
(populism means you stand for something just because many people want it , not because it's reasonable or part of your ideology ) .
The word you are looking for is authoritarian. They both want total control of everything , and they want everyone to follow their way of thinking.
I guess the best way is somewhere in between it ( between populist and authoritarian)
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually it's the other three parties that are being censored; so much that I bet few of you even know who their candidates are.
Those other parties do just as much to marginalize themselves as they are censored by the "main" two. I consider myself a pretty libertarian kinda guy but I've never met a moderate capital-L Libertarian. I think there are a lot of people who would be receptive to a policy of personal freedom, personal responsibility, and reigning in spending but then every Libertarian candidate I've met starts talking about abolishing public schools and closing down federal parks.
Yeah, I understand where they're coming from, but those positions are very unpalatable to most Americans and so they're not taken seriously. If they would actually try to get elected instead of relegating themselves to "principled opposition" status then I think the GOP would be in trouble. Same with the Greens and Dems.
Re:Anyone read the actual sources? (Score:3, Insightful)
I did not, actually, call Slashdot that — I just, such was an impression. I even said, the impression is now wearing off ever since John Katz stopped posting.
No, that alone does not. However, Slashdot is doing just that with the other side — the poster [slashdot.org] I replied to mentioned "crazy [emphasis mine -mi] right wing/libertartian conspiracy theories" and achieved a "5-star" rating. My mere suggestion, that Slashdot may have — in the past — given an impression of being left-wing (not even "crazy"), doomed me to a "-1".
To argue, as you do, that there is no pro-Left (or, perhaps, an anti-Right) bias here, is ridiculous... Sorry, but I'm not participating any further...
Re:Unfairness doctrine. (Score:4, Insightful)
The left has just as much opportunity to field its own talk shows with its own biases. And it has tried, several times. But (with a few notable exceptions in extremely liberal areas, such as KGO radio in San Francisco) their content has failed to attract enough of an audience to be profitable.
One of the exceptions is Tom Leykis and he's had the success he's had because he does things his way. I used to listen to his show when he had a local show on KFI. I also used to listen to Jeff Rense and Art Bell ...
The "Fairness" Doctrine wasn't about fairness, it was about shutting people up. Radio became vastly more entertaining when it was stopped. And really, how would one present an opposite view to someone like Art Bell in a fashion anyone would want to listen to?
Every television and radio comes with a magical button called an "off switch". More Americans should learn how to use them instead of calling for things they don't like to be banned from broadcasting.
Democratic control? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is she silly enough to think the the Democrats will control Congress forever? When (if) the Republicans regain control, then it will be they who are doing the censoring. Is this what she wants?
Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think someone can "OWN" a radio frequency, let me ask you who they would buy it FROM - if not US? Oh, I guess you didn't think about that part.
I get it, you think there shouldn't be a government. Just some kind of corporate-controlled world. But We, the People think there should be. We HAD a corporate controlled country in the 1700s, and fought back and won. So we set up a governemt of our own and you might just have to move somewhere where there aren't other people if you really think this way.
So you don't think we own our airwaves as a common resource. I suppose you also think We, the People have no right to the air we breath, water, health, etc. We are all just economic units, here to serve the corporate masters. If we have money to pay them for air and water, good. If not, too bad for us.
Before the government (We, the People) stepped in to license airwaves what we had was anyone with a transmitter broadcasting at any power level they wanted on any frequency they wanted. So the radio frequencies were pretty much useless, with those with the most money the only ones able to reach anyone. I suppose that's what you want to have again?
libs own the media? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is possibly the kindest assessment of conservatism I've ever seen posted on Slashdot.
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The democratic party in a nutshell: (Score:3, Insightful)
Politics is a different animal, however. Extremists may choose to create a religious schism, but religious matters are supposed to pertain to "ultimate reality", not decided by popular vote. In democratic politics, power is decided by vote. An extremist can choose to "follow his principles" and vote for a party that does not have, nor is likely to ever have, a chance of winning. Or an extremist can choose to join one of the parties that does have a chance of winning, but doesn't quite conform to his principles, and then work to change that party from the inside. One of these is the path to self-righteousness; the other is the path to effectiveness (or at least a chance thereof).