Imagine if the Fairness Doctrine Worked

So, the Democrats have been whining about liberal radio stations failing and want to restore the Fairness Doctrine. (Could it be that the liberal radio stations failed because people could get the liberal viewpoint by watching network TV or PBS? Just a thought.) The Doctrine would require equal time for an issue, whatever that means when there are 15 different viewpoints, for media companies, the news excepted. Now, without going into the idiocy of this proposal, what would a current news story look like if the Doctrine worked as promoted? (By this I mean, the Doctrine is supposed to give both viewpoints an equal opportunity, but of course, what legislator is going to complain if it is only the conservative viewpoint being suppressed? So, to think about this, suppose that both viewpoints were accurately represented and trouble if not.)

So in this article, people are complaining that AT&T cut part of the Eddie Vedder's rant against George Bush. (To correct many people, technically censorship is only illegal if the government does it.) So imagine if the Fairness Doctrine were in place and working as advertised. How would this story change? Well, nobody could complain because a pro-Bush artist wasn't allowed on stage to give equality to the other side. Hmm...guess that is why the Fairness Doctrine will only be applied towards conservatives.

Now, being a freedom kinda guy, do I have a problem with this? Nope, not really. Should AT&T have warned Vedder? Yeah, probably. It all depends on how the contract is written. If the contract allows Vedder to say whatever the heck he wants, everything is fair game, including the F-bomb. If the contract allows AT&T to remove anything against corporate policy, then Vedder might need to shut up.

Needless to say, it is nice when stuff like this happens because it points out which artists are merely puppets of liberals and which artists care about American values. See, many libertarian or classic liberals like me don't care for Bush because of his unconstitutional actions. People like Vedder just hate Bush because he doesn't have Democrat after his name. They couldn't care less, and probably would support, a Democrat acting just like Bush. That is something I can't stand and if it means I don't have to listen to Vedder, this is between him and AT&T. Not my problem. Wouldn't it be nice if an artist that did care about personal liberty was able to put out his beliefs? Wonder if this article would have been written if that would have been the case. Eh, probably not. Who cares about people who just want to be left alone and not made slaves to some elitists idiocy?