Our first amendment rights to free speech will soon be abysmally violated!
The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.
Recently, the largest spending bill in the history of our nation was passed. Yet, while Mr. Obama promised to eliminate earmarks, the entire bill was one humungous earmark. Mr. Obama said that, once the bill was passed, new construction projects would enable Caterpillar (a heavy equipment company) to start hiring new employees. Conversely, since the bill was passed, Caterpillar has had three layoffs, the most recent of which cut the working hours of more than 3,000 employees in half. Great stimulus plan, Obama!
While liberal democrats are busy spending our great grandchildren’s money, conservatives have been very critical of their decisions. Talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and local Detroit host Bob Dutko slammed the bill calling it “porkulus”, “irresponsible”, and “mortgaging our children’s future”.
Liberals realized the success of conservative talk radio when the spending bill was passed without a single Republican vote. Former President Clinton said that conservative radio maintained a “blatant drumbeat” against the outrageous spending bill. Many Democrats were frustrated that they did not get the “token republican vote” because now they cannot claim the bill was a “bipartisan” effort. Although, the Democrats’ idea of "bipartisan" is that they listen to conservative ideas, while rejecting every one of them.
Because of their frustration with the success of conservative talk radio, and the failure of their own liberal “Air America”, liberals would like to shut down conservative talk radio. They can do so by reinstating something called the “Fairness Doctrine”. The Fairness Doctrine was introduced back in 1949. Its purpose was to allow opposing viewpoints to be expressed on radio and television netw
orks.
orks.In those days there were only a few stations and the selection was limited. But today, there are hundreds of radio and television networks, and the selection variety is nearly unlimited compared to 1949. In addition to the wide variety available in the broadcast market, liberals are intentionally ignoring the fact that most of the media is biased in their favor in the first place.
They say what they want to do is to allow opposing viewpoints to be aired on conservative stations, even though opposing viewpoints are already being expressed through thousands of other media outlets. What they really want to do is to shut down conservative talk completely by imposing severe fines for failure to comply. In effect, this will cause most conservative talk stations to simply change format and play music instead.
Recently, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill by a vote of 21 to 9 that would levy a royalty on radio stations for airing music. Radio stations already pay heavy fees that go toward the compensation of writers. Performers already make a ton of money doing concerts, selling paraphernalia, etc. Record label companies will get 50% of the money raised by these performance taxes, while radio stations (especially smaller, minority owned stations) will suffer tremendously.
So why are they trying to pass this bill? Because if conservative talk stations switch to music in order to avoid the fairness doctrine, this Performance Act will serve as a “sucker punch” hitting them from another direction. Additionally, it will hit many radio stations in the pocket book, leaving them financially attenuated and potentially unable to put up a legal fight against the “Fairness Doctrine”.
Thus, the liberals will gain complete control over our media. Does this sound familiar? I believe that’s how they used to do things in Communist Russia.
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